Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. Fabius was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. Fabius was also President of the National Assembly from 1988 to 1992 and again from 1997 to 2000. Fabius served in the government as Minister of Finance from 2000 to 2002 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2016. Early life Fabius was born in the affluent 16th arrondissement of Paris, the son of Louise (née Strasburger-Mortimer; 1911–2010) and André Fabius (1908–1984). He is the younger brother of Catherine Leterrier and François Fabius. His parents were from Ashkenazi Jewish families who converted to Catholicism. Fabius was raised a Catholic; he has three sons, David (1978) with his partner Christine d'Izarny Gargas {source: birth certificate extract}, Thomas (1981) and Victor (1983) by his spouse, Françoise Castro. Fabius' received secondary education at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly and Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he was a pupil of Donald Adamson. Fabius then went up to institutions that are training grounds for academics (École normale supérieure), and senior civil servants and executives (Sciences Po, École nationale d'administration). Political career After his studies, Fabius became an auditor for the Council of State. A member of the Socialist Party (PS) since 1974, Fabius was first elected to the National Assembly in 1978 for the fourth constituency of Seine-Maritime. Fabius quickly gained entry to the circle of François Mitterrand, the leader of the party. In Government: 1981–1984 When Mitterrand was elected as President of France in 1981, Fabius was nominated as Minister of the Budget. Two years later, Fabius became Minister of Industry, and pursued the policy of "industrial restructuring". In 1984, in a government shake-up, Mitterrand chose Fabius as Prime Minister (choosing Fabius over Pierre Bérégovoy and Jacques Delors). At the age of 37 he was the youngest French prime minister since 1819. Prime Minister: 1984–1986 Fabius advocated a new kind of French socialism, which accepted the market economy. It marked a shift away from traditional socialist concerns with state ownership and instead looked for ways to modernize industry, and increase productivity, even at the cost of some jobs. Fabius also worked to