One of the former fervent defenders of ecology, Cécile Duflot made her debut in politics around 2000. As an environmental activist, who quickly became the number 1 of the environmental parties Les Verts and Europe Ecologie Les Verts, she has ran for positions of official responsibility in the French state.
She was Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing with Cabinet Ayrault. Until June 2012, she was secretary of the Europe Ecology Party Les Verts, a post she had held since 2006. Along with Jean-Luc Bennahmias, she was the only Green leader to have served two consecutive terms, a position she ended by resignation in May 2012. In April 2018, she proudly announced her departure from politics to be the Director General of Oxfam France on June 15.
After joining Les Verts 2001, the director of the former Duflot tax exemption law participated in the municipal elections of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges the same year. She ran for the position of municipal councilor of the opposition in the city in June 2004. On November 16, 2006, she was elected national secretary of the National Inter-Regional Council, thus succeeding Yann Wehrling. At 31, she was then the youngest national secretary of the Greens.
At the end of 2006, she represented the party to designate its presidential candidate for 2007. Collecting only 23.29% of the vote, she came third after Dominique Voynet and Yves Cochet, and therefore did not qualify for the second round. In the legislative elections of 2007, she ran for the Green Party in the third arrondissement of Val-de-Marne and obtained 3.55% of the vote. Later, in 2008, she came second in the municipal elections of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, for a single ticket from the PS, the MRC, the PRG and the Greens, just after the socialist Laurent Dutheil.
In December 2008, she returned to the post of national secretary of the Greens with 70.99% of the vote, according to Le Nouvel Observateur. She then devoted herself to the establishment of Europe Ecologie for the European elections of 2009. She is not eligible for the moment, preferring to concentrate on her mandate as national secretary. In 2010, she was named, alongside Monica Frassoni and Marina Silva, by Foreign Policy magazine as one of its top world thinkers.
In May 2012, Cécile Duflot was offered the post of Minister of Housing and Territorial Equality in the Ayrault government of the Hollande presidency. One of its tasks is then to promulgate a law on social housing. Entering into force on January 1, 2013, the Duflot law succeeds the Scellier system (which ended in 2012) to create 40,000 housing units per year and encourage rental investment by individuals. In 2013, Duflot also adopted a rectification of the Robien system (tax exemption in favor of rental) as well as the ALUR law (Access to housing and renovated urban planning).
Cécile Duflot was born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, in Val-de-Marne. The eldest daughter of a railway worker and a professor of physics and chemistry (both trade unionists), she obtained her master’s degree in geography and a master’s degree in urban economics at ESSEC. She took her first steps as an environmental activist through the Christian Worker Youth and the League for the Protection of Birds. Recently divorced, Duflot is the mother of three girls and a boy in a blended family. It also shared the city of Jean-Vincent Placé, French senator and former secretary of state. Today, the number 1 of Oxfam France admits that leaving politics, for her, was a sadness and not a defeat.