Overview
- He died Sunday in Paris after a probable cardiac malaise, according to the Samu Social, with the account confirmed by Samu Social International president Jacques Carles.
- Tributes followed from across public life, including President Emmanuel Macron, who hailed him as "a great humanist of our Republic."
- He created the Samu Social de Paris in 1993 and launched Samu Social International in 1998, establishing mobile outreach teams and the 115 emergency line for people without shelter.
- The international network now counts more than fifteen Samu sociaux aiding homeless people, street children, refugees and displaced persons from Cairo to Lima and from Bucharest to Dakar.
- A former secretary of state for emergency humanitarian action, he later chaired France’s housing committee from 1997 to 2015 and resigned from the Paris Samu Social in 2011 citing funding cuts and bureaucratic inertia.