Born in Mazères de Neste in 1937, Josette Durrieu was a member of the French Senate between 1992 and 2017.
For 25 years, Josette Durrieu was a member of the French Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, of which she was also vice-president.
Her local roles in the Hautes-Pyrénées, which lasted thirty years, began in 1985 with her election as General Councillor, a post she held until 2015 and being the only woman in the assembly for more than 12 years. She was also President of the Departmental Assembly from 2008 to 2011.
A tireless worker, capable of taking on so many roles in such a vast area, she became a specialist in Eastern Europe, and in 2019 was co-author of a book entitled "Republic of Moldova at the crossroads of the worlds".
Josette Durrieu chaired the Assembly’s Middle East and Maghreb Sub-Committee and initiated the Assembly being opened up to the Maghreb countries back in 2005 by defining a differentiated status for these non-European countries, known as "partner for democracy status", which was adopted in 2009. Morocco was the first country to be welcomed, followed by Palestine, Jordan and Kyrgyzstan.
The daughter of members of the French Resistance during the Second World War (her father was deported to Dachau), this solid and honest personality, whose voice was listened to at the Assembly, was marked by her childhood. After the war and the German occupation, she was convinced of the need to work towards bringing peoples together and strengthening Europe in order to maintain peace.
The project “75 women in 75 years of Council of Europe history” is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to the Council of Europe with the Council of Europe and the Permanent Representations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
