François de Rugy
François Henri Goullet de Rugy is a French politician who served as President of the National Assembly from 2017 to 2018, and Ecology Minister from 2018 to 2019.
Since 2007 he has represented the Loire-Atlantique department, originally as a member of the Democratic and Republican Left, a parliamentary group that includes his former political party Europe Ecology – The Greens. In 2015 he joined the Ecologist Party and later La République En Marche parliamentary group.
He resigned as a minister in July 2019 after allegations of excessive spending of public funds for private use.Biography
Rugy was born in Nantes, France. First elected at the 2007 French legislative election, he was re-elected in 2012, he was elected Co-President of the ecologist parliamentary group, in association with Barbara Pompili. In 2015, he broke with EELV to form his own party, the Ecologist Party, which supported the administration of François Hollande. In 2016, he entered the Socialist Party presidential primary in which he secured 3.82% of votes in the first round, outstripping polls. Though he promised to support the winner of the primary, he reneged on that commitment in late February, instead backing Emmanuel Macron over primary winner Benoît Hamon, and was subsequently invested by En Marche! in the legislative election.
On 27 June 2017, Rugy was elected President of the National Assembly after being chosen as candidate by the La République En Marche parliamentary group with 353 votes.
On 4 September 2018, François de Rugy was appointed Minister of Ecological and Solidary Transition in the second Philippe government. He replaced Nicolas Hulot who had announced his resignation on 28 August 2018 on France Inter.
In July 2019, online French magazine Mediapart revealed that €63,000 of public money had been spent on refurbishment of his Paris apartment, and published photographs of lobster and champagne dinners. On 16 July 2019, Rugy resigned as Ecology Minister.
