PARIS: France’s ambassador to UNESCO, the former minister Rama Yade who fell into disfavour with President Nicolas Sarkozy, has decided to resign to join an ally’s campaign to unseat him.
Yade, who angered Sarkozy in February by criticizing his delay in responding to uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, said late Wednesday she was backing the 2012 presidential campaign of another former minister, Jean-Louis Borloo.
"We are getting ready with Jean-Louis Borloo for the election campaign. I want to have the time to commit myself freely and totally by his side," she told AFP.
Senegalese-born Yade, 34, had been seen as a symbol of diversity in the government formed by Sarkozy in 2007.
She served as a junior human rights minister and junior sports minister before being demoted to the UNESCO post in December after a government reshuffle in which several centrist ministers, including Borloo, were axed.
She left Sarkozy’s UMP in 2010 to join Borloo’s center-right Radical Party and has since spoken out several times against the president and his allies.
