French Ex-Minister Bricq Dies

The death was announced August 6 of former French energy minister, Nicole Bricq, aged 70.

French prime minister Edouard Philippe expressed his "huge sadness at the announcement of Nicole Bricq's death; she was a committed lady, an esteemed parliamentarian, and a constant support to the government."

She fell downstairs whilst on holiday August 5, and died in hospital in Poitiers, central France. She was briefly energy minister in mid-2012, then became foreign trade minister from June 2012 to March 2014. She backed President Macron's new LREM parliamentary movement in 2017, having been a parliamentary deputy from 1997 to 2002 and a senator from 2004 to 2012 for the Socialist Party.

Bricq anchored a number of influential parliamentary reports. But perhaps the one most remembered, the 'Rapport Bricq' in 1999, recommended other things the part-privatisation of Gaz de France then entirely state-owned. It was written with a view to bringing France into compliance with the first EU Directive on a Single Market for Gas, by putting it ahead of the curve as a leader in the market rather a country in grudging compliance.

Mark Smedley