Youngest Ever French General

Becomes Chief Road Safety Advisor

14 SEP - General Florence Guillaume of the French National Gendarmerie was appointed interministerial delegate for road safety.

Gen. Florence GuillomeShe will lead the directorate in charge of establishing and implementing the road safety policy of the government with a view to reducing the number of road crashes. She has already been seconded to the Prime minister’s Cabinet.

Bio

Former graduate from the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, she also passed a master’s degree in social and political communications and attended the war college. She was promoted to general in may 2022 at 47, thus being the youngest person to ever accede to the highest rank in the Gendarmerie, which oversees road safety in France and is a law enforcement agency with a militarized structure.

Service

Following her training as platoon leader Guillaume was posted to a mobile gendarmerie squadron specialised in crowd control. She has led the company of La Tour du pin (2005-2009) and headed the gendarmerie of the whole departement of Ain, next to Lyon from 2016 to 2019. After this command phase, then colonel Guillaume was an auditor at the Higher Command and Staff Course and at the Institute of Higher Defence Studies. She then served in two cabinet offices: the minister’s and the gendarmerie general director’s.

Guillome succeeds Marie Gautier-Melleray, who for her part has become Deputy Director of the Office of the Minister of the Interior.