Jacques Cheminade

Jacques Guy Cheminade (French pronunciation: [ʒak ʃəminad]; born 20 August 1941) is a French politician, activist and former diplomat. He is the head of the Solidarity and Progress (SP) party, the French arm of the LaRouche movement. He has thrice run for President of France (1995, 2012, 2017), always placing last.

Education and professional life

Cheminade was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina from French parents. He returned to France at age 18. After graduating from HEC Paris, law school, as well as the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA), Cheminade became a career officer in the Directorate of Foreign Economic Relations of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, a position he held until 1981.

Political career

Discovery of LaRouche's ideas

Cheminade met Lyndon LaRouche in early 1974 in New York, where he was a commercial attaché to the French embassy from 1972 to 1977. He compares this encounter to Socratic midwifery. According to a 1976 FBI document, he was then a "rank and file member" in the National Caucus of Labor Committees, a political organization directed by Lyndon LaRouche which had founded its own "intelligence units" in 1971, where he "work[ed] in the International Intelligence Section" (see document, left). His return to France in 1977 was motivated by a desire to devote himself "full time to political activities and the advocacy of Mr. LaRouche's ideas and policies".