François Autain

François Autain (16 June 1935 – 21 December 2019)[1] was a French politician. Over his career, he was a member of the Communist, Republican, and Citizen Group and a member of the Left Party, prior to which he was a member of the Citizen and Republican Movement but also the PS and the PSU.

François Autain
Member of the Senate of France
In office 25 September 1983 – 25 September 2011
Prime Minister	Pierre Mauroy
Parliamentary group	Communist, Republican, Citizen and Ecologist group
Constituency	Loire-Atlantique department
Deputy in the National Assembly
In office 3 April 1978 – 24 July 1981
Constituency	Loire-Atlantique's 3rd constituency
Secretary of State for Social Security
In office 21 May 1981 – 22 June 1981
President	François Mitterrand
Preceded by	Jacques Barrot
Succeeded by	office eliminated
Secretary of State for Immigration
In office 23 June 1981 – 22 March 1983
President	François Mitterrand
Prime Minister	Pierre Mauroy
Preceded by	new office
Succeeded by	Georgina Dufoix
Secretary of State for Defense
In office 23 March 1983 – 25 September 1983
President	François Mitterrand
Prime Minister	Pierre Mauroy
Preceded by	new office
Succeeded by	Jean Gatel
Personal details
Born	(1935-06-16)June 16, 1935 Luché-sur-Brioux (Deux-Sèvres)
Died	December 21, 2019(2019-12-21) (aged 84)
Nationality	France
Political party	Unified Socialist Party (1971-1975) PS (1975-2001) Citizen and Republican Movement (2001-2008) Left Party (from 2008)

He was a member of the Senate of France, representing the Loire-Atlantique department from 1983 to 2011 and a deputy in the National Assembly from 1978 to 1981. From 1981 to 1983, he served as a secretary of state in the governments of Pierre Mauroy in the Ministry of Solidarity and Heath and the Ministry of Defense.

Biography

François Autain was born on 16 June, 1935 in the commune of Luché-sur-Brioux in the Deux-Sèvres department. He studied medicine in Nantes and became active in the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France during the Algerian War.[2] He became a general practitioner in Bouguenais, a commune near Nantes. In 1968, he joined the Unified Socialist Party.

In 1971, he was elected as mayor of Bouguenais, a position that he held until 1993. He joined the Socialist Party in 1975 and won election to the National Assembly in the 1978 French legislative election. As a physician, he focused on health issues in the Assembly.[2] After the victory of François Mitterrand in the 1981 French presidential election, Autain joined the government as a Secretary of State, or junior minister. He served in government until 1983, when he was elected as a Senator.

Autain served in the Senate until 2011, having been re-elected in 1992 and 2001. He was a secretary of the senate as well as a quaestor, a role that gave him access to government funds that he could distribute to mayors of communes. The party removed him from its official list in 2001; however, he was able to win re-election in the 2001 French Senate Election as a member of the Citizen and Republican Movement.[3][4] He later left the Citizen and Republican Movement and joined the Left Party formed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

He did not stand as a candidate for re-election in 2011.

References

1. Éléonore Duplay (2019-12-19). "François Autain, ancien maire de Bouguenais, est mort à 84 ans". France 3 Pays de la Loire. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
2. "Secrétaires d'État auprès d'un ministre Sécurité sociale M. François Autain". Le Monde (in French). 1981-05-25.
3. "François Autain et le Sénat, une longue histoire" (in French). Ouest France. 2017-09-25.
4. "Au confort moderne. Le fabuleux destin de François Autain" (in French). La Lettre à Lulu. October 2001.

• Page on the Senate website