The rise and rise of Rama Yade

yade Late last year we predicted the crash and burn of French Minister, Rama Yade. It appears we were a little premature with our thoughts. She did manage to earn censure for upstaging President Sarkosy. She did also warrant very close scrutiny from Carla Bruni, who is always seems a little suspicious of her husband’s attention span. Despite all this, Rama Yade, like a phoenix arisen , is still front and center in French political life, and seemingly enjoying the sort of effusive receptions usually reserved for populist entertainers, not politicians.

It is an interesting contrast to compare Yade and American once VP hopeful, Sarah Palin. They were both thrust into the spotlight by mentors for political benefit. Both were relatively unprepared and made major gaffes in their early performances on the world stage. However, that is where the similarities end. Palin burned brightly but briefly. She imploded, dumped her Governorship prematurely, and is now earning her crust as a novelty speaker at corporate gatherings. Yade had better political instincts, and frankly a more intelligent approach. She got burned by flying to close to Sarkozy’s flame, but as emerged more poised, popular and more prepared than before. Her command of her portfolio, the detailed knowledge of the data in her brief, and her restraint of message smacks of a measure politician here for the long haul. Welcome back Rama Yade, and we won’t be as quick to write you off so quickly in the future.

The photographer insisted on telling her how to pose. A television soundman thrust his microphone toward her face while behind him the intruding camera rolled. A knot of bystanders, meanwhile, edged in for a close-up look and opened fire with cellphone snapshots.

“Please, could you back away a little? I would like to be alone for a bit,” pleaded Rama Yade, France’s junior minister for youth and sports and, at 32, one of the most popular political personalities in the country.

The recoil from pop-star treatment during a recent visit to Lyon, in eastern France, was a rare moment of hesitation in Yade’s swift rise to fame and political fortune. Only nine years after graduating from the prestigious Paris Institute of Political Sciences, Yade has become more than a minister. She has become a phenomenon: black, Muslim, female — and one of the brightest stars in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political constellation.

Along with two women of North African Arab descent also named to the government, Yade’s main mission when she was appointed in May 2007 was to embody Sarkozy’s effort to bring minorities into positions of responsibility. But with her good looks and impudence — qualities French people cherish — she has ended up two years later not only as a poster girl for integration but also as a politician with her own support and the promise of a career on the national stage.

“There is not just the image; there is also substance,” said Lyon Mayor Gérard Collomb of the opposition Socialist Party.

Collomb, only half-joking, added that he had told Yade over lunch that he would find a place for her in the local government or parliamentary representation if she wanted to jump ship from Sarkozy’s neo-Gaullist coalition and run for office in Lyon.

French Minister Rama Yade’s Stardom Holds Political Promise – washingtonpost.com