Noëlle Lenoir (born April 27, 1948 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French stateswoman.
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Noelle Lenoir graduated from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and the Paris Law School and has been a professor in each of these institutions. After qualifying as a lawyer and the achievement of the Senate administrator competition, she has been appointed, from 1972 to 1982, at the law Committee of the French Senate where she was in charge of the follow-up and review of criminal law text related to immigration, in addition to the Justice budget.
Following 10 years at the High Assembly, Noelle Lenoir joined the regulation management of the newly formed National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL)) as Director of regulatory matters, from 1982 until 1984. In 1984, she joined the Council of State (the Conseil d’état is the French administrative supreme court) and was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Justice in 1988, where she served until 1990.
In 1990, the French government appointed Ms. Lenoir to review French bioethics law. Her report to the Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, titled “Aux Frontières de la Vie: Pour une éthique biomedicale à la Française” provided the foundation and adoption of French bioethics law in 1994.
Besides being a constitutional judge, Noelle Lenoir chaired the International Committee on Bioethics of UNESCO and drafted the Human Genome and Human Rights Declaration, which the United Nations endorsed in 1998 on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1991, she is also appointed by the European Commission presided by Jacques Delors as a member of the European Ethics and Science & Technology Group (GEE). Then, in 1994, she is elected as President of this group and reelected twice, by its members.
From 1992 to 2001, Noelle Lenoir chaired the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies for the European Commission, which advised the EU on biotechnology and on ethics in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) issues and regulations.
She left her position at the GEE in 2001 to travel to the USA where she was a law teacher for several months at the Law university of Columbia, New York before joining the Paris Bar in June 2001, Noelle Lenoir is named in 2002 Minister of European Affairs by Prime Minister Raffarin. During this period she was involved into a number of negotiations with central and oriental European countries on their way to join the European Union and the follow-up of the constitutional treaty. In addition, she defends France's positions on various European proposals and legislations. Finally, she is the first woman appointed, with her homologue the German minister of European affairs, the position of « Secrétaire général de la coopération franco-allemande ».
Previous to this, as the first woman and youngest person on the Conseil Constitutionnel, (the French Supreme Court for constitutional matters), Ms. Lenoir served a nine-year term from 1992 to 2001. She has been a Conseiller d’Etat since 1984.
Noëlle Lenoir joined the Parisian office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP as an Off-Counsel in 2004. In 2006-2007 she was appointed by the French Minister of Justice to carry out an evaluation of the status of the European Company (SE) (report delivered on March 19, 2007).
Noelle Lenoir is currently an associate at JeantetAssociés which she joined in 2009 and where she heads the European department (competition law, litigation and regulatory). She also specializes in French constitutional law.
Ms. Lenoir is currently an Associate Professor and President of the European Institute at the Hautes Etudes de Commerce (H.E.C., the French International Business School) which has established numerous partnerships, especially LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) and NY University Business School.
In addition, she is the Founder and President of “Cercle des Européens”. A Think Tank which operates as ideas exchange group on socioeconomic and political stakes of the 21st century Europe and which is deemed as a place where managers can meet European decision makers for roundtables on different European problems and subjects. Noëlle Lenoir is registered arbitrator on the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) French committee list. She is also a member of the EC High Level Experts group on the European company law at the Commission level.
Noëlle Lenoir is administrator of Generali France (since 2008) and of Valeo (since 2009).
Local representative of the City of Valmandois (Val d’Oise) for the first time in 1977, Ms Lenoir was elected mayor of this town in 1989 until 1995, a mandate she had to abandon in favor of her mandate as a judge at the French Constitutional Court. She stood again for the mayor election in 2008 and was elected with her complete list. Ms Lenoir stayed Mayor of Valmondois from 2008 through 2010, where she resigned for personal reasons.
She is at present member of the steering Committee of the Association of France Mayors, as well as member of the legal committee of “Concessions – Délégations de service public” of the Delegate Management Institute.
Mrs Lenoir is a columnist on European matters for a variety of French newspapers, editor for the BFM radio station in partnership with HEC, and she is responsible for the “Europe” blog of the L’Express weekly magazine. She has made several publications about the caricaturist Honoré Daumier.
Among others:
- La Transparence administrative (en coll., 1987)
- Aux Frontières de la Vie : une Ethique Biomédicale à la Française (remis au gouvernement en 1991).
- Les Normes Internationales de la Bioéthique (1998)
- La Justice, de Daumier à nos jours (1999)
- La Vie Politique, de Daumier à nos jours (2005)
- La Societas Europaea ou SE : Pour une Citoyenneté Européenne de l'’Entreprise (remis au gouvernement en 2007)
- Officier de la Légion d'honneur (France)
- Commandeur de l'Ordre national du Mérite (France)
- Grand Officier de l'Ordre de Léopold II (Belgique)
- Commandeur de l'Ordre du Mérite (Pologne)
- Commandeur de l'Ordre du Mérite de la République fédérale d'Allemagne (Allemagne)
Other Distinctions:
- Honoris Causa
- Suffolk University (USA)
- University College London (UK)
- Distinguished Fellow du Hastings Center (États-Unis)
- Member of the American Law Institute
Competition law at Pantheon Sorbonne Paris I
- Competition Law, Societas Europaea
- Public and constitutional Law
- Litigation
- Regulatory