Who's that girl? Madonna might have asked the question but we cannot, since it is no longer possible to get away with calling a serious politician a girl.
Even so, it's the kind of thought that might have crossed the mind of a casual foreign observer of French current affairs, taking no particular interest in France's domestic politics, when viewing recent television news footage.
Who, they may have wondered, was that elfin-faced and smiling young woman, congratulating Jonny Wilkinson at the Stade de France, watching intently from the stands in Rio during the World Cup, greeting France's homecoming athletes after medal-winning exploits abroad?
Meet Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's new education minister. Born in Morocco to a building worker who then emigrated to France, she has risen from obscurity to be a councillor in Lyon, part of Ségolène Royal's losing campaign team for the 2007 presidential elections, the official spokesperson for François Hollande's government and women's minister, sports minister and now education minister.
She may be only 36 but is a rising star of a government that has, in large part, underachieved.
And her promotion is part of the reshuffle forced on Manuel Valls, the prime minister, by a mini-revolt that saw first the greens and then two or three socialist ministers, notably Arnaud Montebourg and Vallaud-Belkacem's predecessor Benoît Hamon, desert him. Valls 2 is what the new government is being called in France; as my headline implies, it may also be the last throw of the dice as the French - utterly disillusioned with Hollande, cooling towards Valls - scratch their heads at yet another failure of socialism in power.
Socialism? I like Valls. He's probably the only man currently capable of making the party palatable to a majority of French electors. But he did his best today to alienate the left of his party by telling the annual conference of Medef, the French equivalent of the CBI, he "loves enterprise". The bosses, in turn, loved his attitude; they were positively gushing on the main France 2 news bulletin.
As for Najat and the other young bloods brought into the higher levels of government, the French press is less than enthusiastic. "All that for this!" was Nice-Matin's judgement on the new government formed by Valls but leaving a few key figures in place.
I wish them well. I fear the struggle will go on.
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