Michèle Rousseau has been reappointed President of BRGM for a new 5-year term.
2 April 2020
Michèle Rousseau, President of the BRGM

Michèle Rousseau, President of the BRGM. 

© BRGM 

Michèle Rousseau, a graduate of the French Ecole des Mines, was reappointed President of the Board of Directors of the Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM, French National Geological Survey) at the Council of Ministers meeting on 1 April 2020. She was first appointed President in March 2017, taking over from her predecessor Vincent Laflèche. 

Born in 1957, Michèle Rousseau headed the Environment Division of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Regional Directorate for Industry, Research and the Environment (DRIRE) from 1983 to 1987. She then went on to manage the fibres and waste division of the Ministry of the Environment's Directorate for water and pollution and risk prevention. From 1990 to 1995, she was the Deputy Director for professional electronics and industrial IT with the Ministry for Industry. 

From 1995 to 1998, she took the post of Deputy Director of the Nuclear Installations Safety Directorate for the Ministries of the Environment and Industry, before joining the French Research and Innovation Agency, ANVAR, as Deputy Director. Subsequently, from 2001 to 2005, she became the Director for Gas, Electricity and Coal with the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, then Director for Energy Demand and Markets. 

She was the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development from 2005 to 2007, then Director and Deputy Commissioner-General for Sustainable Development from 2008 to 2011. She worked from 2011 to 2015 as the Executive Director of the Seine-Normandy Water Agency. 

In 2016, she became a member of the General Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development (CGEDD), under which she chaired the Government Authority for the Hauts-de-France Region. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of EDF. 

She was appointed President of the Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM) in 2017, replacing Vincent Laflèche. Michèle Rousseau has been reappointed President of BRGM for a five-year term.

Screes and rocky ridges of the Col d'Izoard, Haute-Alpes, France

I am delighted to have been reappointed at the head of the BRGM. During the current health crisis, my priority will of course be to protect the health of our employees while ensuring that BRGM can continue its activities as efficiently as possible thanks to the widespread implementation of teleworking. In the years to come, geosciences will prove their usefulness and importance to society by improving geological knowledge and thus helping to prevent subsurface risks, protect the population, find new groundwater supplies or renewable heating and strategic mineral resources, and find solutions for storing energy or CO2. There are many challenges that lie ahead and BRGM will rise to them.

Michèle Rousseau, President of the BRGM