19 Facts About Damien Abad

Damien Abad previously served as Member of the National Assembly for Ain's 5th constituency from 2012 to 2024, where he was the president of The Republicans group from 2019 to 2022.

Damien Abad's father works as a purchasing manager in a large company and comes from a family that had fled Francoist Spain, while his mother is a social worker and gymnastics teacher.

In secondary school, Damien Abad attended the Vallee Verte college and the Lycee Alphonse-Daudet before beginning his university education at Sciences Po Bordeaux.

Damien Abad graduated from Sciences Po in Paris in 2004 and then became a lecturer for the school.

In 2006, Damien Abad was put in charge of budgetary and fiscal studies in the Union for French Democracy group and then the New Centre group in the National Assembly.

In 2008, Damien Abad founded the Young Centrists movement, which was affiliated with the New Centre, and was virtually unanimously elected its first president in May He left this position to become joint General Secretary of New Centre in 2010.

In 2008, Damien Abad was elected to the municipal council of Vauvert on the list of mayor Gerard Gayaud.

Damien Abad then resigned after winning a seat on the regional council of Rhone-Alpes, where he sat on the Employment, Economy, Social and Solidarity Economy, and Social Innovation Committee as well as the Sports and Youth Committee.

At the age of 29, Damien Abad became the youngest French MEP, the youngest French parliamentarian in office and one of the youngest elected members of the European Parliament.

Damien Abad founded the youth intergroup and served on the Committee on Budgets and on the Committee on International Trade.

On 2 April 2015, Damien Abad was elected as the President of the departmental council of Ain.

Damien Abad was reelected to the National Assembly in the 2017 French legislative elections.

Damien Abad subsequently stood as a candidate for the presidency of The Republicans group in the Assembly against Christian Jacob, who won with 62 votes against Abad's 32.

Damien Abad was then appointed as the group's first vice-president, serving from 2017 to 2019.

Damien Abad serves on the National Defence and Armed Forces Committee, the European Affairs Committee and the Working Group on the Legislative Procedure, Parliamentary Organization and the Rights of the Opposition.

Damien Abad won by 64 votes over Olivier Marleix, who received 37 votes.

At The Republicans' national convention in December 2021, Damien Abad was part of the 11-member committee which oversaw the party's selection of its candidate for the 2022 presidential elections.

In July 2019, Damien Abad voted against the French ratification of the European Union's Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada.

Damien Abad affirmed that his handicap makes impossible a certain number of the acts which are reproached to him, the presumed victims affirming for their part that he uses his handicap to make them feel guilty.