Jacqueline Gourault


Jacqueline Gourault is a French politician of the Democratic Movement who has been serving as Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities in the government of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe since 2018.

Early life and education

Born Jacqueline Doliveux, she is the daughter of a livestock dealer in Montoire-sur-le-Loir, Martial, his wife Madeleine working with him. Her husband, Gerard, took over the horse breeding of his father.
Professor of history and geography, including high school Sainte-Marie de Blois, she entered politics in 1974, during the campaign Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Political career

Mayor of La Chaussée-Saint-Victor

Elected city councilor in 1983, Gourault is mayor of La Chaussée-Saint-Victor from 1989 to 2014.
It was in 1993, during the legislative elections, that Gourault emerged on the departmental political scene by campaigning against Jack Lang, then mayor of Blois. He is reelected with 51.5% of the votes, but it manages to cancel his election by the Constitutional Council, which also condemns him to one year of ineligibility. In the 1994 by-election, the Socialist candidate Michel Fromet, Jack Lang's substitute in 1993, was elected with 59.7% of the vote. In 1997, she returned to the legislative elections and is defeated against Jack Lang.
In March 2014, she was elected city councilor at La Chaussée-Saint-Victor on the list led by Stéphane Baudu.

Member of the Senate of France

Gourault led the campaign for Nicolas Perruchot, who became mayor of the city of Blois, during the municipal elections of 2001. The same year, she was elected, in the first round, member of the Senate of France, representing the Loir-et-Cher department. She is part of the leadership team of the MoDem, officially created on December 1, 2007
She was re-elected Senator in the first round, with 53.25% of the votes, during the senatorial elections of September 2011. In October 2014, Jacqueline Gourault is elected Vice-President of the Senate of France.
Gourault supported Alain Juppé for the Republican presidential primary of 2016 and then supported Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential election.
In September 2017, Gourault was re-elected Senator. She does not exercise this mandate, as of November 2, 2017, since she already holds government positions.

Member of the Government

On 21 June 2017, Gourault was appointed as the Minister attached to the Minister of the Interior.
On 12 December 2017, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe entrusted Gourault with the informal function of monitoring the "Corsican file", following the victory of the nationalists in the territorial elections of 2017. In 2018, Philippe mandated her with the mission of opening the dialogue between the local elected officials of the Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin to organize the merger of these two departments.
On October 16, 2018, Gourault was appointed Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relationships with territorial collectivities, succeeding Jacques Mézard.