Home > English > Biography of Mr. Bernard Accoyer, President of the French National Assembly

 

Biography of Mr. Bernard Accoyer,

President of the French National Assembly

M. Bernard Accoyer, Président de l'Assemblée nationale

© Assemblée nationale

Click on the picture to enlarge

President as of June 26, 2007
 

[Individual data sheets]

[French] [German] [Spanish] [Italian]

 

Bernard Accoyer was born on August 12, 1945 in Lyon, in the Department of Rhône. He is an ear, nose and throat doctor and holds a doctorate from the Lyon Medical School. He entered politics in 1989 when he was elected Mayor of Annecy-le-Vieux, a position he has held ever since. In 2008 he was elected on the first round of balloting for his fourth term.

In March 1993, he was elected M.P. for the First Constituency in the Department of Haute-Savoie. He was reelected in 1997, 2002 and again in 2007.

He is a member of the standing committee at the French National Assembly on cultural, family and social affairs where his work and attention is particularly directed to the field of social and medical problems. Thus he was the rapporteur during the XIIth Parliament for the bill dealing with retirement pension reform and was persistently opposed, during the previous Parliament, to the implementation of the 35-hour working week, in particular in the hospital system.

He was Deputy-Chairman of the UMP Parliamentary Political Group from 2002-2004. He then succeeded Jacques Barrot as Chairman of the group and held this position until 2007

Upon taking office as President of the French National Assembly, at the beginning of the XIIIth Parliament, on June 26, 2007, he revealed: “I am thinking about my family, my closest friends and relatives, all those I have met along the way, in Rhônes-Alpes, my region and in Haute-Savoie, my adopted Department. I met them through the exercise of my passions: my job, medicine, public life and politics.” He stated that his main goal is “to give our Assembly a more important role in the running of the State: to provide it with more substantial monitoring and assessment powers and to grant it greater transparency and efficiency in the pursuit of democracy beyond reproach”. [speech] [video]

Bernard Accoyer is married with three children. His passions also include skiing and cycling. He is a member of the National Academy of Surgery.