politician
A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...
and businessman. A former
prefect
Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
A prefect' ...
, Blanc also worked as head of the RATP (1989-1992),
Air France
Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...
(1993-1997) and
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...
France (2000-2002).
Blanc was elected to the National Assembly from the UDF party in 2002. As member of the New Center party, Blanc was appointed to the newly created position of Secretary of State of the ''Région Capitale'' ("Greater Paris"), a position he held between March 18, 2008 and July 4, 2010. He retired in 2012 from the National Assembly after two terms.
Early life and education
Christian Blanc is the son of Marcel Blanc, a member of the
French Resistance
The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...
and exotic fruits merchant. Blanc studied at the Lycée Montesquieu in Bordeaux before enrolling in SciencesPo Bordeaux. He became one of the main leaders of the National Union of Students of France, where he met future Prime Minister
Michel Rocard
Michel Rocard (; 23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016) was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister of France, Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 199 ...
. Active at the time in the University Antifascist Front for Peace in Algeria, Blanc is subsequently invited by
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
to the Latin American Solidarity Conference in Cuba in the summer of 1967.
Senior official
After graduation, Blanc joined a subsidiary of the
Caisse des dépôts
Caisse, a French word, may refer to:
* Caisse Desjardins, an association of credit unions in Quebec
* Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears, a road-bicycle racing team
* Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a public pension fund in Quebec
* Caisse ...
, a French public sector financial institution, before becoming bureau chief at the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Closely associated with Michel Rocard, Blanc ran his 1980 Presidential Campaign.
From 1981 to 1983, Blanc was the chief of staff for European CommissionerEdgard Pisani. He becomes prefect in the Hautes-Pyrénées region (1983-1984). Christian Blanc became secretary general of the
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
region with Edgard Pisani, and was then appointed prefect of Seine-et-Marne (1983-1985).
In 1988, Blanc returned to New Caledonia as head of the “Mission of dialogue” mission of the French government, tasked with finding a political solution to the conflict that was shaking the island at the time. He negotiated the Matignon Agreements, adopted by referendum in November 1988.
Business executive
In 1989, Christian Blanc became the president of RATP. He resigned in 1992, following a spat with the government. During his presidency, RATP decided to create the first automated metro line –
Paris Métro Line 14
Paris Métro Line 14 (French: ''Ligne 14 du métro de Paris'') is one of the sixteen lines on the Paris Métro. It connects and Aéroport d'Orly (Paris Métro), Aéroport d'Orly on a north-west south-east diagonal via the three major station ...
. He was subsequently appointed CEO of Air France in 1993 and tasked with rescuing the company. Under Blanc's leadership, AirFrance became profitable again in 1997.
In 1997, Blanc offered a new strategic plan to continue the restructuring of the company, only to clash with newly elected Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Jospin was First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and th ...
. The disagreement with the government over the need to privatize Air France led to Blanc's resignation in 1997.
Between 1998 and 1999, Christian Blanc served as an advisor to the Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines.
Between 1999 and 2001, Blanc was the administrator of the Action Against Hunger. At the same time he ran two startups: Skygate, a developer of small-scale satellite receptors, and Karavel, an online travel agency.
In 2000, Blanc was appointed president of Merrill Lynch France. He narrowly escaped the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
because he had gone outside for a cigar when the planes struck the World Trade Center.
In September 2014, Christian Blanc was designated CEO of Syphax Airlines, a position he held for just two months because the Tunisian company had failed to go through the necessary administrative procedures allowing it to hire a foreign employee.
Political career
Blanc began his political career as a member of future Prime Minister Michel Rocard's team in the 1970s, helping Rocard win election as mayor of Conflans-Sainte Honorine in 1977. During François Mitterrand's presidency, he refused offers from both Rocard and later
Édith Cresson
Édith Jeanne Thérèse Cresson (; Campion; born 27 January 1934) is a French politician of the Socialist Party. She served as Prime Minister of France from 1991 to 1992, the first woman to do so and only woman until Élisabeth Borne's appoint ...
to enter government and instead remained in his position with the RATP Group.
Blanc stood for election in the 2002 legislative elections in the third electoral district of Paris, running under the banner of the Énergies democrats (Democratic Energies) and winning 9.63% of the vote. He was elected to the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...
to represent the third district of
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.Anne-Marie Idrac, who had stood down to become president of the RATP. Winning in the first round, Blanc became a member of the UDF party group in the National Assembly.
In 2003, Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin
Jean-Pierre Raffarin (; born 3 August 1948) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005 under President Jacques Chirac.
He resigned after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Un ...
tasked Blanc with an economic development project. Six months later, Blanc submitted an official report, entitled For an Ecosystem of Growth, whose recommendations included creating business clusters. The French government began putting Blanc's recommendation into effect from 2004 onwards.
In 2006, Blanc called on
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Pari ...
to resign for the sake of “accelerating reforms” and to put an end to “paralysis.” The same year, he launched the “Committee for the Modernization of France” together with Alain Lambert and Jean-Marie Bockel that sought the “comprehensive and coherent” modernization of the French economy and French society. Blanc also took part in the Pébereau Commission, which calculated France's national debt at €2 trillion.
Blanc was a supporter of the presidential candidacy of
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa ( ; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. In 2021, he was found guilty of having tried to bribe a judge in 2014 to obtain information ...
in the 2007 presidential election and became member of the New Center party during the legislative elections, in which he was re-elected in the first round. Between 2002 and 2007, Blanc served as president of Énergies democrats and the founder of Énergies 2007, movements which supported reforming the French state and pursuing further European integration.
As Vice-President of the New Center, he ran in the 2008 French local elections to become the
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...
of Le Chesnay, a wealthy western suburb of Paris, but secured only 36.28% of the vote and failed to unseat the incumbent mayor in a three-way race.
State Secretary for Greater Paris (2008-2010)
On March 18, 2008, Blanc was appointed Secretary of State of the Région Capitale ("Greater Paris"), a new position in the French Government of
François Fillon
François Charles Amand Fillon (; born 4 March 1954) is a French retired politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was the nominee of The Republicans (previously known as the Union ...
. Blanc was responsible for crafting the legal framework for the “Greater Paris” project, which entered into law in May 2010 and provided for a network of automated metro lines surrounding Paris. After the French Parliament's enactment of the Greater Paris law, Blanc announced his resignation from the government on July 4, 2010.
In June 2010, after Blanc dismissed his chief of staff, allegations regarding his tax situation appeared over the next eight days in France's Canard Enchaîné newspaper. One week later, the same newspaper claimed that Blanc allegedly used his secretarial budget to purchase cigars worth €12,000 over the course of ten months, a claim which was widely reprinted by French media. In an interview with the Figaro, Blanc accused his former chief of staff Guillaume Jublot, who had been recently fired by Blanc, of feeding false information to the Canard Enchaîné. After discussions with then-Prime Minister François Fillon, the two men released a statement in which they jointly declared it "suitable that Mr. Blanc honors his personal expenses in full." The matter helped accelerate Blanc's decision to leave government, with the opposition and elements of press speculating that his exit might be a tactic by the ruling UMP to turn media attention away from President Nicolas Sarkozy's role in the Woerth-Bettencourt scandal. The UMP denied any such links. Blanc retook his seat in the National Assembly after leaving the government in August 2010 and declined to stand in the 2012 legislative elections.
On December 2, 2011, the High Court of Paris found Christian Blanc to have acted in good faith in relation to the cigar affair and dismissed those charges against him. Whereas the initial claims had been widely covered by the press over the course of several weeks, this acquittal was met with radio silence.
In 2015, Odile Jacob published Blanc's book Paris, ville-monde (Paris, World City), in which Blanc lays out a strategy for France to reclaim a leading role in the global economy.
Governmental functions
Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region: 2008-2010 (Resignation on 4 July 2010).
Electoral mandates
''National Assembly of France''
Member of the National Assembly of France for
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.National Assembly page