GENERATION CHANGE: RAMA YADE

The plea has been answered! At the tender age of 32, Rama Yade is redefining social politics throughout the world.

AGE: 32
JOB: French Secretary for Human Rights
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT:
A Senegalese woman has a shot at the presidency of France Nicolas Sarkozy called her “my Condi Rice”—but we think she’s more like the French Barack Obama. Like Rice, Rama Yade landed a federal government post in her early 30s. But France’s Senegalese-born Secretary for Human Rights has upped her profile far more than Condi did back in the late 80s, which has led some to think that she harbors ambitions beyond the cabinet. Yade has the ingredients to get there: ambition, youth, and a physical embodiment of change in a country with hardly any elected officials of color.

Yade is passionate and makes no bones about it. Yade made headlines in late 2007 by openly defying Sarkozy, who had invited Libya’s Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi in from the cold to pitch his Bedouin tent in the grounds of the Elysée Palace on World Human Rights Day. “[France is] not a doormat on which a leader, terrorist or not, can come and wipe the blood of his crimes off his feet,” she told the press. “France should not receive that kiss of death.” Next, she denied the President’s request for her to lead his party’s ticket in the less-than-sexy European Parliament elections. Her punishment could be to follow Condi out of the corridors of power—but even if Sarkozy sacks her for temerity, her fame may still outlast his.

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