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Anne Hidalgo
Ville de Paris
Mayor, City of Paris
Description
In 2014, Anne Hidalgo became the first woman to be elected Mayor of Paris.She was born in Spain and is a mother of three. After graduating with a Master of Advanced Studies in social law, she became a labour inspecter. She has been a member of the Socialist Party since 1994, where she served as National Secretary for Culture and Media, and was later in charge of vocational training.From 1997 to 2002, she worked as an adviser to three Ministers under the Jospin Government. From 2001 to 2014, she served as First Deputy Mayor of Paris under Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, first in charge of gender equality, then of urban planning and architecture. Anne Hidalgo was an Ile-de-France régional councillor from 2004 to 2014.In 2020, she was re-elected Paris councillor for the 11th district and Mayor of Paris, heading the left-wing, ecologist coalition “Paris en commun” with an ambitions program designed to transform Paris into a zero-carbon city by 2050. She is also First Vice President of the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area.In 2015, together with Tony Estanguet, she led Paris’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The IOC approved the bid in Lima in September 2017. The Games immediately became a major catalyst for urban and environmental transformation in Paris.As mayor of the French capital, Anne Hidalgo pursues an ambitions policy agenda focused on housing for families and universal, inclusive public services. She is committed to making Paris a model city in environmental terms, working to improve air quality, combat climate change and adapt the city to the climate challenge. Her actions to proteetthe environment and the health of Parisiens include reducing car use, greening public spaces and prioritising pedestrians in the city. On 17 July 2024, in line with her commitment and 30 years after the promise made by former Paris mayor Jacques Chirac to allow swimming in the Seine, she took a dip in the now “clean” river.Anne Hidalgo is committed to advancing these issues at the international level. In December 2015 in Paris, she organized the climate summit for local leaders, a major side event of COP21. For its 10th anniversary, an event was held in June 2025 along with several other international events. Some programmes led by the City of Paris, such as Cities for Life, Reinventing Paris, the participatory budget, Embellishing Paris and its cycling policy are now benchmark programmes.From 2016 to 2019, she chaired C40 Cities Leadership Group, which consists of 90 megacities committed to addressing climate change. Within C40 she launched the Women4Climate initiative in New York (March 2017) and an air quality plan in Paris (Air’Volution, March 2017). In collaboration with other cities and international agencies, she started the Global Urban Air Pollution Observatory (GUAPO). In Paris in 2019, she also launched the Justice4Climate initiative, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice confirming that the cities of Paris, Brussels and Madrid could challenge vehicle émission régulations set by the European Commission and adopted by governments of member States.Anne Hidalgo is President of the International Association of Francophone Mayors (AIMF), Co-Chair of the World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) where she chairs the gender equality committee, and also President of SOLIDEO, the public sector organisation responsible for supervising and delivering the facilities and developments for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. She has long been engaged in end-of-life issues and serves on the Honorary Committee of the French Association for the Right to Die with Dignity.She has won several awards, including the Urban Land Institute Prize for making Paris “a healthier, more inclusive, and more livable city”. She also received a UN Climate Action Award at COP26, recognising exemplary action to address climate change.She has published several essays:Une femme dans l’arène, co-written with Jean-Bernard Senon, Du Rocher, 2006Travail au bord de la crise de nerfs, co-written with Jean-Bernard Senon, Flammarion, 2010Mon combat pour Paris : quand la ville ose, Flammarion, 2013Respirer, Éditions de l’Observatoire, 2018Une femme française, Editions de l’Observatoire, 2021
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