After long weeks of waiting, France once again has an elected official responsible for the digital sector. Succeeding Jean-Noël BarrotMarina Ferrari has been appointed Secretary of State for Digital.
While Gabriel Attal’s government had been operating in small committee for more than a month, new appointments finally took place on February 8, 2024. The digital sector therefore saw the arrival of a new head to replace the delegate minister Jean-Noël Barrot : Marina Ferrari, a MoDem elected official from Savoie. His predecessor takes over the delegated ministry in charge of Europe.
A local route
Former deputy mayor of Aix-Les-Bains (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) and former departmental councilor of Savoie (2015-2021), Marina Ferrari was elected to the deputation in June 2022 under the label of the face-to-face majority “Together”. She then joined the MoDem group, of which she became deputy general secretary, and sat on the finance committee of which she was also elected secretary.
If her appointment is surprising, it is because the elected official does not have very marked national popularity. However, she comes from a well-known family locally. Niece of Gatien Ferrari, former RPR mayor of Aix-les-Bains, she is also the cousin of Laurence Ferrari, presenter on the CNews channel. From 2013 to 2022 (year of her election), Marina Ferrari still tastes the issues of state digital since she is “administrative and HR manager” within the company Lunabee Studio, responsible for part of the development of the TousAntiCovid application.
High expectations from the sector
In a series of tweets accompanying her appointment, the new Secretary of State explains that she wants to continue “with determination and humility» the files of «digital transformation, regulation of social networks, access to very high speed for all» and “digital sovereignty” started by his predecessors. It will also have to manage a digital sector turned upside down by the opposition between Brussels and Paris around the law aimed at securing and regulating the digital space (SREN) and developments in artificial intelligence, now framed by the AI Act passed. by the 27 member states of the EU.
Secretary of State (attached to the office of the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire) rather than Minister Delegate, as was Jean-Noël Barrot, Marina Ferrari will have to prove herself in the face of a digital industry that knows her little or not. , for lack of having been very active on these subjects in the National Assembly.
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