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Revision as of 23:18, 18 May 2007

Bernard Kouchner (born November 1 1939 in Avignon) is a French socialist politician, diplomat, and doctor. He is co-founder of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and of Médecins du Monde. He is currently the French minister of Foreign and European Affairs.

Career

File:Bernard Kouchner.gif
Bernard Kouchner as Health-Delegated Minister

Born 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 excluded in 1966. He worked as a physician for the Red Cross in Biafra in 1968 (during the Nigerian Civil War). He founded MSF in 1971, and then, due to a conflict of opinion with MSF chairman Claude Malhuret, the Médecins du Monde (1980).

He is a long-time advocate of humanitarian intervention. In early 2003, he pronounced himself in favour of the United States-led invasion of Iraq, arguing that interference against dictatorship should be a global priority, and continued to say that now the focus should be on the actual people themselves, and that they are the only ones who could answer yes or no to war.

On July 15 1999, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1244, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan nominated Kouchner as the first UN Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo . During 18 months, he led UN efforts to create a new civil administration and political system replacing the Serbian ones, and to rebuild the economy shattered by three years of civil war. Thus, municipal councils were elected at local level by the end of 2000 . He was replaced on 21 January 2001 by danish social democrat Hans Hækkerup.

In a February 4, 2003 editorial with Antoine Veil in Le Monde, entitled "Neither War Nor Saddam," Kouchner said that he was opposed both to the impending War in Iraq and to France vetoing a hypothetical United Nations Security Council resolution opposing the war.

In 2005, Kouchner was a candidate for the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but lost the appointment in favor of former Portuguese Prime Minister, António Guterres, who was nominated by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. One of Kouchner statements on behalf of his candidature can be found on the International Council of Voluntary Agencies site.

In 2006, Kouchner was also a candidate to become Director-General of the World Health Organisation. He lost before the final election round and Chinese candidate Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun was later elected. Both failures may hint at the distrust on the part of world state officials of an advocate of humanitarian interference.

After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, he was appointed the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Kouchner is married to the journalist Christine Ockrent, his second wife.

Positions held

Preceded byClaude Evin French Minister of Health
1992–1993 		Succeeded bySimone Veil
Preceded byPhilippe Douste-Blazy Minister of Foreign Affairs
2007 - 		Succeeded byIncumbent

External links

Categories: