The Organization of American States is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas.
Valéry RenéMarie Georges Giscard d'Estaing,also known as Giscard or VGE,was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981.
Edgar Jean Faure was a French politician,lawyer,essayist,historian and memoirist who served as Prime Minister of France in 1952 and again between 1955 and 1956. Prior to his election to the National Assembly for Jura under the Fourth Republic in 1946,he was a member of the French Committee of National Liberation (CFLN) in Algiers (1943–1944). A Radical,Faure was married to writer Lucie Meyer. In 1978,he was elected to the Académie Française.
Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party,he headed a government supported by a coalition of Gaullists (RPF),moderate socialists (UDSR),Christian democrats (MRP) and liberal-conservatives (CNIP). His main priority was ending the Indochina War,which had already cost 92,000 lives,with 114,000 wounded and 28,000 captured on the French side. Public opinion polls showed that,in February 1954,only 7% of the French people wanted to continue the fight to regain Indochina out of the hands of the Communists,led by Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh movement. At the 1954 Geneva Conference,Mendès France negotiated a deal that gave the Viet Minh control of Vietnam north of the seventeenth parallel,and allowed him to pull out all French forces. He is considered one of the most prominent statesmen of the French Fourth Republic.
Marie-Arlette Carlotti is a French politician of the Socialist Party (PS) who has been serving as a member of the French Senate since 2020,representing Bouches-du-Rhône. She previously was a Member of the European Parliament from south-east of France.
Michèle Yvette Marie-Thérèse Jeanne Honorine Alliot-Marie,known in France as MAM,is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from France. She is a member of the Republicans,part of the European People's Party. A member of all right-wing governments formed in the 1980s,1990s and 2000s,she was the first woman in France to hold the portfolios of Defense (2002–2007),the Interior (2007–2009) and Foreign Affairs (2010–2011);she has also been in charge of Youth and Sports (1993–1995) and Justice (2009–2010),and was granted the honorary rank of Minister of State in her last two offices.
Alain Berset is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2012 to 2023. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SP/PS),he headed the Federal Department of Home Affairs from when he took office. Berset served as President of the Swiss Confederation for 2018 and 2023.
Louise Harel is a Quebec politician. In 2005 she served as interim leader of the Parti Québécois following the resignation of Bernard Landry. She was also interim leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Quebec. She represented the riding of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in the Montreal region,and its predecessors,from 1981 to 2008. She ran for Mayor of Montreal as the representative of the Vision Montreal municipal political party in the 2009 election,but was defeated by incumbent Gérald Tremblay. In the 2013 Montreal election,Harel supported federalist Marcel Côtéfor mayor but failed to be elected to her own council seat.
The Banda people are an ethnic group of the Central African Republic. They are likewise found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,Cameroon,and South Sudan. They were severely affected by slave raids of the 19th century and slave trading out of Africa. Under French colonial rule,most converted to Christianity but retained elements of their traditional religious systems and values.
Marie Belkine,commonly known as Marie Agba-Otikpo,was a Central African Republic politician. She was a member of the National Assembly and the head of the Defence and Security Commission (CDS).
Vital Kamerhe Lwa Kanyiginyi Nkingi is a Congolese politician,currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Economy and the leader of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) party. He served as the President of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2006 to 2009. After resigning from that office,he went into the opposition and founded the UNC. He ran in the 2011 presidential election. He supported Félix Tshisekedi as a coalition partner in the 2018 presidential election,and became chief of staff when Tshisekedi took office.
Mohamed Bazoum is a Nigerien politician who served as the 10th president of Niger from 2021 to 2023. He assumed office in April 2021 after winning the 2020–21 presidential election and surviving a failed coup d'état attempt. He was ousted in the 2023 Nigerien coup d'état by members of the presidential guard and the armed forces led by Abdourahamane Tchiani.
Fredrick F. Chien,or Fred Chien,Chien Foo,is a retired Taiwanese diplomat and politician who served as the President of the Republic of China Control Yuan from 1999 to 2005. After graduating from Yale University,he assumed a series of governmental positions include Director-General of the Government Information Office from 1972 to 1975,Republic of China Representative to the United States from 1982 to 1988,Chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development from 1988 to 1990,and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 1996. He was also the Speaker of the National Assembly between 1996 and 1999.
A number of Catholic priests have served in civil office. The Catholic Church discourages this practice.
Nassirou Bako Arifari is a Beninese politician and academic who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin from 2011 to 2015. He came from an academic background before entering politics.
Marie-Josèphe Zani-FéTouam-Bona was a politician in the Central African Republic (CAR). She was the country's first female government minister.
Emilie Béatrice Epaye is Central African politician and educator. She has been a Government Minister and served in the National Assembly. Epaye advocates for better governance,economic development,and civil society freedoms,defends respect for human rights,and promotes national reconciliation. In 2015,she won the U.S. State Department's International Women of Courage Award.
Solange Troisier was a French physician,Inspector General of Prisons,and deputy for the Val-d'Oise. She was a left-wing Gaullist,a feminist,and was active in many committees on social issues.
Marie-Florence Yagbao Dacko,also spelled Marie-Florence Yagbaou,was a Central African teacher who served as the inaugural First Lady of the Central African Republic from 1960 until her divorce from President David Dacko in 1962.
