Bernard Kouchner
| Bernard Kouchner | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Minister of Foreign and European Affairs | |
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In office 17 May 2007 – 13 November 2010 |
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| Prime Minister | François Fillon |
| Preceded by | Philippe Douste-Blazy (Foreign and European Affairs) |
| Succeeded by | Michèle Alliot-Marie |
| Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo | |
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In office 15 July 1999 – 12 January 2001 |
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| Preceded by | Sérgio Vieira de Mello |
| Succeeded by | Hans Hækkerup |
| Minister of Health | |
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In office 2 April 1992 – 29 March 1993 |
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| Prime Minister | Pierre Bérégovoy |
| Preceded by | Claude Evin |
| Succeeded by | Simone Veil |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
1 November 1939 Avignon, France |
| Political party | Independent (2007–present) |
| Other political affiliations |
Socialist Party (1966–2007) Communist Party (Before 1966) |
| Spouse(s) | Évelyne Pisier (?-?; 3 children) Christine Ockrent (1 child) |
| Profession | Physician |
Bernard Kouchner (born 1 November 1939) is a French politician and physician. He is the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Médecins du Monde. From 2007 until 2010, he was the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the center-right Fillon government under president Nicolas Sarkozy, although he had been in the past a minister in socialist governments. In 2010, the Jerusalem Post considered Bernard Kouchner the 15th most influential Jew in the world. Since 2015 Kouchner is workstream leader for the AMU (Agency for the Modernisation of Ukraine), where he contributes his expertise in healthcare.
Kouchner was born in Avignon, to a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, he began his political career as a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), from which he was expelled in 1966 for attempting to overthrow the leadership. On a visit to Cuba in 1964, Kouchner spent the night fishing and drinking with Fidel Castro. In the protests of May 1968, he ran the medical faculty strike committee at the Sorbonne. Kouchner has three children (Julie, Camille and Antoine) by his first wife, Évelyne Pisier, a professor of law, and one child, Alexandre, by his present wife Christine Ockrent, a television journalist. He worked as a physician for the Red Cross in Biafra in 1968 (during the Nigerian Civil War). His experience as a physician for the Red Cross led him to co-found Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in 1971, and then, due to a conflict of opinion with MSF chairman Claude Malhuret, he established Doctors of the World ('Médecins du Monde') in 1980. Kouchner worked as a humanitarian volunteer during the Siege of Naba’a refugee camp in Lebanon in East Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War taking risks that "other foreign aid workers weren’t, even worked closely with the Shia cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr".
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Wikipedia