Michel Rocard

Michel Rocard (23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016) was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991 during which he created the Revenu minimum d'insertion (RMI), a social minimum welfare program for indigents, and achieved the Matignon Accords regarding the status of New Caledonia. He was a member of the European Parliament, and was strongly involved in European policies until 2009. In 2007, he joined a Commission under the authority of Nicolas Sarkozy's Minister of Education, Xavier Darcos. Rocard was born in Courbevoie, Hauts-de-Seine, to a Protestant family. The son of nuclear physicist Yves Rocard, he entered politics as a student leader while he was studying at Sciences Po. He became chair of the French Socialist Students affiliated to the main French Socialist party at the time, the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), and studied at the École nationale d'administration (ENA), after which he chose to enter the prestigious Inspection des finances. As an anti-colonialist, he went to Algeria and wrote a report regarding the widely-ignored refugee camps of the Algerian War (1954–1962). The report was leaked to the newspapers Le Monde and France Observateur in April 1959, which almost cost Rocard his position. Michel Rocard was a certified glider pilot.