Juppé, Alain

   (born 1945)

   conservative politician, Foreign Minister 1993 - 1995, Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997, under President Jacques Chirac. In 2004 Juppé was convicted of mishandling public funds, and retired from public life. To the surprise of many, he nevertheless retained the confidence and support of many of his supporters and political stablemates, including Chirac, and in 2006 began a political comeback, being reelected as mayor of Bordeaux . . In 2007, he was briefly minister for the environment, but resigned from this job after failing to get reelected to parliament by voters in his Bordeaux constituency, a city of which he remains mayor. He returned to government in March 2011, recalled by Nicolas Sarkozy to replace Foreign Secretary Michèle Aliot Marie, who was ousted following revelations of her dealings with former but recently ousted North African leaders.