Édith Cresson

Édith Cresson (née Campion; born 27 January 1934) is a French politician from the Socialist Party. She served as Prime Minister of France from 1991 to 1992, the first woman to do so and only woman until Élisabeth Borne's appointment in 2022. Her political career ended in scandal as a result of corruption charges dating from her tenure as European Commissioner for Research, Science and Technology. Cresson was appointed to the prime ministerial post by President François Mitterrand on 15 May 1991. She soon became strongly unpopular among the electorate and had to leave office after less than one year, following the Socialists' poor showing in 1992's regional elections. Her premiership is one of the shortest in the history of the Fifth Republic. Her strong criticism of Japanese trade practices, going so far as to compare the Japanese to "yellow ants trying to take over the world", led to charges of racism. Discussing the sexual activities of Anglo-Saxon males, she said: "Homosexuality seems strange to me. It's different and marginal. It exists more in the Anglo-Saxon tradition than the Latin one."