Lionel Robert Jospin (French: [ljɔnɛl ʁɔbɛʁ ʒɔspɛ̃]; 12 July 1937 – 22 March 2026) was a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Jospin was first secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for president in the 1995 and 2002 elections. In 1995, he was narrowly defeated in the second round by Jacques Chirac. In 2002, he was eliminated in the first round after finishing behind both Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen, prompting him to announce his retirement from politics. In 2015, he was appointed to the Constitutional Council by National Assembly President Claude Bartolone.
Lionel Robert Jospin was born on 12 July 1937 to a Protestant family in Meudon, Seine (nowadays Hauts-de-Seine), a suburb of Paris, and was the son of Mireille Dandieu Aliette and Robert Jospin. He attended the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly before studying at Sciences Po and the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA). He was active in students' unions protesting against the war in Algeria (1954–1962). He completed his military service as an officer in charge of armoured training in Trier, Germany.
Throughout Jospin's career his public image was, as summarized by John Gaffney of Aston University, "dour, grumpy, rather cold, prone to temper and exasperation ('austere')".
After his graduation from the ÉNA in 1965, Jospin entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as secretary of foreign affairs. He became in charge of economic cooperation there, and worked with Ernest-Antoine Seillière, future leader of the MEDEF employers' union.
Representative of a generation of left-wingers who criticized the old SFIO Socialist Party, he joined a Trotskyist group, the Internationalist Communist Organization (OCI) in the 1960s, before entering the renewed Socialist Party (PS) in 1971. Joining François Mitterrand's circle, he became the second highest-ranking member of the party in 1979, then its first secretary when Mitterrand was elected president in 1981. When President Mitterrand decided, in 1982–83, to change his economic policy to give priority to the struggle against inflation and for a hard currency, Jospin justified his choice. After Laurent Fabius was chosen as prime minister in 1984, a rivalry between these two political heirs of Mitterrand broke out when they competed for the leadership of the 1986 legislative campaign.
In 1988, after Mitterrand's reelection, Jospin left the PS leadership and, though Mitterrand considered naming him prime minister, he was nominated for minister of education. Under Jospin's tenure as education minister, teacher training was consolidated, the lycées and universities were reformed, teachers' salaries improved, and technical and vocational education were reformed, which the socialists saw as a means of improving economic performance, tackling youth unemployment, and attaining social justice.
Jospin's rivalry with Fabius intensified and caused an internal crisis, notably during the Rennes Congress (1990). The party's mitterrandist faction split because Jospin's followers allied with the other factions to prevent Fabius's election as first secretary. This damaged Jospin's relationship with Mitterrand and, after the Socialist Party's failure in the March 1992 local elections, Jospin was not included in the new government formed by Pierre Bérégovoy.
As a member of the National Assembly, Jospin served first as a representative of Paris (1978–86), and then of Haute-Garonne département (1986–88). He lost his seat in the National Assembly in the Socialists' landslide defeat in the 1993 legislative election and announced his political retirement.
In 1993, Jospin was appointed ministre plénipotentiaire, 2nd class (a rank of ambassador), a position he held until his appointment as prime minister in 1997, but he was not appointed to any embassy.
In 1995, Jospin claimed a necessity to "take stock" of the mitterrandist inheritance so as to restore the credibility of the Socialist Party. He was selected as the Socialist candidate for president against the PS leader Henri Emmanuelli. In the run-up to the election, Jospin made various policy proposals, such as a programme for the environment, an extension of social services, a housebuilding programme, the rebuilding of run-down parts of cities, and a 37-hour workweek.
Following the Socialists' landslide defeats of 1992–94, Jospin was considered to have little chance of victory. But he did surprisingly well, leading in the first round and losing only very narrowly to Jacques Chirac in the final runoff election. His performance was seen to mark a revival of the Socialists as a strong force in French politics and he returned to being the party's first secretary.
Jospin built a new coalition with the other left-wing parties: the French Communist Party, the Greens, the Left Radical Party, and the dissident Citizen and Republican Movement. Two years later, Chirac decided to call an early election for the National Assembly, hoping for a personal endorsement. The move backfired: the "Plural Left" won a parliamentary majority and Jospin became prime minister.
Jospin was a member of the Club of Madrid.
Jospin served as prime minister during France's third "cohabitation" government under President Chirac from 1997 to 2002.
Despite his previous image as a rigid socialist, Jospin sold state-owned enterprises and lowered the VAT, income tax and company tax rates.
Jospin's government also introduced the 35-hour workweek, provided additional health insurance for those on the lowest incomes through the creation of Couverture maladie universelle (CMU, which made health care in France a universal right, and was regarded by Jospin and Martine Aubry as one of the "beacons" of their incumbency), promoted the representation of women in politics, expanded the social security system, and created the PACS – a civil partnership or union between two people of any genders. During his term, with the help of a favourable economic situation, unemployment fell by 900,000. There were several women but no ethnic minorities in Jospin's government.
The "law against social exclusion" (1998) extended social security and introduced various measures to combat poverty. These included: