The life of Joachim Son-Forget would provide enough material for a feature film. Now it takes another turn. Inside the SVP, the wires are running hot.
He likes to step out of line: Joachim Son-Forget in 2019, as a member of the French National Assembly.
If a production company were looking for a politician whose life you could turn into an entertaining film, Joachim Son-Forget would not be the worst address for them. A new chapter has just been added – the former French MP now wants to politicize with the SVP. But can he?
Son-Forget was born in 1983 in Seoul, South Korea. According to his own statements, he was abandoned on the street as an infant, picked up by the police and handed over to an orphanage. A French family adopted him before his first birthday, and he spent his childhood and youth in the provincial town of Langres.
He learned to play the harpsichord – later he filled renowned concert halls –, trained as a radiologist, practiced in various countries (Kosovo bestowed on him citizenship as a thank you) and indulges in his passion for sport shooting and fast motorbikes. Only a few days after the outbreak of the Ukraine war, he fought on his own through to Kyiv. There he “provided much more concrete help than all those who sat around at home despondently,” he said in April.
Escapades on Twitter
Politically, Son-Forget’s career, who has also had a Swiss passport since 2020, was no less spectacular: after turning his back on the (French) socialists, the quick thinker and talker became involved in the then still young movement “En marche” in France President Emmanuel Macron. He was promptly elected to the Paris National Assembly in 2017 for the French abroad.
He achieved some successes as a member of parliament, but he became known to a broader public primarily through his antics: he sat down on social networks bizarre selfies on scene, in front of the TV camera he announced a presidential candidacy, and when Donald Trump’s Twitter account was blocked, he pretended to be him. amused internet user had long since renamed it «Joachim Never-Forget».
He forestalled an alleged expulsion from Macron’s party by resigning himself, and from then on he politicized as an independent. Before the 2022 elections, however, he approached the party of far-right publicist Éric Zemmour without asserting himself as their candidate. This sealed his fate in the National Assembly – in the spring of 2022, just 4.3 percent of the French abroad in Switzerland and Liechtenstein voted for him.
He once praised the framework agreement
But a Son-Forget does not give in: The 39-year-old, who is again working full-time as a doctor, is planning a political comeback in Switzerland, as the French-speaking Swiss newspaper Blick first reported. However, the course does not run smoothly this time either.
Son-Forget chose SVP as his new home. The largest party in the country corresponds to his values most, he says on request. He means, among other things, the “preservation of one’s own culture”, the support of the army or the resistance against the “doomed” EU.
He doesn’t see it as a contradiction that he himself came to Europe as an immigrant. Nor did he, as a French member of parliament, emphasize the advantages of the framework agreement with the EU. “French diplomats” would have obliged him to do so at the time, and he also wanted to advertise the French Rafale fighter jet, he says today.
“You don’t eat in the kitchen”
Son-Forget lives and works in the canton of Geneva. Apparently he didn’t knock on the SVP’s door in his home canton, but in Yverdon-les-Bains in the canton of Vaud. There is, of course, some confusion surrounding this process.
In a Facebook post from December 29, Son-Forget repeatedly refers to Geneva and attests that the SVP there is in bad shape. However, because one “does not eat in the kitchen”, he did not apply to join the SVP Geneva – which party president Céline Amaudruz confirmed to RTS. It was the local section of Yverdon-les-Bains that offered him asylum. According to their own statements, their Vice President Ruben Ramchurn – himself also a controversial figure – and Son-Forget have been in contact with each other for years.
Ramchurn is pleased that a “proven free spirit” has got on board and assures that everything went according to the regulations when he joined the party. “It’s not a complicated matter for us: membership was approved with a short Whatsapp exchange within the board,” he says. Son-Forget also immediately paid the fee due.
Was there a decision?
Kevin Grangier, President of the Vaud SVP, contradicts this presentation in various ways: not only are there within the board, according to his information, “different opinions as to whether a decision has been made at all”. Above all, however, according to the applicable statutes, the committee does not even have the power to decide on admission. The general meeting is solely responsible for this, even if the agenda item is usually passed without discussion and tacitly.
In short: “At the moment, Joachim Son-Forget is not a member of the SVP Yverdon and therefore not of the cantonal party either,” says President Grangier. At most he was “provisionally admitted”, but this had to be accepted by the base. He now demands explanations from the local section about the “questionable procedure”. Formal steps are planned for next week.
Clarity about the – attempted – new beginning of the jack of all trades should therefore only be available in a few days. In any case, Son-Forget asserts that, despite the upcoming election year, he has no intention of running for a mandate for the time being. If the section of Yverdon actually accepts him, he would not be allowed to do so: first he would have to move to the canton of Vaud.