COPÉ, JEAN-FRANÇOIS

COPÉ, JEAN-FRANÇOIS (1964– ), French politician. Born in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, Copé studied civil government at the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA), France's most prominent school for civil servants. He wrote several reference books about local finances and was elected mayor of Meaux in 1995; from 1998 he held elective positions in the local government of the Ile-de-France region and he was a representative for the Seine-et-Marne subdivision in the national parliament from 1995 to 1997. This experience of local government led him to publish in 1999 a book describing the everyday life of a mayor and reflecting on the problems of civil service. Actively committed to the center-right RPR Party, in which he was given the position of deputy general secretary, he acted from 2002 to 2004 as the spokes-person for the French government before beginning a ministerial career: home secretary in 2004; deputy minister for state budget and budgetary reform from 2004 to 2005. (Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)