Biography

Born to a Maltese

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 father and Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 mother in Sousse

Sousse

Sousse is a city in Tunisia. Located 140 km south of the capital Tunis, the city has 173,047 inhabitants . Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. The name may be of Berber origin: similar names are found in Libya and in...

 in Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

, in 1963 Fenech's family was repatriated in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where they settled in Givors

Givors

Givors is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.It lies on the Rhône River about south of Lyon and on the main road between that city and Saint-Étienne. The city has long served as a crossroads between the communities of the Rhône River and those of the Loire River...

. After studying for a law degree, he started a career as a judge. One of his most high profile cases was the investigation on the assassination of the judge François Renaud

François Renaud

François Renaud was a French judge whose murder in 1975 led to much speculation, but was never solved. He was the first judge in France to have been assassinated since World War II. His death inspired the French film Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff , directed by Yves Boisset.-Life:Renaud was born in...

 (nicknamed "le shérif" by Lyon's underworld) in Lyon on July 3, 1975. Georges Fenech was president of the judges trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 Association Professionnelle des Magistrats (APM) until 1998. He resigned following the publication of an article by Alain Terrail in the APM's journal. The article criticised the Jewish Procureur (District Attoney) of Toulon, Albert Lévy, using the phrase Tant va Lévy au four qu’à la fin il se brûle (Lévy went so often to the oven that he got burnt). In his role of publisher of the magazine, Fenech was found guilty of racist public insult against the Jewish magistrate.

He started a political career with his 2002 election as a member of Assemblée Nationale (representing the Rhône

Rhône

Rhone can refer to:* Rhone, one of the major rivers of Europe, running through Switzerland and France* Rhône Glacier, the source of the Rhone River and one of the primary contributors to Lake Geneva in the far eastern end of the canton of Valais in Switzerland...

 as a member of Union for a Popular Movement

Union for a Popular Movement

The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...

 (UMP) and was re-elected in 2007.
He is a strong advocate of zero tolerance

Zero tolerance

Zero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...

 policy in criminal matters. He was the president of the parliamentary commission for the monitoring of cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

s. On 27 March 2008 the Conseil Constitutionnel canceled his re-election on the grounds of violation of campaign finance laws ("articles 52-8 et LO136-1 du code électoral") and made him ineligible for one year. Fenech has protested the decision and appealed to president Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....

. On 23 September 2008 Fenech was appointed president of MIVILUDES

MIVILUDES

MIVILUDES , a French government agency, has the task of:* observing and analyzing movements perceived as constituting a threat to public order or that violate French law*...

, a body within the French executive in charge of monitoring cults. He is the authors on books zero tolerance policy and on cults.

External links

• Georges Fenech French National Assembly