of Labourd and now in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department), located south of her father's political base of Biarritz, near Saint-Jean-de-Luz; she stayed on until 1988. In 1989, she was elected to another council, this time in Biarritz, alongside her father. In 1990, as part of the municipal majority behind the first Deputy Mayor Didier Borotra of the UDF-CDS, she passed draft legislation in opposition to build a hotel-casino on the front of the main beach of the town, which caused a collapse of the council. Early municipal elections in 1991 were won by Didier Borotra, who united the local UDF, two elected Socialists, and Basque nationalists, who provided additional support. She left the council at the same time that her father was defeated as Mayor. She then served as Mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz from 1995 until 2002, and as First Deputy Mayor since then. She was also a member and a Vice President of the General Council of Pyrénées-Atlantiques between 1994 and 2001. National politics Alliot-Marie was elected to the National Assembly to represent Pyrénées-Atlantiques in 1986 as a member of the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR). She has been seating in the Assembly ever since, except when she sat in the government; this is due to the French law on Cumul des mandats (literally: "accumulation of mandates") that prohibit cabinet ministers from simultaneously serving as deputies in the French National Assembly; her alternate as Deputy was Daniel Poulou, who served from 1993 to 1995 and again from 2002 to 2011 when she served as Cabinet Minister. She served as Secretary of State (junior minister) for Schools under the Minister of National Education in Jacques Chirac's second government from 1986 to 1988 and as Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports in Édouard Balladur's government from 1993 to 1995. From 1989 to 1993, she was a Member of the European Parliament as a member of the political group European Democratic Alliance. President of the RPR In 1999, "MAM" entered the challenge for the presidency of the RPR against Chirac's candidate and, to most insiders' surprise, won by a landslide, becoming the first woman to lead a major French political party. She remained President of the party until 2002 when it merged with the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a merger she opposed at first. Defense ministership Alliot-Marie was Minister of Defense during Jacques Chirac's second presidential term, France's first woman in