Jean-Louis Bourlanges is a former Member of the European Parliament, Honorary Senior Advisor to the Court of Auditors, and Member of Parliament for Hauts-de-Seine since 2017, where he is Vice-President of the European Affairs Committee. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jacques Delors Institute.

A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, with a degree in modern literature and a former student of the ENA, he was an auditor and then a referendary advisor at the Court of Auditors, and became a senior advisor in 2008. 

He held local office as a city councilor in Dieppe and regional councilor in Upper Normandy. He was a Member of the European Parliament from 1989, where he served as Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rapporteur for the EU's general budget, and Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs. He also chaired the EU-Poland Joint Parliamentary Committee until Poland joined the EU in 2004.

From 2002 to 2015, he was an associate professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, teaching a course on "Political Systems and Life in the European Union."