Christophe Castaner

Christophe Castaner (; born 3 January 1966) is a French politician who served as Minister of the Interior from 16 October 2018 to 6 July 2020 under President Emmanuel Macron. He had been elected in 2017 for a three-year term as chairman (délégué général) of the La République En Marche! party with Macron's support. Castaner was Government Spokesperson under Prime Minister Édouard Philippe in 2017 and Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament from 2017 to 2018. He was also Macron's 2017 presidential campaign spokesman. Born in Ollioules in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Castaner was Mayor of Forcalquier from 2001 to 2017. He held a vice presidency of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur from 2004 to 2012 under the presidency of Michel Vauzelle, before he represented the 2nd constituency of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the National Assembly from 2012 to 2017. He headed the Socialist Party list in the 2015 regional election in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, which saw the party lose all representation at the regional level. He joined Macron's En Marche! (later La République En Marche!) movement in 2016; he became its chairman the following year after a few months as Government Spokesman. In 2018, Castaner was appointed as Minister of the Interior following the resignation of Gérard Collomb. His tenure, which was marked by the yellow vests movement, was heavily criticised for its scenes of police brutality, as well as a series of controversial public statements he made. While France was battling the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrations had been banned, he allowed a Black Lives Matter protest to take place, attracting further criticism. The following month, he was succeeded by Gérald Darmanin in government and returned to the National Assembly where he would succeed Gilles Le Gendre as La République En Marche group president. In the 2022 legislative election, he lost his seat to Léo Walter of La France Insoumise (FI). Early life and education The youngest of three children, Christophe Castaner's father was in the military and his mother was a housewife.