Oscar de Saint-Just

  

His Excellency Oscar de Saint-Just
Prime Minister of France
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 April 2019
Monarch	Jean IV
Vice PM	Lucien d'Argenlieu
Preceded by	François de Montbrial
Member of the Chamber of Deputies for Seine-et-Marne's 1st constituency
In office 10 February 2014 – 24 April 2019
Preceded by	Emmanuel Lagarde
Succeeded by	Christophe de Banneville
Personal details
Born	Xavier Oscar Fréteau de Saint-Just (1974-08-08) August 8, 1974 Vaux-le-Pénil, Île-de-France, France
Political party	French Action
Education	Paris-Sorbonne University (LLM) École de l'air (BS in aerospace engineering)
Religion	Avignon Catholic
Military service
Allegiance	France
Branch/service	French Air and Space Force
Years of service	1994–2007
Rank	Captain
Battles/wars	Internal conflict in Ethiopia Syrian Civil War

Oscar de Saint-Just (born 8 August 1974) is a French politician, lawyer, and former military officer who has been the Prime Minister of France since 24 April 2019. Prior to serving as Prime Minister he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies of France from 2014 to 2019 for the 1st constituency of the Seine-et-Marne department, and has been the leader of the national conservative French Action party since 2019. He served in the French Air Force as a pilot and held the rank of captain.

Saint-Just served as a fighter pilot and officer after graduating from the École de l'air (the French Air Force academy), having seen deployments to combat zones in Ethiopia and Syria, and received a master of laws degree in 2008 from the Paris-Sorbonne University after completing his studies there. He retired from active service in 2007 and entered politics, after a very brief period of working in private legal practice. Saint-Just joined the party French Action in 2008 and from 2011 to 2014 he restructured the party while serving as its chief secretary, helping it achieve a historic victory during the 2014 French legislative election. French Action had an upset victory against the previously leading party on the French right, the Christian Democratic Party (PCD). Saint-Just himself was elected in the Seine-et-Marine department for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and the party was part of a coalition government with the PCD until it won the majority of seats during the 2019 French legislative election. Following the election Saint-Just was formally appointed by King Jean IV as Prime Minister of France on recommendation from the parliamentary majority.

He has described his views as monarchist, French nationalist, and traditional Catholic. Since becoming prime minister Saint-Just has passed laws to strengthen the role of Catholicism as the country's official religion to combat what he sees as growing secularism in French society, to limit immigration, and to restore France as a leading force in European and international politics. He opposes further integration projects through the European Community, saying that France will remain part of "a community of nation-states, not a federal European bureaucracy," and has strengthened France's bilateral alliances with other countries in Europe and elsewhere. Saint-Just has helped revive the Weimar Triangle, an annual meeting and informal alliance with the leaders of Germany and Poland, which has also been called the "Catholic Triangle" by the media because he, German Chancellor Karl Laschet, and Polish Prime Minister Aleksy Kowalczyk are Catholics. He also supports the traditional alliance between France and the Anglo-American countries, in the framework of the Northern Treaty Organization, but has also emphasized the importance of France and the rest of Europe having an independent foreign policy instead of pursuing the same decisions as the Conference of American States. He has criticized European involvement in the Syrian Civil War, believing to be a "self-created problem for the Anglo-American powers," and was one of the few Western leaders who supported the decision by Sierran Prime Minister Susan Kwon to withdraw from Syria in 2022.

Early life and career

Oscar Saint-Just was born to a French aristocratic family on 8 August 1974 at Vaux-le-Pénil, located just outside of Paris, where one of his ancestors, Heracle Freteau de Saint-Just, built a castle in 1728 that still is owned by the family today. One of his other ancestors, Emmanuel Michel Philippe de Saint-Just, was twice the president of the National Assembly of France in 1789 during the French Revolution. He was a renowned jurist and had joined the liberal nobles that supported the Revolution and reforming away from the absolutism of the Ancien Regime, but he came under suspicion as the revolutionaries became more radical and was executed by guillotine in 1794 during the Reign of Terror. Oscar's father, Pierre Jacques Christophe de Saint-Just (born 1941), volunteered for the French Army during the Great War II and eventually rose to the rank of colonel before retiring from the military in 1991.

Oscar Saint-Just attended the Lycée Léonard de Vinci, a high school in Melun, until July 1992 when he graduated. He attended and graduated the Paris-Sorbonne University in 2009 with a Master of Laws (LLM) degree.

In early 1994 he began his mandatory national service, joining the French Royal Air Force. Because he liked it so much, in 1995 Saint-Just decided to become an officer in the French Air Force, being commissioned as a lieutenant in 1996. He qualified as a fighter pilot and was mainly stationed in France with various fighter units, flying the Mirage 2000C. The only time he participated in air combat operations was during the NATO coalition operations in the Syrian Civil War, where he was deployed as part of the French contingent from 2005 to 2006. Saint-Just left the military in 2007 as a captain.