{{Short description|French doctor and politician (1938–2025)}} {{Expand French| Xavier Emmanuelli|date=November 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2025}} [[File:Xavier Emmanuelli.jpg|thumb|right|Emmanuelli in 2007]] '''Xavier Emmanuelli''' (23 August 1938 – 16 November 2025) was a French doctor and politician. He was the co-founder of [[Médecins Sans Frontières]].<ref>[https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/l-info-de-france-inter/l-info-de-france-inter-8747125 Mort de Xavier Emmanuelli, l'un des pères du Samu Social et de Médecins Sans Frontières] {{in lang|fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Xavier Emmanuelli, fondateur du Samusocial, est mort à l'âge de 87 ans | website=[[Le Monde]] | url=https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/11/16/xavier-emmanuelli-fondateur-du-samusocial-est-mort-a-l-age-de-87-ans_6653663_3382.html }}</ref>
==Life and career== Xavier Emmanuelli was born to Corsican parents. His father, a schoolteacher and later a doctor, was from Zalana, and his mother, also a schoolteacher, was from Propriano. Members of the Resistance during World War II, they hid Jewish children and were recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations." He has two sisters, Anne Marie Emmanuelli-Orecchioni, a university professor (faculty of pharmacy), and Claire Emmanuelli-Zara, a gynecologist,<ref name="Deldique">Pierre-Edouard Deldique, interview de Xavier Emmanuelli pour l'émission ''Idées'' sur [[Radio France internationale|RFI]], 29 juillet 2012</ref> and a brother, Jean-Marc Emmanuelli, a gynecologist and surgeon, president of the Association of Corsican Doctors, founded by their father after World War II with island doctors exiled in Paris.<ref>{{Cite news|author=Christophe Deloire|title=Les Corses qui comptent|newspaper=Le Point|date=27 June 2003|volume=|issue=1606|pages=44|language=fr}}</ref>
During his student years, he hesitated between philosophy and medicine. A communist activist, he was a university friend of [[Bernard Kouchner]],<ref name=Siméant/> with whom he participated in the anti-fascist security service,<ref name="Siméant">« Entrer, rester en humanitaire : des fondateurs de MSF aux membres actuels des ONG médicales françaises », Johanna Siméant-Germanos, ''[[Revue française de science politique]]'', 2001 [https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RFSP_511_0047]</ref> then in an expedition to Jordan in September 1970.<ref>« MSF, une vie de révoltes », Jean-Francis Pécresse, 20 décembre 2001 [https://www.lesechos.fr/2001/12/msf-une-vie-de-revoltes-1054744]</ref> This anti-colonialist was an occasional cartoonist for [[Hara-Kiri (magazine)|Hara-Kiri]].<ref name="Deldique"/> Along with [[Rony Brauman]], he was one of the many members of the Cochin group of friends who had a "strong propensity" to "experience activism as an opportunity to go" primarily "beat up fascists",<ref name=Siméant/> against whom he "frequently got into fistfights."<ref>"Chapitre 1. 1968-1976 Le « coup » des fondateurs"" par Pascal Dauvin et Johanna Siméant-Germanos, dans "Le travail humanitaire", en 2002 [https://www.cairn.info/le-travail-humanitaire--9782724608690-page-35.htm]</ref><ref>« Entrer, rester en humanitaire : des fondateurs de MSF aux membres actuels des ONG médicales françaises », Johanna Siméant-Germanos, ''[[Revue française de science politique]]'', 2001 [https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RFSP_511_0047]</ref>
Emmanuelli ultimately opted for medicine, graduating in 1967 and then specializing in neurology and then in anesthesiology and intensive care in 1976. He was a general practitioner for the coal mining company at the Freyming-Merlebach Mining Hospital from 1972 to 1975, then a doctor in the merchant navy for two years.<ref>{{cite web |author=Bruno Frappat |date=6 June 2012 |title=Le casse-pied nécessaire |url=http://www.la-croix.com/Culture-Loisirs/Culture/Livres/Le-casse-pied-necessaire-_NG_-2012-06-06-815119 |website=La Croix |access-date=19 November 2025 |archive-date=8 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008214206/https://www.la-croix.com/Culture-Loisirs/Culture/Livres/Le-casse-pied-necessaire-_NG_-2012-06-06-815119 |url-status=dead }}<!-- auto-translated from French by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> Meanwhile, he joined the leadership of [[Doctors Without Borders]], where he reconnected with Rony Brauman, whom he had known during his activist years as a student at Cochin Hospital. He twice refused Brauman's requests for missions when he applied, in 1976 and 1978.<ref> ''Médecins Sans Frontières La biographie'', [[Anne Vallaeys]], 2004, éditions Médecins sans frontières</ref> He then trained in emergency medicine and joined the SAMU (Emergency Medical Service) under the direction of his mentor, Professor Pierre Huguenard, one of the founders of the SAMU.<ref name="Deldique"/> He has three children who also studied medicine.
In 1993, Emmanuelli co-founded the SAMU Social (Emergency Medical Service) of the city of Paris with Dominique Versini.{{cn|date=November 2025}} Since 1997, he has returned to practicing medicine and was head of the national network "Psychological Suffering and Precariousness," created in April 1998.<ref>{{cite web|date=6 October 1999 |title=Xavier Emmanuelli lance un réseau d'aide psy aux SDF |url=http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0101294827-xavier-emmanuelli-lance-un-reseau-d-aide-psy-aux-sdf |website=liberation.fr}}<!-- auto-translated from French by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
Between 1995 and 1997, Emmanuelli served as Secretary of State for Emergency Humanitarian Action in the first and second governments of [[Alain Juppé]].<ref name ="Le Monde 2025-11-16"/>
Emmanuelli died in Paris on 16 November 2025, at the age of 87, after a "probable cardiac" collapse, according to the announcement by Samu social.<ref>[https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/corse/xavier-emmanuelli-fondateur-du-samu-social-de-paris-est-decede-3250384.html ''Xavier Emmanuelli, fondateur du Samu social, est décédé'']</ref><ref>{{cite web|access-date=16 November 2025 |date=16 November 2025 |language=fr-FR |title=Xavier Emmanuelli, fondateur du Samu social, est mort à l'âge de 87 ans, annonce l'organisation |url=https://www.franceinfo.fr/societe/xavier-emmanuelli-fondateur-du-samu-social-est-mort-a-l-age-de-87-ans-annonce-l-organisation_7620347.html |website=Franceinfo}}<!-- auto-translated from French by Module:CS1 translator --></ref><ref name ="Le Monde 2025-11-16">{{cite news |title=Xavier Emmanuelli, fondateur du Samusocial, est mort à l’âge de 87 ans |work=Le Monde|date=16 November 2025 |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/11/16/xavier-emmanuelli-fondateur-du-samusocial-est-mort-a-l-age-de-87-ans_6653663_3382.html |access-date=16 November 2025 }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Emmanuelli, Xavier}} [[Category:1938 births]] [[Category:2025 deaths]] [[Category:French medical doctors]] [[Category:French founders]]