When the French National Assembly elected Yaël Braun-Pivet to be its president on Wednesday, it elevated the first-ever woman and first practicing Jew to the job.
Braun-Pivet’s election comes on the heels of Élisabeth Borne becoming the second woman prime minister of France; both are from French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party, formerly known as La République En Marche.
Braun-Pivet, a lawyer by profession, was first elected to the French National Assembly in 2017. In May 2022, she was appointed Minister for overseas French territories, but after being reelected to the parliament this month, she resigned from the job to run for president of the National Assembly, considered the fourth most-senior position of the state.
The new parliamentary speaker recalled in her victory speech that her family arrived in France in the 1930s to escape antisemitism in Eastern Europe. Her grandfather, who immigrated to France from Poland, received a French Resistance Medal after World War II.
While Braun-Pivet, 51, is not the first halachically Jewish president of the French National Assembly, the previous one, Laurent Fabius, was born to parents who converted to Catholicism.
Braun-Pivet attended Akiva, a Jewish school, in Strasbourg as a child and the mother of five celebrates Jewish holidays with her family, according to Liberation.
Braun-Pivet has been a target of antisemitism on social media throughout her years in politics. In 2021, she tweeted examples of antisemitic hate mail she received while serving as chairwoman of the legislature’s Law Commission, including one calling her by an anti-Jewish epithet, referring to death camps and saying “this time, it’s the Muslims that will deal with you.” The letters became the subject of an investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office.
In 2019, Braun-Pivet supported a motion to combat antisemitism based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition.« Youpine », « prépare-toi, bientôt les camps à nouveau ». Face à de tels immondices : dénoncer, porter plainte, ne jamais rien laisser passer. #antisémitisme pic.twitter.com/e1WwSFJbwx
— Yaël BRAUN-PIVET (@YaelBRAUNPIVET) February 18, 2021
Braun-Pivet was also a member of the France-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group in 2017-2022, and has visited Israel several times.