Florence Parly


Florence Parly is a French politician serving as Minister of the Armed Forces since 2017, under President Emmanuel Macron. A former member of the Socialist Party, she previously was State Secretary for the Budget from 2000 to 2002 under President Jacques Chirac.

Early career

An alumna of the École nationale d'administration, Florence Parly was appointed Secretary of State for the Budget on 3 January 2000 in the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. In office until 6 May 2002, she seconded Christian Sautter, then Laurent Fabius at the Ministry of Finance.
After briefly serving as a member of the Burgundy Regional Council from 2004 to 2006, Parly worked at Air France as deputy general director, before moving to become director-general of SNCF Voyageurs until 2017. She also served on the boards of French companies Altran, Ingenico and Zodiac Aerospace.

Minister of the Armies

Parly was named Minister of the Armies on 21 June 2017 after Sylvie Goulard was forced to resign due to an ongoing investigation of her party. Following the nomination, she resigned from all her board positions; her husband Martin Vial withdrew from his position on the board of Thales Group.
Shortly after taking office, Parly ordered an investigation into allegations brought forward by the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné that the acting head of the French Air Force borrowed a Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet on weekends to fly from his base in Bordeaux to his home in Provence.
Regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal, Parly told BFM TV in 2019 that "nothing would be worse than Iran leaving this deal. We absolutely want to keep this agreement alive". Following the US-led Baghdad airstrike in January 2020 that killed Iranian Quds leader Qasem Soleimani, Parly rejected pressure to withdraw French troops from Iraq, even stating on her Twitter account that France had already reinforced security for its 160 soldiers stationed in Iraq. She further reiterated that it was the French government's priority to fight against ISIS militants, who were re-merging in the area. Parly also warned Iran not to escalate tensions.