Audrey Azoulay

Origins and early life

Audrey Azoulay was born in France on 4 August 1972 into a Moroccan Jewish family from Essaouira, the daughter of André Azoulay, adviser to the kings of Morocco, and of the writer Katia Brami. She studied management at Paris Dauphine University, took an MBA at Lancaster University in Britain, studied at Sciences Po and graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 2000.

Work and career

As a civil servant she specialised in the regulation and financing of public broadcasting and cinema, joined the National Centre for Cinema in 2006 and rose to deputy director-general, then served from 2014 as cultural adviser to President François Hollande. Appointed minister of culture in February 2016, she carried through the law on the freedom of creation, architecture and heritage, which made artistic creation a fundamental freedom and created France's remarkable heritage sites.

In 2017 the member states of UNESCO chose her as director-general, the second woman to lead the organisation and, as Jewish Insider later noted, the first Jew to do so since its founding in 1946. Over two terms, from 15 November 2017 to 15 November 2025, she launched the initiative to revive the spirit of Mosul and saw UNESCO adopt in 2021 the first global standard on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Under her leadership UNESCO also took up Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism, building online resources with the World Jewish Congress and training courses with the American Jewish Committee and the American Federation of Teachers.

The Jerusalem Post placed her and her father thirtieth on its 2023 list of the fifty most influential Jews, quoting her words that antisemitism is an attack on our shared humanity. On 24 June 2026 the Académie des beaux-arts elected her to the fourth seat of its section of free members, and she chairs La France s'engage, a foundation supporting social innovation.