Sylvain Garel

Sylvain Garel was born in 1956, in the 18th district of Paris. He has a master in Contemporary History and is specialized in Film History.

He entered politics at the age of 17, in the Ecologist movement, after the campaigning for René Dumont who was the first French ecologist to run for Presidency. He joined the Green Party in 1989.

He was trained as a teacher, he is a historian and film critic. Garel founded the festival for Cinema of Quebec in France in 1991, which he presided six years long. Member of Crtitic's week, he attends the Cannes Festival during 25 years. He was also as the vice-president of the French Trade Union for Cinema Critics.

An ardent anti-fascist, Garel in the early 90's cofounded "Ras l'Front", a French network fighting racialism and white supremacism.

Sylvain Garel is a Paris city councillor of Europe Écologie–The Greens in 2001, former President of the Greens group, who deploying a banner in support of Chinese and Tibetan political prisonners when the 2008 Olympic torch was at the Eiffel tower. On 29 January 2009, at a reception for the Chinese New Year at the Paris city hall, he submitted a memorandum requesting the release of Chinese and Tibetan political prisoners.

One of his political goal is to have the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X evicted from the Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet church in Paris. In 2002, he made the Paris municipal council pass a resolution against what he pretends to be an illegal occupation,. On the 8th december 2003, he supports 200 illegal migrants to occupy this church during several hours. They had to leave the building after the intervention of a parishioners,. President of the district council of Montmartre, he turns the famous butte into the first green district of the capitale.

In 2004, Garel opposes municipal subsidies for Jewish Loubavitch cribs, claiming that they discriminates against non-Jewish children.

In 2006, Garel opposes giving John Paul II's name to public place in front of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Garel quotes the late pope's opposition to abortion as one of the reasons for not honouring him, other reasons being opposition to safe sex practices and opposition to contraception.

In 2010, Sylvain Garel, a conscientious objector and anti-militarist, calls for a National Day without military parade.

In septembre 2010, Garel opposes an settlement between the City of Paris and its former mayor Jacques Chirac, in a corruption scandal. In october 2010, Garel promotes the opening of an experimental drug consumption room in Paris who has since opened.

In 2011, he publicly expresses a protest against a marble stele, erected in the Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet church to the memory of victims for their fidelity to French Algeria.

In June 2011, Garel appears on the "shame list" of French politicians published by Europe-Israel, a lobby fighting antisemitism, bigotry, and anti-Zionism.

Garel was appointed in 2014 as a project manager for the International relationships of the City of Paris. Since 2016, he works at the Association Internationale des Maires Francophones (AIMF) for promoting French-language cinema.