Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs

Born on November 1, 1939 in Avignon (Vaucluse)

Qualifications

 Doctor of medicine
 Certificat d’études spéciales [specialist qualification] in gastroenterology
 Diploma in digestive endoscopy

Career

 Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2003
 Professor, Chair of Health and Development, at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers [CNAM – national school of engineering and technology] since 2002
 Senior civil servant and United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo (1999-2001)
 Founder (1980), president (1980-1984) and honorary president (1984-1988) of Médecins du Monde [non-profit-making organization whose members, all voluntary and doctors and nurses, help in times of emergency and situations of inadequate medical care in the third world]
 Co-founder and president of Médecins sans Frontières (1971-1979)
 Gastroenterologist at the Hôpital Cochin in Paris (1975-1987)
 Humanitarian missions to help victims in most of the major natural and industrial disasters and political crises since 1968

Elective offices

 MEP (1994-1997)

Ministerial offices

 Minister of Foreign and European Affairs (2007-)
 Minister Delegate for Health (2001-2002)
 Minister of State for Health (1997-1999)
 Minister for Health and Humanitarian Action (1992-1993)
 Minister of State with responsibility for Humanitarian Action (1988-1992)
 Minister of State with responsibility for Social Integration (1988)

Other offices

 Chairman of the ESTHER public interest group [“Together in a hospital network of solidarity in care and treatment”]
 Founder-Chairman of BK Consultants
 Member of the Board of Directors, PlaNet Finance
 Member of the Honorary Committee, Children Action
 Member of the Board of Directors, International Women’s Health Coalition
 Founder-member of [the French humanitarian organization] “La chaîne de l’espoir”

Publications

 Ce que je crois (What I believe), Editions Grasset, 1995
 La dictature médicale (The medical dictature), with Patrick Rambaud, Editions Robert Laffont, 1996
 Le premier qui dit la vérité… (The first to tell the truth…), Editions Robert Laffont, 2002
 Les guerriers de la paix : Du Kosovo à l’Irak (Warriors of Peace: From Kosovo to Iraq), Editions Grasset, 2004
 La Fabrique démocratique (The democratic factory), Editions Robert Laffont, 2006
 Deux ou trois choses que je sais de nous (A few things I know about us), Editions Robert Laffont, 2006