Thierry Mariani

Thierry Mariani is a French politician serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019 elected on the list of the Rassemblement National (RN) / National Rally (former National Front) without, however, joining the party. At the EP, among other committees, he is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Delegation to the Cariforum-EU Parliamentary Committee, Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan, EU-Uzbekistan and EU-Tajikistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees and for relations with Turkmenistan and Mongolia, Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

From 1976, Mariani held several offices in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: General Councillor of Vaucluse from 1988 to 2001, Mayor of Valréas from 1989 to 2005, and others. He was a member of the French Parliament between 1993 and 2017, as well as Secretary of State and then Minister for Transport from 2010 to 2012. In the 2021 regional elections, he headed RN's list in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur where he now serves as a Regional Councillor.

He was one of the founding members of the questionable European Academy for Election Observation. Mariani is the head of the openly pro-Kremlin French-Russian Dialogue Association. He illegally travelled to Crimea as part of a larger French delegation in 2017. He was part of the politically biased election observation missions at the 2017 Russian regional elections and the 2018 presidential election. Moreover, he observed the illegitimate 2018 general elections in the DPR.