FABIUS, LAURENT

FABIUS, LAURENT (1946– ), French politician – the youngest premier in the history of the Republic. Fabius was born in France to a Jewish family which converted to Catholicism during World War II. After completing his studies in political science and humanities, he became active in the Socialist party. In 1978 he was elected deputé to the French Assembly. When François Mitterrand was elected president of the Republic in 1981, Fabius joined the government, first as minister in charge of the budget (1981–83) and then as minister for industry and research (1983–84). In 1984, with the collapse of the alliance between the Socialists and the Communists and the generally poor showing of the government in the public opinion polls, Mitterrand called in Fabius, as a representative of the new technocratic trend in the Socialist party, to lead the new government. With the appointment of the young, articulate politician, polls took an upswing. "Modernization and   unity – these will be the priorities of my government," stated Fabius when taking office. In 1986 the Socialists were ousted by a right-wing government and Fabius ceased to be prime minister. When the Socialists returned to power in 1988, Fabius was elected president of the National Assembly, a position he held until he became first secretary of the Socialist party in 1992. He had the difficult task of pulling the party out of a slump but support for the Socialists continued to plummet. At the end of 1992, the party agreed to send him and two former health ministers to trial for their ministerial responsibility for a 1985 scandal when HIV-contaminated blood had been knowingly distributed by high officials; over 1,000 people had acquired the HIV virus and 200 died. The National Assembly and the Senate endorsed the decision to send the three to trial. Fabius had asked to be brought to trial, saying to the Senate "Innocent and recognized as such, I come before you to ask you to charge me with errors I did not commit," and was eventually found not guilty. Reelected a member of the National Assembly in 1993, he became, its president for the second time two years later when the left came back to power. In 2000 he was appointed minister of economy, finances and industry in the government led by Socialist premier Lionel Jospin, but the electoral defeat of the left in the 2002 general elections sent him back to the opposition benches of the National Assembly. In 2004 Fabius took a strong stand against the European constitutional treaty, a rather unexpected move that surprised political commentators, who viewed him as a moderate, center-to-left politician. Defying the leadership of the Socialist Party, which endorsed the constitutional treaty, Fabius followed the mood of the public, which overwhelmingly dismissed the treaty in the referendum of May 2005, thereby conceivably improving his chances in the presidential elections of 2007. Fabius wrote La France inégale (1975), Le cœur du futur (1985), C'est en allant vers la mer (1990), Les blessures de la vérité (1995), Cela commence par une ballade (2003), and Une certaine idée de l'Europe (2004). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.-G. Fredet, Fabius, les brûlures d'une ambition (2001). (Gideon Kouts / Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)