Jean Messiha

A candidate in the 2017 French legislative election to represent Aisne's 4th constituency in the National Assembly, Messiha was defeated in the second round by La République En Marche! candidate Marc Delatte, with 43.73% of valid votes against Delatte's 56.27%.

Messiha became a naturalized French citizen at the age of 20, changing his first name to "Jean" in the process. He has described himself as a "naturalized ethnic Frenchman" (French: Français de souche par naturalisation) and "Arab outside, French inside". In February 2017, he was surprised to learn that, in spite of his naturalization, he was still considered an immigrant by the national statistics bureau of France, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE).

Messiha became an advisor to Marine Le Pen in 2014. In May 2016, he became the spokesperson of the "Horaces", a group of high-ranking civil servants and business executives, supporting Marine Le Pen, who meet once a month and discuss the political platform of the National Rally. While the group announces more than 155 members, Messiha is the only one whose name has been publicly known so far. According to Dominique Albertini of Libération, Messiha's role within the National Rally is to represent "the drawing power of [the party] towards high-ranking civil servants".

Messiha graduated from Sciences Po, where one of his professors was Henri Guaino. He earned a PhD in Economics. His thesis was about the budgetary policies of the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty. He graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 2005.

Messiha began his career as a high-ranking civil servant in 2005. He was appointed as deputy under-secretary of management at the Ministry of Defence in 2014.

Jean Messiha (born Hossam Messiha, Arabic: حسام مسيحة ‎‎, 10 September 1970) is a French economist, senior civil servant and politician. He became Deputy Under-Secretary for Management at the Ministry of Defence in 2014. A member of the National Rally (RN) since 2016, he is the spokesman of Horaces, a group of high-ranking civil servants and business executives who meet once a month to discuss the party platform. He was a candidate in the 2017 legislative election in Aisne's 4th constituency.

He was born Hossam Boutros Messiha in 1970 in Cairo, Egypt, to a family of Coptic Christians; his father was a diplomat. He lived in Bogotá, Colombia from the age of 3 to 7. At the age of 8, he arrived with his family in France, reportedly "not speaking a word of French". He then grew up in Mulhouse.