Lemarchant, Clotilde <br/><br/>
Nicole Questiaux. May 1981: The Minister of National Solidarity 

 -  2023.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Nicole Questiaux’s career path can be seen as that of a pioneer. Born in 1930, she was accepted at the ENA after having studied at Sciences Po Paris, and started serving on the Conseil d’État in 1955. She was a woman of strong beliefs who played a decisive role in rebuilding the left after May 1968. She became the Minister of National Solidarity in 1981, implementing the government’s social program with conviction, but was ousted from the position in 1982. However, she harbored no resentment and resumed her career at the Conseil d’État where, as a law expert, she tackled arduous social law cases. She also taught social policies and co-wrote Traité du social : situations, luttes, politiques, institutions (1st edition 1976, Dalloz). She defended the principle of universal social protection, defining the “few risks against which one must be protected” (old age, illness, etc.), on which everyone was likely to agree, because “ultimately they [were] very concrete.”