Pierre Lellouche (born 3 May 1951) is a French lawyer and politician of the Republicans who served as Secretary of State for Foreign Trade under the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry Christine Lagarde in the government of Prime Minister François Fillon. He was elected deputy of Sarcelles in 1993, and retained his seat at the National Assembly until 2002. Early life and education Lellouche was born in Tunis, Tunisia, among the small local Jewish community, one of four children of Noël Lellouche, who had fought in the Free French Forces during World War II. In 1956, when Tunisia became independent, the family moved to Paris, where Noël Lellouche worked for Renault and then ran a restaurant. He studied law at Paris Nanterre University, Sciences Po and Harvard Law School, where he received his SJD in 1978 with a doctoral thesis on the internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycle. Political career Early beginnings After working for the Iranian Atomic Agency and before joining the administration of the IRIS, directed by Pascal Boniface, he joined the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) from 1979 to 1988 where he dealt with political and strategic issues and became deputy editor of the magazine Politique étrangère. Lellouche was a member of the National Assembly of France, first for Val d'Oise's 8th constituency (1993-1997) and later for Paris' 4th constituency (1997-2009). In parliament, Lellouche served on the Defense Committee (1993-1994, 1997–2002) and the Committee on Foreign Affairs (1995-1997, 2002–2007). In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the French delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from 1997 until 2009; he served as the Assembly's president from November 2004 to 17 November 2006. From 2002, Lellouche was also a member of "The Reformers" within the UMP group, which advocated deep reform of the administration and liberalization of the economy. He also became widely known for the 2003 Lellouche law outlawing discrimination based on a variety of immutable characteristics, including national origin. This law has been described by Haaretz as "among the world's most potent tools to fight the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement." Following the 2007 French legislative election, his political allies Nicolas Sarkozy and François Fillon supported Lellouche as candidate for the chairmanship of the National Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs or the Defence Committee, but this was eventually vetoed by the chairman of the UMP's parliamentary group, Jean-François Copé. On