Philippe de Villiers

1995 presidential bid

From 1976 to 1978, De Villiers served as a senior civil servant in the Chirac administration. In 1981, he resigned his post as subprefect because he did not want to serve the government of the Socialist President François Mitterrand. In 1986 and 1987, he briefly served as Secretary of State for Culture (Secrétaire d'État auprès du Ministre de la Culture) in the second government of Jacques Chirac, under Minister François Léotard. His appointment was initially viewed badly by Libération and several other press agencies, which referred to his "ambiguous personality". However, Villiers supported Leotard's mixed, non-ideological policy towards French culture.

In 1987, he was elected into local office as a member in Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's Republican Party. He became a rising star within the Union for French Democracy. During the public debate over the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union, in 1992, he achieved lasting prominence in the media as an anti-Treaty activist. This set him apart from most prominent members of the mainstream political right. The French people narrowly ratified the Treaty in September 1992.

De Villiers led an anti-European integration list in 1994 receiving about 12 percent of the votes, placing it in third place behind the Gaullists and the Socialists. Villiers centered the campaign on opposition to the European Union along with a call to eliminate corruption in government. In November 1994, Villers left the Republican Party to form Movement for France. He ran for President of France in 1995 and received about 5 percent of the vote.

De Villiers was born in Boulogne in the department of Vendée, Western France, the second of five children and eldest son of Jacques Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon (born in Nancy, 14 November 1913) and his wife Edwige d'Arexy (born in Nantes, 1 July 1925). His paternal grandfather, Louis Le Jolis de Villiers, born at Brucheville on 17 October 1874, was killed in action in World War I at Saint-Paul-en-Forêt on 10 September 1914. On 24 October 1904, he had married Jeanne de Saintignon (27 July 1880 – 25 August 1959), by whom he had five children, the youngest of whom was Philippe's father, Jacques.

De Villiers received a master's degree in Law in 1971, graduated from the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1973 and from the École nationale d'administration in 1978. After his studies, De Villiers became a successful entrepreneur. He created the Puy du Fou, one of the most visited theme parks in France, as a living showcase for its history. The theme park includes a replica medieval city with the 'Gallo-Roman Stadium', a colosseum designed by De Villiers to stoke patriotic feeling by recreating Gallic rebellions against Imperial Rome. The Puy du Fou park received awards from the Themed Entertainment Association in 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2019.

He is married to Dominique du Buor de Villeneuve, born in Valenciennes on 4 October 1950 and has seven children.

Political philosophy

Villiers is a nationalist, a traditionalist, and a leading eurosceptic. He has self-described as a "rooted conservative". During his tenure under François Léotard, he said that he shared Léotard's American-based "libertarian liberalism". In 1995, The Economist referred to him as "an ephemeral Catholic monarchist".

He advocates cutting taxes, expelling all illegal immigrants, and preventing Turkey from joining the EU. He is a vocal critic of the European Union's relationship with France, accusing it of "destroying their jobs, their security and their identity" and saying that "the Europe of Brussels is an anti-democratic dictatorship". He was a leader of the side advocating a 'No' vote in the 2005 French referendum of the European Constitution. The 'No' side won the vote, which the activists believed constituted a major victory for Euroscepticism in France. Villiers then launched a campaign to restore the franc, remarking that "Everybody notes today that the adoption of the euro was a technical success but its economic, political and human toll is incontestable."

Villiers opposes immigration into France in general, but he has advocated that "individual cases be treated with the greatest humanity." He also opposes expelling current immigrants residing in France or subjecting them to discrimination in housing, employment, or other spheres. Despite their differences on these and other issues, the National Front's Jean Marie Le Pen has remarked that Villiers' ideas were "lifted" from him and that their "votes should be added together".

Villiers coined the phrase "Polish Plumber" in a June 2005 political speech about the Bolkestein directive, referring to the perceived threat of cheap East European labour to French wages. The mythical figure became a central point of debate in France, and it later prompted an international controversy. He has also referred to the "Latvian mason" and the "Estonian gardener."

American author Harvey Gerald Simmons has compared the "Villiers phenomenon" to Ross Perot's support in the 1992 American Presidential election. He stated that De Villiers has a populist, anti-establishment image that puts him on the edges of the mainstream political right of France rather than in the far right.

Criticism of Islam

De Villiers is known for his criticism of Islam in France. He has stated, "I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France" and, "I do not think Islam is compatible with the French Republic". He advocates ending all construction of mosques, banning all Islamist organisations suspected of links to terrorism, and expelling extremist individuals from France.

De Villiers published Les mosquées de Roissy: nouvelles révélations sur l'islamisation en France (The Mosques of Roissy: New Revelations about Islamization in France) in 2006. In it he alleged, using internal documents from whistleblowers, that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated security personnel at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris. The book led to revocation of seventy-two employees' security clearances and closure of six makeshift Muslim prayer rooms.

Der Spiegel, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle have labelled De Villiers as "far right" because of his views of Islam and of Muslim immigrants.