(VOVWORLD) - France’s Former Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay has become the 11th director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. By a vote of 30-28, Azoulay defeated the Qatari candidate for the post. The new director general is expected to outline reform plans for UNESCO’s activities.
 Audrey Azoulay (Photo: UNESCO/C. Alix) |
Azoulay won the position one day after the US announced its withdrawal from UNESCO. Her first challenge will be to identify common goals among the organization’s members in order to set future strategic priorities. The withdrawal of the US and Israel will make the future of the organization more politicalized and polarized.
Azoulay told Press TV that she believes, in this moment of crisis, more should be invested in UNESCO to support it and reinforce it, to reform it but not to leave it.
She said what she will do first is restore the confidence of member countries in the organization’s effectiveness.
The new director general was born in Paris on August 4th, 1972 to a Moroccan Jewish family from Essaouira. Her father is a banker and adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, as he was to the king's father, Hassan II. Her mother is a writer.
Azoulay studied at Sciences-Po University in Paris and at Lancaster University in Britain before graduating from France's ENA, an elite school that grooms France's future leaders.
She used to work at France's Court of Audits and spent several years in various media departments at the Culture Ministry, before joining the National Center of Cinema (CNC), guardian of the French film industry, as financial director in 2006. By 2011 she had become deputy director at the CNC.
In 2014, President Francois Hollande appointed her special adviser at the Elysee Palace – the official residence and offices of the French president – in charge of culture and communication.
She was soon appointed France’s Culture Minister. During her tenure of just over a year as Culture Minister, Azoulay secured a budget increase for her ministry after years of deep cuts. Her tenure was also marked by the passage of a Law on Creation and Heritage aimed at ensuring artistic freedom and protecting France's myriad historic sites.