Nicolas Hulot was born in Lille on 30 April 1955.
He worked, in turn, as a reporter, TV presenter/producer and writer.
In 1987, Nicolas Hulot began presenting the programme Ushuaïa, le magazine de l’extrême, raising French viewers’ awareness of protecting nature.
Keen to use his public profile to help protect the planet, in 1990 he created the Ushuaïa Foundation, which later became the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Mankind. Registered as a charity in 1996, the NGO set itself a twofold objective: to inform the public of the environmental condition of the planet and to persuade as many people as possible of the need to change their behaviour.
In 2005, Nicolas Hulot called on deputies and senators to vote unanimously in favour of the Charter for the Environment. With the Challenge for the Earth, launched by his foundation in May 2005, he brought together more than 850,000 people who pledged to take action for the planet on a daily basis.
At the end of 2006, Nicolas Hulot proposed an Ecological Pact to the presidential election candidates, urging them to put environmental and climate concerns at the heart of public policy. Harnessing public enthusiasm, from September 2007 onwards, together with experts from his foundation, he helped organize the Grenelle de l’Environnement, a conference bringing together the government, local authorities, trade unions, business and voluntary sectors to draw up practical green policies.
Driven by a desire to show that ecology must be central to public and private policy, Nicolas Hulot created, together with his foundation, a laboratory for innovative ideas
and a laboratory for actions to support our societies’ ecological transition. In December 2012, as President of his foundation and in a voluntary capacity, he was appointed Special Envoy of the President of the Republic for the Protection of the Planet.
On 17 May 2017, Nicolas Hulot was appointed Ministre d’Etat, Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, in the government of Edouard Philippe.