Françoise Giroud

Françoise Giroud (born Lea France Gourdji; 21 September 1916 – 19 January 2003) was a French journalist, screenwriter, writer, and politician.

Biography

Giroud was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, to immigrant Sephardi Turkish Jewish parents; her father was Salih Gourdji Al Baghdadi, Director of the Agence Télégraphique Ottomane in Geneva. She was educated at the Collège de Groslay and the Lycée Molière in Paris. She did not graduate from university. She married and had two children, a son (who died before her) and a daughter.

Career

Giroud's work in cinema began with director Marc Allégret as a script-girl on his 1932 adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's play Fanny. In 1936, she worked with Jean Renoir on the set of Grand Illusion. She later wrote screenplays, 30 books (both fiction and non-fiction), and wrote newspaper columns. She was the editor of Elle magazine from 1946 (shortly after it was founded) until 1953, when she and her then-partner Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber founded the newsmagazine L'Express. She edited L'Express until 1971, then was its director until 1974, when she began her political career.

Political career

In 1974, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing nominated Giroud to the position of Secretary of State for women's rights, which she held from 16 July 1974 until 27 August 1976, when she was appointed to the position of Minister of Culture. She remained in that position until March 1977, for a total service of 32 months, serving in the cabinets of prime ministers Jacques Chirac and Raymond Barre. She was a member of the centrist Radical Party.