Jean-Pierre Chevènement

Biography

Jean-Pierre Chevènement (born 9 March 1939) is a French politician who served as a minister in the 1980s and 1990s best known for his candidacy in the 2002 French presidential election. After serving as mayor of Belfort, he was elected to the Senate for the Territoire de Belfort in 2008. As a cofounder of the PS and founder of the Republican and Citizen Movement (MRC), he is a significant figure of the French left.

The Chevènement family is of Swiss origin, with their original name, Schwennemann, having been gallicized to Chevènement in the 18th century. He was born in Belfort near the Swiss border, speaks German, and studied in Vienna.

Chevènement's idiosyncratic left-wing nationalism has...