Jean-Yves LE DRIAN
- Personal Representative of the President of the French Republic for Lebanon and Middle East
- AFALULA
Bio
Jean-Yves Le Drian has been President of the French Agency for the Development of AlUla (AFALULA) since 26 July 2023 and Personal Representative of the President of the French Republic for Lebanon since 8 June 2023. He served as France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2022, and previously held the position of Minister of Defence from May 2012 to May 2017. He was also Secretary of State for the Sea, attached to the Minister for Equipment, Housing, Transport and Space, from 1991 to 1992.
Throughout his career, he has held numerous elected positions in Brittany and the Morbihan region. He was President of the Regional Council of Brittany from 2004 to 2012, after serving as a Regional Councillor from 1998 to 2004. He also served as Member of Parliament for Morbihan from 1978 to 1991 and from 1997 to 2007. Closely attached to his hometown, he was Mayor of Lorient (Morbihan) from 1981 to 1998, while also serving as a municipal councillor in Lorient from 1977 to 2004.
In parallel with these mandates, he chaired the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR) in 2010. From 1983 to 2004, he successively led the SIVOM of the Pays de Lorient (6 municipalities), the District of the Pays de Lorient (10 municipalities), and then the Urban Community of the Pays de Lorient (19 municipalities).
A graduate in contemporary history, Mr Jean-Yves Le Drian was born on 30 June 1947 in Lorient (Morbihan).
The French Agency for the Development of AlUla (AFALULA), which he currently presides, was created following an intergovernmental agreement signed by France and Saudi Arabia in April 2018 and was established in Paris in July 2018. Its mission is to support, in a spirit of co-construction, its Saudi partner, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), in the sustainable economic, tourism, and cultural development of AlUla, a region of exceptional natural and cultural heritage located in the northwest of Saudi Arabia. AFALULA’s role is to mobilize French expertise and know-how across a wide range of fields and to bring together leading operators and companies in archaeology, museography, architecture, urban planning, tourism, hospitality, infrastructure, education, security, agriculture, botany, and sustainable natural resource management.
