Editing Jean-Pierre Raffarin (section)

==Early life==
Born 3 August 1948, Raffarin grew up in [[Poitiers]], the son of a prominent national figure: his father [[Jean Raffarin]] was vice-minister of Agriculture in the government of [[Pierre Mendès France]] (1954–1955).<ref>{{cite news |title=Man in the News; A Leader to Lean On; Jean-Pierre Raffarin |first=John |last=Tagliabue |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/world/man-in-the-news-a-leader-to-lean-on-jean-pierre-raffarin.html |newspaper=New York Times |date=7 May 2002 |access-date=8 November 2010 }}</ref> He studied law at [[Panthéon-Assas University|Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Ripaux|first=Alain|title=Images et souvenirs du Poitou-Charentes|year=2004|publisher=Visualia|language=fr}}</ref> and later graduated from the [[ESCP Business School|École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris]]. He started his professional career in marketing.

In the 1970s, his first political commitment was in the association of [[Valéry Giscard d'Estaing]]'s young supporters. Defining himself as a "''giscardien''", he joined the staff of [[Lionel Stoléru]], Secretary of state for Manual Workers and Immigration, and the [[Republican Party (France)|Republican Party]], the liberal-conservative component of the centre-right confederation the [[Union for French Democracy]] (UDF).