Marielle de Sarnez (; 27 March 195113 January 2021) was a French politician who served as Secretary of State for European Affairs under Prime Minister Édouard Philippe. A member of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) until 2008 when she joined the Democratic Movement (MoDem), de Sarnez was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 until her appointment as Minister for European Affairs in the Phillipe government in 2017. De Sarnez resigned after a month due to a scandal involving alleged payment for work she did not perform, but was elected a few days later to represent the 11th constituency of Paris in the National Assembly. She was a committed Europeanist and centrist, pushing the MoDem to resist currents on each end of the political spectrum. De Sarnez was a longtime collaborator to party president and three-time candidate for the presidency of France, François Bayrou. Early life Marielle de Sarnez was born in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on 27 March 1951 and grew up in a family with close ties to the French political establishment. From 1961 to 1967, her Gaullist father Olivier de Sarnez, who had been in the French Resistance, was chief of staff to Roger Frey, Interior Minister, and her mother was responsible for floral arrangements at the Élysée Palace. Nevertheless de Sarnez joined the May 1968 protests while still a high school student, was kicked out of Lycée Sainte-Marie de Passy Catholic girls school and participated in the occupation of neighboring boys school Lycée Jean-Baptiste Say. (Her father was elected as a deputy to the National Assembly on the Gaullist conservative Union of Democrats for the Republic—UDR—ticket a month later.) After earning her baccalaureate from Lycée La Fontaine, de Sarnez began working in retail. Career Early career In 1973, Ladislas Wroblewski, who cofounded the Independent Republicans (RI) party with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, offered de Sarnez a part-time role as secretary of the Young RI arm. At RI, she met Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who went on to become prime minister; Dominique Bussereau, who became president of the ; and eventual Minister of Justice Pascal Clément. She was involved in the Presidential campaign the next year, creating popular "Giscard à la barre" ("Giscard at the helm”) t-shirts. Giscard d'Estaing was elected and de Sarnez rose quickly through the ranks. Later de Sarnez grew disappointed by the rightward turn, especially the anti-abortion politics, that the new administration