Michèle Alliot-Marie
Roles
Michèle Alliot-Marie is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). She was the first woman in France to hold the portfolios of Defense, from 2002 to 2007, the Interior, from 2007 to 2009, and Foreign and European Affairs, from 2010 to 2011. She is also the first woman to chair a major French political party. Moreover, she has been in charge of Youth and Sports from 1993 to 1995, Justice from 2009 to 2010, and was granted the honorary rank of Minister of State in her last two offices. Today, she remains Deputy Mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, position she has occupied since 2002, and for which she was re-elected in 2008, as well as Vice President of the Union pour le Mouvement Populaire (UMP).
Education
Michèle Alliot-Marie studied at the Paris Law Faculty in the now-defunct University of Paris, continuing at the Paris Arts Faculty in that same university. After university reforms were implemented in 1968, she continued her studies in private law, political science, and legal history at both Panthéon-Assas University, earning a Doctor of Law degree there in 1973 with her thesis Salarié actionnaire ("Employee Shareholders"), and Panthéon-Sorbonne University, where she earned a Doctorate in Political Science in 1982 with her thesis Décisions politiques et structures administratives ("Political Decisions and Administrative Structures"). She also holds a Certificat d'aptitude à la profession d'avocat ("Certificate of Aptitude for Practicing Law"), also known as a CAPA; a certificate in African laws and economics; and a Masters degree in ethnology. Before her career in politics, she was a senior lecturer at the Paris-I University (Panthéon-Sorbonne), and also spent some time practicing law. She is also a laureate of the Faculty of Law and Economics.
