Benoît Hamon

Benoît Hamon (born 26 June 1967) is a French politician known for his former role within the Socialist Party (PS) and Party of European Socialists (PES) and his political party Génération.s.

Hamon joined the Socialist Party in 1988 and by 1993 became the leader of the Young Socialist Movement, serving until 1995. In 2004, Hamon was elected MEP for East of France and during his time as MEP he ran for leadership of the Socialist Party, losing in the first round of the Reims Congress and endorsing the Eurosceptic option in the 2005 European Constitution referendum.

In 2012, Hamon was elected to the National Assembly in Yveline's 11th constituency, though he resigned after being appointed as junior minister for the Social Economy at the Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and External Trade by President François Hollande. Hamon was then appointed Minister of National Education in Manuel Valls' new government. He was removed from this position alongside Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg when they both publicly opposed the government economic policy. He later returned to the National Assembly in September of the same year, running in his previous constituency. Hamon's stint in the National Assembly consisted of voting in line with a group labelled the Frondeurs, a socialist group opposed to the social-liberal politics of Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls.