Noëlle Lenoir

Françoise Noëlle Monique Lenoir (; née Fréaud, 27 April 1948) is a French retired politician who served as Minister for European Affairs from 2002 to 2004 under Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. She previously was a member of the Constitutional Council from 1992 to 2001.

Early life and education Lenoir was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine. She is a graduate of Sciences Po and the Paris Law Faculty.

Career After qualifying as a lawyer and the achievement of the Senate administrator competition, Lenoir was appointed, from 1972 to 1982, at the law Committee of the French Senate. During her time at the Senate, she was in charge of not only the Justice budget, but also the follow-up and review of criminal law, immigration law, and human rights law. Following 10 years at the High Assembly, Noelle Lenoir joined the regulation management of the newly formed national data protection authority Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) as Chief Legal Officer, from 1982 until 1984. She followed the implementation of the French Data Processing and Liberty Law and she particularly focused on marketing, health data and the applicability of the law in the Scientific and Statistics domains as well as transborder on transfers of data in addition to enquiries by the CNIL.

She became a local representative of the City of Valmandois (Val d'Oise) for the first time in 1977. By 1989 she was elected mayor of Valmondois until 1995,

Member of the Constitutional Council She was appointed as the first woman and youngest person to the French Constitutional Council, where she served the Court's nine-year term from 1992 to 2001.

Aside from being a constitutional Justice, Noelle Lenoir chaired the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee and drafted the Human Genome and Human Rights Declaration, which the United Nations endorsed in 1998 on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1991, she is also appointed by the European Commission presided by Jacques Delors as a member of the European Ethics and Science & Technology Group (GEE). Then, in 1994, she is elected as President of this group and reelected by its members twice.

She left her position at the GEE in 2000 to travel to the United States where she was, an adjunct law professor at the Law university of Columbia, New York City before joining the Paris Bar in 2001.

Junior Minister for European Affairs Lenoir was appointed in 2002 Junior Minister for European Affairs by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. During her tenure she was involved in a number of negotiations with central and oriental European countries on their way to join the European Union and the follow-up of the constitutional treaty. In addition, she defended France's positions on various European proposals and legislation. Finally, she is the first woman appointed, with her counterpart the German minister of European affairs, to the position of General Secretary for France-German Cooperation (SGFA).

Legal practice Noëlle Lenoir joined Debevoise & Plimpton LLP's the Paris office as Of-Counsel in 2004. In 2006–2007 she was appointed by the French Minister of Justice to conduct an evaluation of the status of the European Company (SE) (report delivered on 19 March 2007).

Mayor of Valmondois Lenoir ran again for the mayor in 2008 Between 22 May 2017 and 30 April 2020, she was a member of the panel of independent experts or ICRP (along with Theo Waigel, former Finance Minister of Germany, and Lord Gold) designated by Airbus to examine the compliance within the company and monitor the improvements needed.

After having been appointed by the French Minister of Justice, she acted as Commissioner under the 1970 Hague Convention on the taking of evidence abroad in civil and commercial matters in charge of ensuring compliance of the discovery process set up in relation with the tragic fire at the Grenfell Apartment complex in London with the French Blocking Statute and GDPR.

In July 2020, Lenoir created her own law firm – Noëlle Lenoir Avocats – and was referenced by Décideurs among the 30 best lawyers.

Current educational activities / think tank Noëlle Lenoir taught at Sciences-Po Paris and the Faculty of law of Paris (apart from Columbia Law School and University College London). She is currently an Associate Professor and President of the European Institute at the Hautes Etudes de Commerce in Paris. In an interview with the Journal de Dimanche, she denied any conflict. In 2024 and 2025, she attracted attention after strenuous media defences of Israel and its armed forces during the Gaza conflict, becoming a favoured commentator of the CNews television channel. In August 2025, SOS Racisme filed a complaint against Noëlle Lenoir, accusing her of having made racist remarks about Algerians on a Vincent Bolloré channel.

Press / media Lenoir is a columnist on European matters for a variety of French newspapers. She was editor for the BFM radio station, France-Culture radio, France 24 TV station in partnership with HEC. She was responsible for the "Europe" blog of the L'Express weekly magazine till 2020. She has made several publications about the caricaturist Honoré Daumier. She is honorary President of the Society for the Friends of Daumier which she created in 1994.

Among others:

La Transparence administrative (en coll., 1987) with Bruno Lasserre and Bernard Stirn) Aux Frontières de la Vie : une Ethique Biomédicale à la Française. Les Normes Internationales de la Bioéthique (1998) Relever le défi des Biogechnologies (2000) La Justice, de Daumier à nos jours (1999) La Vie Politique, de Daumier à nos jours (2005) La Societas Europaea ou SE : Pour une Citoyenneté Européenne de l'Entreprise (2007) L'Europe, de Daumier à nos jours (2017)

Distinctions Grand officier de l'ordre national du Mérite (France) Officier de la Légion d'honneur (France) Grand officier de l'ordre de Léopold II (Belgium) Commandeur de l'ordre du Mérite (Poland) Commandeur de l'ordre du Mérite de la République fédérale d'Allemagne (Germany)

Other distinctions Honoris Causa, Suffolk University (US) Honoris Causa, University College London (UK)

Teaching

Competition law and European Law at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University

Areas of practice

Compliance, Environmental Social Responsibility, Anticorruption and International investigations at National and International level Public Business Law and Constitutional Law Data Protection, Privacy and Cybersecurity European and Competition Law Litigation Regulatory