Rima Abdul Malak Appointed French Minister of Culture

Emmanuel Macron has appointed Rima Abdul Malak as France's new Minister of Culture, replacing Roselyne Bachelot. Born in 1979 in Beirut, she moved to Lyon at age ten. She holds degrees from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Lyon and a postgraduate diploma from the Sorbonne in international cooperation. She directed the NGO Clowns sans frontières from 2001, organizing performances and training in war zones and refugee camps across Sudan, Bangladesh, Moldova, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. Later, she headed the music division of Culturesfrance (now Institut Français) and served as cultural advisor to Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë from 2012. In 2014, she became cultural attaché at the French Embassy in New York, developing residency programs and exhibitions for French artists. Since 2019, she has been Macron's advisor for culture and media relations. Her challenges include managing a sector recovering from the pandemic (€14 billion in support), abolishing the audiovisual license fee (over €3 billion annually), combating fake news, overseeing the merger of M6 and TF1, expanding the Culture Pass (€254 million budget) to reach 100% of students, increasing public commissions for artists, and launching a 'European metaverse' to protect artists' rights.