Didier Julia (born 18 February 1934) is a French politician. He was in 2007 representing the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) from Seine-et-Marne in the French National Assembly, a post he has held from 1967. He is mainly known for his interference in liberation operations of French hostages detained in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003. Didier Julia is doctor of State in Literature, agrégé in philosophy and university professor. He is in the Gaullist political family, a member of the UMP. He has been elected deputy for Fontainebleau since 1967. In 1998, he supported accepting the votes of the Front National in the regional Council of the Île-de-France region. He is a member of the commission of Foreign Affairs. A long-time friend of the government of Saddam Hussein, especially of Tariq Aziz, he was the leader of the pro-Iraqi lobby in the National Assembly until the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and their allies. He is also a member of groups promoting friendship toward Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, the United States, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Zambia. Didier Julia is the French member of the National Assembly who hold the record for longevity by the number of terms and years, with Jean Tiberi and Jean-Pierre Soisson (both since 1968), 11 terms and 45 years in the Assembly since 1967. In 2011, he announced that he will not contested his seat again for the legislative elections of 2012. The Iraq hostage affairs From 14 to 17 September 2002, in a context of growing tensions in the region, he went to Iraq with two other deputies of the UMP, Thierry Mariani and Éric Diard. The journey irritated President Jacques Chirac and Foreign affairs minister Dominique de Villepin, who called them "pieds nickelés" (a derogatory and mocking expression denoting incompetence and vanity). The three went back to Iraq in March 2003, just before war broke out. On 30 September 2004, while French diplomacy had been trying to obtain the liberation of Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, two journalists held hostage by the Islamic Army in Iraq, he went to Damascus. Three days later, he stated that he had succeeded in liberating the hostages, thanks to his contacts all over the world (mainly former baathists, and the President of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, who provided support, including the Ivorian presidential plane). He later said that he had eventually failed in extremis,