François Zimeray

François Zimeray, lawyer, politician and diplomat, was born in 1961.
He was a Member of the European Parliament for the Party of European Socialists from 1999 to 2004. Former mayor of Petit-Quevilly, he served as President of the Agglomeration community of Rouen from 2001 to 2008.
On the 13th of February 2008, François Zimeray was appointed as French Ambassador for Human Rights.

François Zimeray

Career

François Zimeray and Aung San Suu Kyi - Birmanie - 2011

François Zimeray and Ehud Barak - 2006

François Zimeray and Sari Nusseibeh - 2005

François Zimeray and Mahmoud Abbas - 2008

Political career

François Zimeray, a close friend of former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, first made his mark in 1989 when at just 27 years old he was elected Mayor of Petit-Quevilly (23,000 inhabitants). The election made him the youngest mayor of any municipality with over 20,000 inhabitants in France. He founded the first association of mayors for environment, "Eco-Maires".

He transformed the city by creating parks, accommodation, new areas and facilities such as the multimedia library François Truffaut. He was re-elected two times in the first round.
In 2001, he became President of the Agglomeration community of Rouen (450,000 inhabitants) and launched several urban projects: the Palais des Sports (designed by Dominique Perrault), the renovation of the docks, the 106 and public transportations (metro, cycle).

At 37, he became the youngest member of the French socialist delegation at the European Parliament. He worked in the Legal Affairs Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence Policy. He is the author of eight reports adopted unanimously and took part in writing the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

François Zimeray is a prominent figure well known for his support of the Israeli Peace camp and the Palestinian moderates in 2002. He actively supports The People's Voice, the initiative by Palestinian Sari Nusseibeh and Israeli Ami Ayalon. When he launched a call for a parliamentary fact-finding committee on the use of European funds by the Palestinian Authority, the Party of European Socialists cut off his speaking time and the French Socialist Party declined to nominate him for the 2004 European elections.
Despite this controversial position, François Zimeray went to Gaza twice and did not hesitate to describe the attitude of people defining themselves as exclusively "pro-palestinian" or "pro-Israel" as "intellectual hooliganism" (speech at the French National Assembly for "Kids creating Peace").

He founded the Cercle Léon Blum and worked to promote dialogue between European leaders and Middle Eastern political and civil society representatives as Chairman of the Medbridge Strategy Center founded in Brussels with prominent European politicians such as Willy De Clercq, François Léotard, Emma Bonino and Ana Palacio. He then had several meetings with Shimon Peres, Mahmoud Abbas and Abdullah II of Jordan.

He played a decisive role in the organisation of the European campaign in support for Darfur. In 2007, he visited the Darfur refugee camps in Chad with Bernard-Henri Lévy and drafted principles for engagement signed by the leading French presidential candidates.

Lawyer

François Zimeray is a member of the Paris Bar and the International Criminal Bar of The Hague. He has represented victims in trials of Khmer Rouge leaders, successfully campaigned to free imprisoned political opponents in Laos, and defended a child soldier in Congo/Kinshasa. He has also spoken before the European Court of Human Rights. François Zimeray is a member of the French Institute of International Legal Experts (IFEJI).

During twenty years, François Zimeray has worked as a lawyer in the firm Jeantet&Associés. back then, he advised french and international compagnies. With Hubert Védrine, he took part in the asian development of the Jeantet firm.

Ambassador for Human Rights

François Zimeray’s commitment to human rights dates back to 1979, when he founded his first association for Cambodian refugees. He then visited refugee camps on the Thai border, where he forged his political beliefs.

In February 2008, he was appointed as France’s Ambassador at large for Human Rigths, a fundamental yet discreet role aiming at spreading the culture of human rights into French diplomacy.

Since then, more than 90 diplomatic missions led him to Chechnya, Colombia, Gaza, Israel, Sri Lanka camps, Turkmenistan, Burma, Moscow, Thailand, Baghdad, Kirghizstan, Uganda, Chad, Burundi...

François Zimeray represented the French diplomacy at several judicial cases. He went to Moscow for Mikhail Khodorkovsky's trial, to Kazakhstan for the human rights defendor Yevgeny Zhovtis. In January 2011, he went to Yuriy Lutsenko's trial, in Kiev.

In October 2011, he went to Tripoli just a few days after the death of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. In November 2011, he is one of the first diplomats to be received in Rangoon by the Lady Aung San Suu Kyi, one month before the official visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In January 2012, François Zimeray went to Kharkov prison, trying to meet former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko. Although he was not allowed to enter the prison and see her, he met her daughter and lawyer, Evgenia Carr-Tymoshenko.

As Ambassador in charge of the Holocaust issues and Memorial, François Zimeray launched different initiatives to raise awareness about contemporary anti-Semitism: he went to Auschwitz several times and supports important projects enhancing dialogue between cultures, such as the Aladdin Project, which had been presented in Baghad in February 2010.

In May 2009, François Zimeray founded the Alliance of Lawyers for Human rights, based in Paris offering free legal expertise to associations, NGOs and institutions working in the field of human rights.

François Zimeray seen by …

Bernard Cazeneuve, French deputy mayor of Cherbourg said to Le Figaro: “He has a meticulous and honest mind, fully independent and committed”.

Alexandre Adler, who presented the Legion of Honour to him in 2005, define him as a man "caring about the truth. He is not easy to indoctrinate".

To Robert Badinter, "François Zimeray, whom I have known for a while, has always been committed to fightin for noble causes.He has strong convictions and he serves them with a flawless determination."

François Léotard,writer and former minister, describes François Zimeray's committment for peace in the Middle-East as the one of a man "refusing exaggeration and indifference, cowardice and condemnation."

In January 2012, Eric Fottorino, former President of Le Monde, published a portrait of François Zimeray, "ambassador with eyes open on human distress, and lucid enough to know that his action fits into the scheme of relations between States.".

François Zimeray is thanked in the closing credits of Carnage by Roman Polanski.

François Zimeray on...

... being Ambassador for Human Rights

"Being a diplomat today, means trying to read the complexity of the world, constantly"

"In diplomatic action, facing unacceptable situation, one can make a misjudgment. Second time, it may be indifference. Third time, it's complicity. I don't want to be an accomplice"

"We are facing a frequent misunderstanding. A lot of people place human rights in some kind of moral area and wait for us to answer with symbols, declarations and gesture.One must have the courage to say that Human Rights are not morality, these are rights that exist or does not exist, that are applied or violated: the right to not be tortured, access to fair trial, equality between men and women. Our action does not only take place in some declaratory and narcissistic style."

... France,"the country of Human Rights"?

"I would rather say that France and Human Rights are like an old couple, and for every couple there are ups and downs.

... accusations against France on the subject of Human Rights

"It's not when France is being attacked that one has to desert. We don't have lessons to give, nor to take, from countries were they stone women and hang homosexuals."

Distinctions

• Knight of the Legion of Honor (Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur)
• Officer of the Royal Order of Cambodia (Officier de l'Ordre Royal du Cambodge

Public office

• From 1989 to 2001 Mayor of Petit-Quevilly; Vice-President of Greater Rouen-Normandy Area
• From 1995 to 2001 Chairman of the District and Community Environment Committee
• From 1994 to 1999 Departmental Councillor
• From 1995 to 2000, Chairman of the Greater Rouen Sanitation Syndicate
• 1999-2004 Member of the European Parliament; Member of the Legal Affairs Committee; and Member of the Industry, Trade, Research and Energy Committee
• 2001-2008: President of the Rouen Urban District Community; First Deputy to the Mayor of Petit-Quevilly
• Since 2008 France's Ambassador-at-large for human rights, and Ambassador for Holocaust issues

External links

• http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/droits-homme_1048/biographie-m.-francois-zimeray-ambassadeur-pour-les-droits-homme_60854.html
• http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/droits-homme_1048/colonne-droite_1672/ambassadeur-pour-les-droits-homme_20229/francois-zimeray-nomme-ambassadeur-pour-les-droits-homme_82761.html
• http://www.medbridge.org/
• http://www.ecomaires.com/
• http://www.jeantet.fr/
• http://www.sosdarfur.eu/
• http://www.cercle-leon-blum.org/