Жан Луи Дебре: Француз саяхатшысы мен мемлекеттік қайраткерінің өмірі мен қызметі

French politician

Jean Louis Debré (ʒɑ̃ lwi dəbʁe; born 30 September 1944) is a former French judge and politician who served as President of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007 and President of the Constitutional Council from 2007 to 2016. He was Minister of the Interior from 1995 until 1997 during the presidency of Jacques Chirac. Since 2016 he has been President of the Superior Council of Archives.

Debré was born in Toulouse. On the local level, Debré was elected as Mayor of Évreux in 2001, serving in that post until 2007. Debré later served as leader of the RPR group in the National Assembly from 1997 to 2002 and then President of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007. Faithful to President Chirac, he frequently criticized UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy. He resigned as President of the National Assembly three months before the end of his tenure.

On 22 February 2007, Debré was appointed by Chirac as President of the Constitutional Council. He replaced Pierre Mazeaud in the latter position, and was replaced by Laurent Fabius in 2016. During his time as president, the Constitutional Council notably ruled in 2011 that France’s ban on same sex marriage did not violate the constitution and the decision on whether to legalize it rested with parliament. In 2015, a chance encounter between Debré and homeless author Jean Marie Roughol led the latter to write about living rough, resulting in the French bestseller Je tape la manche (I’m begging).

In 2020, Prime Minister Jean Castex commissioned Debré with a report on options to facilitate voting during the public health crisis caused by the COVID 19 pandemic in France, including a reversal of the ban on mail in voting.

In 2005, The Guardian described Debré as "perhaps the most dedicated of all defenders of the Chirac faith." He later voted for François Hollande in the 2012 French presidential election. In the Republicans' 2016 presidential primaries, he publicly endorsed Alain Juppé as the party's candidate for the 2017 elections.