Biography

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Minister of State for Francophonie and International Partnerships

Mr Thani Mohamed-Soilihi

Thani Mohamed-Soilihi was born on 20 June 1972 in Sada, Mayotte, and is married with three children.

He graduated from the École du Centre Ouest des Avocats in Poitiers, and began working as a barrister at the Mayotte Bar in 1999, where he was President of the Bar from 2007 to 2010.

He was an opposition councillor in Sada between 2001 and 2008, and on 25 September 2011 he was elected Senator for Mayotte.

Selected as a candidate by the RDPI group of parties, he won the Senate elections in September 2017, following which he was appointed Vice-President of the Senate. He was the first member of parliament from overseas France to hold this position since Gaston Monnerville.

In 2023, he was re-elected for a third term.

In the Senate, he was a member of the Constitutional Acts, Legislation and General Administration Committee, where he focused in particular on matters relating to the overseas territories, human rights and decentralization. He also worked on education, health and economic issues, particularly of a social and solidarity-related nature, which are important in Mayotte.

As a full member of the Senate Delegation for Overseas France, he has carried out major work on land and property law.

Furthermore, he is a member of the Senate’s Parliamentary Ethics Committee, tasked with ensuring compliance with the ethical principles applicable to senators, and with the Court of Justice of the French Republic, a specific French jurisdiction to try crimes and offences committed by members of government in the course of their duties.

Meanwhile, as part of his volunteer work with charities, Thani Mohamed-Soilihi co-founded the charity combating youth exclusion, TAMA (which means “hope” in Shimaoré), which he chaired from 2003 to 2017 (today called M’lési Maoré); chaired the first Family Council for Wards of the State of Mayotte from 2006 to 2009; co-founded the Chambre Régionale de l’ Économie Sociale et Solidaire (regional chamber for the social and inclusive economy/CRESS) of Mayotte, which he also chaired from 2014 to 2017; and chaired the Supervisory Board of Mamoudzou Hospital from 2014 to 2017, and of which he has been a member since 2010.

In September 2024, he was appointed Minister of State for Francophonie and International Partnerships, attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.