Bernard Kouchner is a doctor, a humanitarian activist and a French politician. Traveling very early on the planet, he joined left-wing political movements, published forums, notably on the Vietnam War, and became famous in the 1970s as the "French Doctor" who took a personal stand in regional conflicts in the 1970s at the origin of famines in Africa. In 1998, Bernard Kouchner participated in the creation of the NGO Médecins sans frontières. In 1993, he put his fame to the service of the fight against AIDS and created the Foundation for Humanitarian Action. Several times Secretary of State and Minister in socialist governments, he is called to sit at the UN Secretary-General at the time of the Kosovo war in 1999.

Appointed Minister of Foreign and European Affairs by François Fillon in 2007, he is then removed from the Socialist Party. Sometimes controversial in the practice of his consulting missions, Bernard Kouchner remains nevertheless a man solicited by the NGOs and the diplomatic organs. He is the author of several books on humanitarian engagement.