Gérald Darmanin

Gérald Moussa Darmanin (ʒeʁald musa daʁmanɛ̃; born 11 October 1982) is a French politician who has been serving as Minister of the Interior in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean Castex and Élisabeth Borne since 2020. A former member of The Republicans (LR), Darmanin has been a member of La République En Marche! (REM) since 2017. Darmanin was Mayor of Tourcoing from 2014 to 2017 and Minister of Public Action and Accounts in the first and second governments of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe from 2017 until 2020. Darmanin was born to a working-class family with Algerian and Maltese roots. His father, Gérard Darmanin, managed a bistro and his mother, Annie Ouakid, worked as a cleaner. His maternal grandfather, Moussa Ouakid, born in 1907 in the douar of Ouled Ghalia (Ouarsenis) in Algeria, was a Chief Warrant Officer in the French Army and decorated with the Médaille militaire. He served in the Algerian tirailleurs and was also a résistant in the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) during the Second World War. Darmanin struggled academically while attending a public school in Valenciennes, so his parents decided to pay for private education in Paris. When they ran out of money for tuition, the school allowed Darmanin to finish his studies for free; in exchange, he had to spend years working as a hall monitor. After working odd jobs that included singing in the metro and waiting tables, he enrolled at Sciences Po Lille. Early on, Darminin worked as a parliamentary assistant for conservative MP Isabelle Vasseur before joining former minister and then Member of the European Parliament Jacques Toubon. He was taken under the wing of Toubon, who introduced him to UMP leaders such as Xavier Bertrand and helped him become chief of staff to Sarkozy’s Minister of Sports, David Douillet. In the 2012 legislative election, Darmanin was elected to the National Assembly in the tenth constituency of Nord; at the time, he was one of the country’s youngest lawmakers. He ran two years later for election as Mayor of Tourcoing and won, establishing himself on the national political scene.