Thani Mohamed Soilihi

Thani Mohamed Soilihi (born 20 June 1972 in Mayotte) is a French politician of the Renaissance party who has been serving as Minister of State for Francophonie and International Partnerships in the successive governments of Prime Ministers Michel Barnier and François Bayrou since 2024. He previously served as a member of the French Senate from 2011 to 2024, representing the department of Mayotte.^[1]

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (September 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Thani Mohamed Soilihi]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Thani Mohamed Soilihi}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick facts Minister Delegate for Francophonie and International Partnerships, President ...

Thani Mohamed Soilihi


Minister Delegate for Francophonie and International Partnerships
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 September 2024
President	Emmanuel Macron
Prime Minister	Michel Barnier François Bayrou
Preceded by	Franck Riester (Francophonie) Chrysoula Zacharopoulou (international partnerships)

Personal details
Born	(1972-06-20) 20 June 1972 (age 53) Sada, Mayotte
Nationality	French
Political party	PS (–2017) LREM (2017-2022) RE (since 2022)

Biography and Political career

Summarize

Perspective

He earned his law degree from the École du Centre Ouest des Avocats in Poitiers and began his career as a barrister in Mayotte in 1999. He later served as President of the Mayotte Bar Association from 2007 to 2010. Between 2001 and 2008, he was active in local politics as an opposition councillor in the town of Sada. On 25 September 2011, he was elected to the French Senate to represent Mayotte. Re-elected in the 2017 senatorial elections under the banner of the RDPI group, he was appointed Vice-President of the Senate, becoming the first parliamentarian from France's overseas territories to hold this office since Gaston Monnerville.^[2]

In the Senate, Soilhihi served on the Committee on Legal Affairs.^[3] In addition to his committee assignments, he was a judge of the Cour de Justice de la République.^[4]

In September 2024, Soilihi was appointed Secretary of State for La Francophonie and International Partnerships in the Barnier government, serving under Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot.^[5]

On behalf of President Macron, Soilihi presented Cameroonian President Paul Biya in 2025 with a report on France's role in Cameroon between 1945 and 1971, drawn up by a commission of historians from both countries to shed light on the “war of decolonization” in Cameroon.^[6]

Remove ads

Political positions

In 2013, Soilihi voted in favour of the law opening marriage to same-sex couples.^[7] In 2022, he also voted in favour of a ban of so-called conversion therapy in an effort to outlaw practices that seek to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.^[8]

Thani Mohamed Soilihi is in favor of a renewed development partnership between France and African countries, which he hopes will be more transparent, free from the clichés of neocolonial aid or a hidden withdrawal of France.^[9]

Remove ads

Thani Mohamed Soilihi

Biography and Political career

Political positions

References

Wikiwand - on