Olivier Dussopt


Olivier Dussopt is French politician who has been serving as Secretary of State to the Ministry of Public Action and Accounts in the governments of successive Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex since 2019. He was a member of the National Assembly from 2007 to 2017

Career

Dussopt was a member of the Socialist Party from 2000 to 2017. He worked on Manuel Valls’ campaign team in the Socialist Party's primaries for the 2012 presidential election.
On 27 November 2017, Dussopt was appointed by President of France Emmanuel Macron to the position of Secretary of State to the Ministry of Public Action and Accounts, under the leadership of minister Gérald Darmanin. Soon after that, he was expelled from the Socialist Party. On 24 December 2017 he resigned from the National Assembly.

Controversies

On 20 May 2020, the French online investigative and opinion newspaper Mediapart revealed that the French utility company Saur gave him a present of lithographs by Gérard Garouste for a value of 2000 euros in January 2017, just a few days before he announced a contract for a hydroelectric turbine with the same company in his town of Annonay.
After the revelations, he initially answered that it was "A gift from a friend", but later he recognized that it was a gift from the company, and he promised to give back the lithographs. Additionally, the Saur employee who gave him the gift declared that he was not a friend of Dussopt, but that Dussopt was just a client.