Patrick Bloche

Patrick Bloche
Patrick Bloche in 2011
Member of the National Assembly
In office 1997–2017
Preceded by	Alain Devaquet
Succeeded by	Pacôme Rupin
Constituency	Paris's 7th constituency
Personal details
Born	(1956-07-04) 4 July 1956 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Political party	Socialist Party

Patrick Bloche (French pronunciation: [patʁik blɔʃ]; born 4 July 1956 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French politician of the Socialist Party (PS) who served as a member of the National Assembly of France from 1997 to 2017. In parliament, he was part of the SRC parliamentary group.

Political career

Career in local politics

Bloche has been a member of the Socialist Party since the age of 16 (1972), is a member of the General Council of Paris, and has been a member of the Paris City Council since June 1995.

First, a close collaborator of Georges Sarre, Bloche is a long-standing member of CERES. But in 1991, he was one of the supporters of the commitment of France in the Gulf War, and for this reason he broke definitively with Jean-Pierre Chevenement and Georges Sarre.

In January 2000, Bloche was supported by Daniel Vaillant and Bertrand Delanoë (Chairman of the Socialist Group in the Council of Paris), and he was elected with over 61% of the votes of members to the post of first secretary of the Parti Socialiste Paris federation, where he succeeded Jean-Marie Le Guen, who resigned on 23 November 1999.

Member of the National Assembly, 1997–2017

Bloche served as a member of parliament for the Socialist Party from 1997, the year of the dissolution of the National Assembly by Jacques Chirac, in the 7th district of Paris (XI e XII arrondissement). He was president of the Law Committee and Rapporteur of the proposed Act PACS, which he was co-authored with Jean-Pierre Michel.

Bloche led the Socialist list in 2008 French municipal elections, in the XIth district, and was elected Mayor of the Borough, on 29 March 2008. In 2009, he opposed the draft HADOPI law, and defended as an alternative the blanket license. In 2011, he opposed a "freedom of panorama" amendment, calling it an « amendement Wikipédia ».

On 13 July 2011 Bloche joined the campaign team of Martine Aubry for the PS primaries, which she lost to François Hollande. Within the campaign team, he was responsible, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, for culture and media.

In parliament, Bloche served as president of the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education during the Hollande government. The committee voted in favour of an amendment proposed by Martine Faure, and favoured by Yves Durand, Martine Martinel and Marie-George Buffet among others, that replaced the biological concepts of "sex", with the sociological concepts of "gender" in the national elementary curriculum. The elementary curriculum was successfully revised in September 2013 under the name "l'ABCD de l'egalite".

In addition to his committee assignments, Bloche served as vice chairman of the Study Group on the issue of Tibet.

Ahead of the Socialist Party's 2017 primaries, Bloche endorsed Vincent Peillon as the party's candidate for the presidential election later that year.