Corinne Lepage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Corinne Lepage giving a talk at Institut d'études politiques de Toulouse (Feb. 2007)

Corinne Dominique Marguerite Lepage, also known as Corinne Lepage, is a French politician. She is the founder and President since 1996 of the Citizenship, Action, Participation for the XXIst Century Party (CAP 21.) She is also the founding member of the CRII-VIE, the Association for the Study of the Impact of Genetic Techniques upon the Living.

Lepage was born May 11, 1951 in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the départment of Hauts-de-Seine, to Philippe Lepage and Jacqueline Schulmann, who died at a very young age. She is married and the mother of two children: Hélène and Benjamin. She attended Sciences-Po in Paris, where she obtained her law diploma; she started practicing law in 1975. At the same time, she was appointed Maître de conférences (Note: the equivalent of an American University Lecturer or possibly an Assistant Professor), and later a Professor at Sciences-Po and Paris II from 1982 to 1986, and then at the Université de Paris at Val-deMarne from 1984 to 1990. She has taught at the Université de Paris at St.-Quentin-en-Yvelines since 2005.

In 1978, she founded, along with her husband, the first law firm specializing in environmental rights. The Amoco Cadiz disaster, in which she represented local communities damaged by an American oil tanker in 1978, brought her to the forefront of media coverage. She then worked on many cases concerning the environment, along with local associations and groups.

At that time, without any political attachment, she accepted Alain Juppé's offer to take charge of the Environmental Ministry in 1995. She made progress in the area of prevention with the adoption of Air Law, the creation of the Committee on Prevention and Precaution, and at the end of her participation in public power, with the Professional Committee on Asbestos.

The dissolution of the government in 1997 put an end to her ministerial experience, but not to her fight for humanist ecology. She transformed CAP 21 into a political movement, and at the same time, she continued her activities in defense of ecological interests as a member of the Paris Bar and the Bar of Brussels. She involved herself in many groups. She was thus the co-founder, with Michèle Rivasi, of the Observatory for Ecological Vigilance and Warning. She also directed the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering, a scientific committee at the forefront of dealing with information on the environmental and sanitation risks involved with the distribution of Genetically modified organisms (GMO). As Administrator of Transparency International France [tr. note: a non-governmental organization which fights government corruption in 80 national sections), she is involved in the fight against political and financial corruption. She also teaches part-time at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (l'Institut d'études politiques de Paris, or IEP) and at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

In 2002, Lepage launched herself into the Presidential race and received 1.88% of the vote in the first ballot. In the regional elections of 2004, she was at the top of the roster of the Paris départment on the slate of André Santini (UDF). She did not participate in the second ballot run-off on the UMP roster of Jean-François Copé. In the European elections of June 2004, her election roster for the constituency of Ile de France would receive 3.6%.

Considered by the media as a rightist ecologist because of her participation in the Juppé government, she claims to be neither right nor left.

[edit] Highlights

1989, she became a deputy mayor of Cabourg in Calvados (resigned in 2001.)
1995, she became first deputy to the Mayor of Cabourg.
1995, named Minister of the Environment in the government of Alain Juppé (~1997). She became one of the so-called "Juppettes."
1998, creation of the Citizenship Action Participation for the Twenty-First Century Party.
April 21 2002, candidate in the presidential election, she carried 1.88% of the vote.
2007, declared as candidate in the presidential elections, decides (on March 11) not to run and instead to support François Bayrou for this election.

[edit] Works

Code annoté de procédures administratives contentieuses (1990) ("The Annotated Code of Administrative Litigation Procedures")
Les audits d'environnement (1992) ("The Environment Audits")
On ne peut rien faire, madame le Ministre (1998) ("Nothing Can be Done, Madam Minister")
Bien gérer l'environnement, une chance pour l'entreprise (1999) ("Managing the Environment Well, a Business Opportunity")
La politique de précaution (with François Guéry, 2000) ("The Politics of Precaution")
Oser l'espérance (2001) ("To Dare to Hope")
Santé & Environnement : l'ABCdaire (2005) ("Health and the Environment: the ABCs")
ECORESP 2006 (2006)