Alain Richard (, born 29 August 1945) is a French politician who has been serving as Senator for Val-d'Oise since 2011. 

A member of the National Assembly for Val-d'Oise from 1978 to 1993, Richard was elected to the Senate in 1995 before his appointment as Minister of Defence in 1997 under Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, an office he retained until 2002. A former member of the Socialist Party (SP), he joined La République En Marche! (LREM) in 2017.

Early life and education
Richard received his Baccalauréat at the Lycée Henri-IV. He is an alumnus of Sciences Po and the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA).

Political career
Richard was first elected as Mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône in 1977. In 1981, he was selected to be one of the first Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation. 

A member of the Socialist Party (PS), Richard was elected to the National Assembly in the 1978 election. During his time in parliament, he focused on the national budget.

Minister of Defence, 1997–2002
Elected to the Senate in the 1995 election, Richard was appointed Minister of Defence in the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin two years later by President Jacques Chirac. During his time in office, he was in charge of implementing a plan that Chirac set in motion in 1996 to reduce the French Armed Forces' establishment across Africa to 350,000 uniformed personnel, from 500,000, by 2002. Notably, he closed a key military base in the north of the Central African Republic and reduced forces at a second, in Bangui, in 1997. Also under his leadership, the French government completed the destruction of its stock of land mines in accordance with the 1997 Ottawa Convention.

Richard also oversaw the transition resulting from France's 1996 decision to suspend peacetime military conscription and move to an all-volunteer professional army; President Chirac formally announced the end of compulsory military service in 2001. 

Dismissing doubts about France's support for NATO in Kosovo after French officer Pierre-Henri Bunel was charged with passing bombing plans to Serbia, Richard and Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine offered in 1998 to lead the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR).

In January 2001, Richard made a submission about the Mitterrand–Pasqua affair – a controversial arms-trafficking case against Jean-Christophe Mitterrand –, several weeks after magistrates had started criminal proceedings about the deal handled by Pierre Falcone's Paris-based company, Brenco International. 

Seen as an ally of Jospin, Richard left the office when Jean-Pierre Raffarin became Prime Minister following the 2002 elections.

Member of the Senate, 2011–present
Richard went back to his initial position as Mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, before regaining a seat in the Senate in the 2011 election. In the Socialist Party's 2011 primaries, he endorsed Martine Aubry as the party's candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

In the Senate, Richard has been serving as vice-president since 2022, under the leadership of its president Gérard Larcher. He is also a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs.

In addition to his committee assignments, Richard has been chairing the Senate's Taiwan Friendship Group. In this capacity, he visited Taiwan in 2015, 2018 and 2021, including meetings with President Tsai Ing-wen. 

Richard was reelected in 2017, this time as a member of La République En Marche! (LREM).

Honors
  Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon (2021)

References

External links
Page on the Senate website

1945 births
Living people
Politicians from Paris
Unified Socialist Party (France) politicians
Socialist Party (France) politicians
La République En Marche! politicians
French Ministers of Defence
Deputies of the 6th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Deputies of the 7th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Deputies of the 8th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Deputies of the 9th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Members of Parliament for Val-d'Oise
French Senators of the Fifth Republic
Senators of Val-d'Oise
Members of the Conseil d'État (France)
Mayors of places in Île-de-France
Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation
Lycée Henri-IV alumni
Sciences Po alumni
École nationale d'administration alumni
Recipients of the Order of Propitious Clouds