Yaël Braun-Pivet (French pronunciation:[jaɛlbʁonpivɛ]; born 7 December 1970) is a French lawyer and politician who has been the President of the French National Assembly since 28 June 2022. The first woman to hold the position, she was re-elected on 18 July 2024 following the 2024 snap elections.
Braun-Pivet was born Yaël Braun in Nancy in Eastern France. Her paternal grandparents were Jewish - her grandfather was a Polish tailor while her grandmother was German - and had settled in France in the 1930s in order to escape antisemitism. After World War II, her grandfather received the French Resistance Medal. Braun-Pivet's mother had grown up in care.[1][2]
Braun-Pivet attended a Jewish school in Strasbourg and went on to study law at Paris Nanterre University.[3][4] After practising as a criminal lawyer for several years, she followed her husband, an executive with L'Oréal, to Taiwan and Japan, where the two youngest of their five children were born.[2] On their return to France in 2012, Braun-Pivet took up voluntary work with Restaurants du Cœur (a French charity which distributes food to those in need), where she organised a free legal advice service.[2]
Political career
Braun-Pivet, representing Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance Party, was elected as a member of the French National Assembly for the 5th constituency of Yvelines in the legislative election in June 2017. That same month she was elected chair of the Law Committee.[2] She led the work of the committee on a 2017 law regulating conflict of interest among elected officials, which had been initiated as a consequence of the Fillon affair.[5] In 2018, when she was chair of the inquiry into the Benalla Affair, she was criticised for her refusal to summon Alexis Kohler, general secretary of the president's office, to give evidence.[6] In September 2018, after François de Rugy's appointment to the government, Braun-Pivet announced her candidacy for the presidency of the National Assembly; she eventually withdrew and instead endorsed Richard Ferrand.[2]
In February 2021, Braun-Pivet received the support of the entire National Assembly after being targeted by an email with anti-Semitic insults and threats; shortly after, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation.[7] Braun-Pivet was appointed Minister of Overseas Territories in May 2022 but stepped down a month later when she became President of the National Assembly following the legislative election. She was the first woman to hold the position.[2] On 4 March 2024, Braun-Pivet became the first woman to preside over a joint session of the Assembly and Senate, overseeing the historic vote to inscribe the "freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy" in the French constitution.[8] On 9 June 2024, Macron dissolved the French Parliament and announced a snap election following defeat of his party in the European elections.[9] Braun-Pivet was doubtful about Macron's decision, suggesting that he could have considered forming a coalition instead.[10] She retained her seat in the legislative election, winning 49.1% of the votes in the second round.[11]