Even if she is not the most media-oriented of the ministers, Olivia Grégoire has made a lot of talk about her in recent months, notably appointed as government spokesperson for a few weeks, she is now Minister of SMEs, Commerce, Crafts and Tourism. But who is she? What are the challenges of his work? What is his background? Business Cool comes back just for you on the political and personal life of Olivia Grégoire!
Olivia Grégoire out of politics
Olivia Grégoire, a traditional business school student?
Born in Paris, Olivia Grégoire followed a literary preparation course in Neuilly-sur-Seine, before turning to a history degree and finishing her course with a master’s degree in marketing in a business school, in the early 2000s, at the ‘ESSEC. She will follow a fairly standard professional path, working in particular for various communication agencies as director of sustainable development: DDB, W&Cie and finally Saint-Gobain. It will subsequently pass through Etalab and Avisa Partners, companies revolving respectively around the opening of public data and economic intelligence.
In 2014, it will launch the consultancy firm Olicare, whose mission is to support VSE-SMEs, therefore getting closer to the management of the economy. At the crossroads of its personal and political career, this firm works in particular around digital technology and especially health, a subject which we will talk about later. This office will be closed a few years later, in order to anticipate the entry into government of the future Secretary of State.
Also read: Borne Government: The diplomas and studies of ministers and secretaries of state
Olivia Grégoire, in a relationship with Manuel Valls
If we will see later that Olivia Grégoire has led her entire political career on the right, she will make a surprising announcement in 2018, since she will say she is in a relationship with Manuel Valls, former prime minister of the Socialist Party under the presidency of François Hollande. Certainly surprising, the information was not shocking at the time: Manuel Valls will in fact support the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron, with whom Olivia Grégoire had already become close. An idyll that will not last: less than two months after this announcement, Manuel Valls announced that he had left the future Secretary of State, in a relationship with another woman.
How does Olivia Grégoire get into politics?
Olivia Grégoire’s beginnings on the right of the political spectrum
Olivia Grégoire has defined herself since the start of her activist career as “liberal and constructive right-wing”. She will therefore work with Alain Madelin, among the first bearers of liberalism in France in the 2000s, before collaborating with various ministers during the second term of Jacques Chirac, sometimes working with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in the Service Information from the Government, and from the Prime Minister, sometimes with Xavier Bertrand and Philippe Bas, at the time Ministers of Health.
However, she seemed to distance herself from politics at the end of this mandate and would only return to the forefront 10 years later.
The En Marche phenomenon and Olivia Grégoire
Without much surprise for this Madelinist, the neoliberal project carried by Macron finds an echo in the mind of Olivia Grégoire. She joined the president’s movement in 2017, while he was looking for executives. Seeming seduced by the promise of dialogue and dynamism, she agreed to join the government to work on health in a working group. Benefiting once again from the big lack of political personnel, she was quickly invested in the movement as a deputy in the 12th district of Paris, which she won in the second round against an LR candidate.
She very quickly took on responsibilities in the National Assembly: she was notably named spokesperson for the parliamentary group, then vice-president of the finance committee. She will also be associated with the “Benjamin Griveaux fiasco”: responsible for communications for her campaign, she will therefore have to face the withdrawal of the candidate after the broadcast of intimate videos.
In 2020, she is already Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy Bruno le Maire. She will be Secretary of State responsible for the social, solidarity and responsible economy. A more important position that she will occupy until the end of Emmanuel Macron’s first term.
To go further: Emmanuel Macron: fortune, salary, studies, career
Olivia Grégoire, government spokesperson
This is the most publicized moment of her political career: after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron in 2022, Olivia Grégoire is appointed government spokesperson, to succeed the young Gabriel Attal, in office since 2020. A passage which does not seem not having convinced Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, since she will be replaced during Macron II’s first reshuffle, on July 4, 2022, at the end of the legislative elections, by Olivier Véran, former Minister of Health during the pandemic. She will once again become Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, and working as Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium Enterprises, Commerce, Crafts and Tourism. After having been spokesperson twice, she returns to the path of her personal experience with SMEs.
Her position is therefore less prestigious after this reshuffle, but she nevertheless managed to remain within the government, which was not the case for all the ministers. Indeed, appointments within the government in 2022 were conditional on the victory of the candidates in the legislative elections; this is notably what cost Amélie de Montchalin her place. For her part, the minister was elected deputy with 68.51% of the votes.
What is the Ministry of SMEs?
The Ministry of SMEs, Commerce, Crafts and Tourism is not really a ministry. Olivia Grégoire is in fact minister delegated to another ministry. Concretely, she is therefore required to work in concert with a minister who supervises her (in this case Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy and Finance). She does not sit on all the Councils of Ministers and therefore has slightly less power. She manages in a fairly concrete way the cases of SMEs, with which she has already worked in her personal career. If you want to know more about its missions, we let you consult the website of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
On the same theme: Zemmour, Pécresse, Le Pen, Macron… The fortunes of the presidential candidates
