Brigitte Bourguignon


Brigitte Bourguignon is a French politician serving as Minister for Autonomy in the government of Prime Minister Jean Castex since 2020. A member of the Socialist Party before she joined La République En Marche! in 2017, she was the member of the National Assembly for the sixth constituency of Pas-de-Calais from 2012 until her appointment as delegate at the Ministry of Solidarity and Health.

Political career

Following the 2017 legislative election, Bourguignon stood as a candidate for the National Assembly's presidency; in an internal vote within the LREM parliamentary group, she lost against François de Rugy.
In parliament, Bourguignon chaired the Committee on Social Affairs from 2017 until 2020. In September 2018, following the election of Richard Ferrand as President of the National Assembly, she stood as a candidate to succeed him as chairman of the LREM parliamentary group. She was eliminated in the first ballot, coming in 5th position out of 7 candidates with 19 votes.
At the end of 2017, about thirty LREM members formed around Bourguignon who claimed to be the parliamentary group's "social fibre" and were seen as its left wing; by the end of 2018, Sonia Krimi took the group's lead from Bourguignon.

Political positions

In May 2018, Bourguignon co-sponsored an initiative in favour of a bioethics law extending to homosexual and single women free access to artificial reproduction such as in vitro fertilisation under France's national health insurance; it was one of the campaign promises of President Emmanuel Macron and marked the first major social reform of his five-year term.
In July 2019, Bourguignon voted in favor of the French ratification of the European Union’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada.