30 Facts About Lionel Jospin

Lionel Robert Jospin is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.

Lionel Robert Jospin was born to a Protestant family in Meudon, Seine, a suburb of Paris, and is the son of Mireille Dandieu Aliette and Robert Jospin.

Lionel Jospin attended the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly before studying at Sciences Po and the Ecole nationale d'administration.

Lionel Jospin was active in the UNEF students' union, protesting against the war in Algeria.

Lionel Jospin completed his military service as an officer in charge of armoured training in Trier, Germany.

Lionel Jospin became in charge of economic cooperation there, and worked with Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, future leader of the MEDEF employers' union.

In 1988, after Mitterrand's reelection, Lionel Jospin left the PS leadership, and, though Mitterrand considered naming him prime minister, he was nominated for minister of education.

The party's mitterrandist faction split because Lionel Jospin's followers allied with the other factions to prevent Fabius's election as First Secretary.

Lionel Jospin lost his seat in the National Assembly in the Socialists' landslide defeat in the 1993 legislative election and announced his political retirement.

In 1993, Lionel Jospin was appointed ministre plenipotentiaire, 2nd class, a position he held until his appointment as prime minister in 1997, but he was not appointed to any embassy.

In 1995 Lionel Jospin claimed a necessity to "take stock" of the mitterrandist inheritance so as to restore the credibility of the Socialist Party.

Lionel Jospin was selected as the Socialist candidate for president against the PS leader Henri Emmanuelli.

Lionel Jospin's performance was seen to mark a revival of the Socialists as a strong force in French politics and he returned to being the party's First Secretary.

Lionel Jospin built a new coalition with the other left-wing parties: the French Communist Party, the Greens, the Left Radical Party and the dissident Citizen and Republican Movement.

The move backfired: the "Plural Left" won a parliamentary majority and Lionel Jospin became prime minister.

Lionel Jospin served as prime minister during France's third "cohabitation" government under President Chirac from 1997 to 2002.

The Lionel Jospin government began taxing capital assets by introducing a tax on savings, particularly life insurance.

The Lionel Jospin government made it possible for SMEs to jointly establish this kind of fund.

The Lionel Jospin Government established of a compensation fund for asbestos victims, and extended the right to asylum.

Lower-income sections of the population received targeted support, and almost all tax measures introduced by the Lionel Jospin Government sought to stimulate demand and reduce inequality.

Altogether, the social and economic policies implemented by the Lionel Jospin Government helped to reduce social and economic inequalities, with income inequality in terms of the Gini coefficient falling between 1997 and 2001.

In international affairs, Lionel Jospin mostly steered clear of foreign policy, but in 2000 he denounced Hezbollah's "terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilian populations", a position markedly more pro-Israel than Chirac's.

Lionel Jospin was a candidate in the presidential campaign of 2002.

Lionel Jospin thus was not a candidate in the second round of voting.

Lionel Jospin has since sporadically commented on current political affairs; for instance, he declared his opposition to same-sex marriage.

In 2006, Lionel Jospin made it known that he was available to be the Socialist candidate for the 2007 presidential election, but when Segolene Royal became ascendant in the polls, he declined to enter the 2006 primary in order not to "divide the party".

On 5 June 2001, Lionel Jospin acknowledged before Parliament that he had maintained links with a Trotskyist formation "in the 1960s" and with Pierre Lambert's party after joining the Socialist Party in 1971.

Lionel Jospin became an active member of the OCI under the pseudonym "Michel" after quitting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1968.

Lionel Jospin said he had maintained only "private relationships" with OCI members after joining the PS.

Lionel Jospin had concealed his relationship with the OCI while following a strategy of entrism into other parties, and specifically denied it when asked about it.