Dr. Frédéric Tissot was born in 1951 in Algeria. In 1962, he returned to France and settled in the city of Lyon, France. He completed his studies in France and became a doctor in 1980. For several years, he managed a rural health center in the Aït Bouguemez Valley and helped patients. As a French doctor, he decided to help people in countries that are remote, where war is widespread, and where they receive no aid.
Dr. Frédéric Tissot has lived a life full of adventure. In 1982, he went to Eastern Kurdistan and, as a Peshmerga, served the sick and wounded of the war with the Iranian government in the hospital of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran in the village of Mazre in the Alan region of Sardasht, Eastern Kurdistan.
Dr. Frédéric Tissot, a member of Doctors Without Borders, became acquainted with the Kurdish cause in 1981 through Kendal Nezan, the president of the Kurdish Institute in Paris, France. Tissot was so deeply involved with the pain and suffering of the Kurdish people that after he left Kurdistan and returned to France, he helped the Kurdish liberation movement in every way. In 1984, in the mountains of Kurdistan, he became acquainted with Bernard Kouchner Dr. Frédéric Tissot was against Kurdish parties fighting each other and constantly tried to mediate between them. In 1984, he returned to Morocco and served in the health sector in that country for five years, helping patients.
In 1989, he participated in a conference in Paris regarding the Kurdish issue and said in this regard: None of the countries of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria were happy with the holding of that conference. In 1991, along with Bernard Kouchner he had a role in drafting the UN Security Council Resolution 688 to provide a safe haven and no-fly zone for the people of the Kurdistan Region. In 1991, he visited Southern Kurdistan several times.
On July 12, 2006, in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, he suffered a severe accident. An electric arc threw him into the air after an incident on a high-voltage line, and he broke his spine when he fell. Since then, he has used a wheelchair.
On September 23, 2007, France opened its consulate in Erbil, and Dr. Frédéric Tissot was the first consul of that country in Erbil. From that day on, he officially represented his country in the Kurdistan Region. As a diplomat and someone sympathetic to the Kurdish cause, he was always trying to strengthen France's relations with the Kurdistan Region. In this regard, he says: I was not a diplomat when I was entrusted with the task of being my country's consul in Kurdistan, but I became involved in politics through medical work.
Dr. Frédéric Tissot remained in Kurdistan until 2012 and participated in most of the events and ceremonies of the Kurdistan Regional Government and was a strong bridge of relationship between Kurdistan and France. At most events, he laid wreaths on the graves of martyrs and victims of Anfal in Barzan, Halabja, Garmian, Badinan, Balisan, and all other parts of Kurdistan.
On September 30, 2012, due to the end of his mission as the French Consul in Erbil, he returned to his country. A worthy ceremony was organized for his departure by the Kurdistan Regional Government in the Martyr Saad Abdullah Hall, and several high-ranking government officials attended the ceremony and offered the thanks and appreciation of the government and the Kurdish people for his thirty years of service to the just cause of the Kurdish people. In the ceremony, Dr. Frédéric Tissot thanked President Masoud Barzani and Nechirvan Barzani and expressed his happiness that as a diplomat, he had served the just cause of the Kurdish people. He emphasized that as a friend of the Kurds, he would continue to serve oppressed nations and would remain a friend of the Kurds.
Because of the services he provided to the Kurdish people at the Kurdistan, French, and global levels, he was awarded the Barzani Medal by President Masoud Barzani on March 15, 2013.
Source:1- Archive of the Encyclopedia Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.