Salomé Nino Zourabichvili (born 18March 1952) is a French-born Georgian politician and former diplomat who served as the fifth president of Georgia, becoming the first woman to be elected as president in the country's history. As a result of the constitutional amendments that came into effect in 2024, Zourabichvili became the last popularly elected president; under the new constitutional rules, Georgian presidents are to be elected indirectly by the Georgian Electoral Assembly.
Zourabichvili was born in Paris, France, into a family of Georgian political refugees. She joined the French diplomatic service in the 1970s and over three decades went on to occupy a variety of increasingly senior diplomatic positions. From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Ambassador of France to Georgia. In 2004, by mutual agreement between the presidents of France and Georgia, she accepted Georgian nationality and became the Foreign Minister of Georgia. During her tenure at the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), she negotiated a treaty that led to the withdrawal of Russian forces from the undisputed parts of the Georgian mainland.
Following disagreements with Georgia's then-ruling party United National Movement, in 2006 Zourabichvili launched her own political party, which she led until 2010. Ultimately, she was elected to the Georgian Parliament in 2016 as an independent. In 2018, Zourabichvili ran for president as an independent candidate and prevailed in a run-off vote against the UNM nominee Grigol Vashadze. During her presidential campaign, Zourabichvili was endorsed by the ruling Georgian Dream party; however, following the 2020–2021 Georgian political crisis, Zourabichvili became increasingly alienated from the GD-led Georgian government, a rift that worsened following the 2023 Georgian protests. As part of this inter-institutional conflict, the ruling party launched an impeachment proceeding against Zourabichvili in September 2023, but failed to gather sufficient votes to impeach her. Conflict with the ruling party has since developed into a political crisis in Georgia. When Mikheil Kavelashvili was elected as her successor, the validity of the election was contested, with Zourabichvili stating that she remains president until a legitimate replacement can be elected.
Family and personal life Ancestry
Salome Zourabichvili was born into a family of Georgian emigrants that fled to France following the 1921 Red Army invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Her father, Levan Zourabichvili, a career engineer, served for many years as chairman of the Georgian Association of France (AGF). Levan is the maternal grandson of Niko Nikoladze (1843–1928), a businessman, philanthropist and Georgian politician of the late 19th century who served as a member of the Social-Democratic Party and was an influential leader of the Georgian liberal intelligentsia during the Russian Empire. Levan's brother, Georges Zourabichvili (1899-1944), was a philosopher and interpreter who was denounced for collaborating with the German occupiers in France and disappeared in 1944. Salome's mother, Zeïnab Kedia (1921–2016) was a daughter of Melkisedek Kedia, who served as the head of the Security Service of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, and the sister of Mikhail Kedia (1902–1954), a prominent member of the Wehrmacht's Georgian Legion during World War II.
Salome Zourabichvili has one brother, Othar Zourabichvili, a doctor, writer and chairman of the AGF since 2006. They are cousins of historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, who was a member of the , and philosopher François Zourabichvili.
Youth Salomé Zourabichvili was born in Paris on 18 March 1952 and was raised within the Georgian community in France, settled between Paris and Leuville-sur-Orge since the 1921 fall of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Raised in a prominent emigrant family with close ties to the government-in-exile of Georgia, the diaspora was the only contact she had in her childhood with the country, once stating:
At 8, she met her first visitor from Georgia during a visit to Paris by a Georgian ballet troupe, a meeting held in secret because of the repressive nature of the Soviet authorities organizing the visit. In an interview with The Washington Post, she said she felt comfortable "straddling the two cultures," attending French schools while going to the Georgian church of Paris on the weekends.
Higher education
At 17, Zourabichvili received results that allowed her "the privilege of a direct admission in the terrible preparatory year" of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in September 1969, a program out of which only half of its participants reach the Institute after a year. In May 1970, her final exam topic choice on "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Europe between 1917 and 1923" guaranteed her a spot at the Institute. Later in 2019, the school would describe her results on the topics on the Rerum novarum, Kulturkampf and Alexander II's reforms as a "triumph", while a professor described her as a "very smart student who quickly learned the methodology and know-how of the program".
In 1970, Zourabichvili joined the International Section of Sciences Po, a path toward diplomatic service accessed only by a minority of the 4,000 students at the Institute, of which a third were women. She studied under a number of well-known French professors, such as historians Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Louis Chevalier, her cousin Hélène Carrère d'Encausse and the international lawyer Suzanne Bastid, the latter two being the only women teaching at Sciences Po. Zourabichvili concentrated her studies on the Soviet world and graduated in July 1972.
In a letter of recommendation by Sciences Po Secretary-General René Henry-Gréard, the latter described her as a student who, despite her "shyness", possessed "exceptional qualities" and predicted a great future for her. She joined Columbia University in 1972–1973 where Zbigniew Brzezinski, at the time director of the Trilateral Commission, trained her on Soviet politics and Cold War diplomacy.
Zourabichvili has said that choosing a career in diplomacy she linked with hopes to one day being instrumental in helping Georgia.
Teaching career Zourabichvili returned to Sciences Po in 2006, this time as a professor shortly after her departure as Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. She worked until 2014 at the Paris School of International Affairs, teaching the foreign policy of large powers, the post-Soviet world, the development of Eurasia since the fall of the USSR, and the causes for that fall. In that post, she academically analyzed the progress of the European Union in times of crisis. A student would later describe her classes as "encouraging important debates".
Family and private life From her first marriage to a World Bank economist Nicolas Gorjestani, Zourabichvili has two children: Kéthévane (journalist for France 24) and Teymouraz (a French diplomat). In 1993, she married her second husband Janri Kashia, a Georgian writer and journalist who was a political refugee in France. Kashia died in 2012.
Besides French and Georgian, Zourabichvili speaks fluent English and conversational Italian. She has a dog named Gombora.
Career in France Diplomatic beginnings
Zourabichvili joined the French diplomatic service in 1974. She quickly became a career diplomat, serving as Third Secretary in Rome until 1977, under ambassadors Charles Lucet and François Puaux, and then as Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of France to the UN until 1980. Working with Jacques Leprette, she witnessed France's presidency of the United Nations Security Council in October 1978 and January 1980.
After a stint in Paris with the Policy Planning Staff at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she returned to the U.S. in 1984 as First Secretary at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., focusing on US-Soviet affairs under Ambassador Emmanuel de Margerie. She first visited Georgia in 1986. From 1988 to 1989, she served in Vienna as First Secretary to the French Mission to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, leading negotiations on conventional forces reduction.
From 1989 to 1992, she was Second Adviser at the French Embassy in Chad, during the period when Idriss Déby took power in a coup d'état supported by France.
Brussels and return to Paris In 1992, Zourabichvili was appointed First Secretary to the Permanent Mission of France to NATO in Brussels, before becoming Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the Western European Union, still in Brussels, from 1993 to 1996.
In 1996 and 1997, she held the post of Technical Adviser at the Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. In 1997–1998, she was Inspector at the MFA, still in Paris, before she was appointed Under-Director of Strategic Affairs at the Management of Strategic Affairs, Security and Disarmament of the MFA, a post she left in 2001 to become director of International and Strategic Affairs at the General Secretariat of National Defense. She also worked with the Bureau of Strategic Affairs of NATO.
Ambassador to Georgia Between 2003 and 2004, Zourabichvili was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Georgia.
Georgian politics Minister of Foreign Affairs
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia nominated Zourabichvili as Minister of Foreign Affairs, making her the first woman to hold this post in Georgia on 18 March 2004.
Zourabichvili served as the Coordinator of the Panel of Experts for the United Nations Security Council's Iran Sanctions Committee.
As Foreign Minister, she negotiated the withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia, signing an agreement with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on 19 May 2005. During her tenure, the "New Group of Friends of Georgia" was created, including Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland, to support Georgia's NATO aspirations and European integration.
Zourabichvili was dismissed by Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli on 19 October 2005 after disputes with Parliament members. Criticized by several Georgian ambassadors, she resigned from the French foreign service and announced her intention to remain in Georgia to pursue a political career.
Political career In November 2005, Zourabichvili set up the organization 'Salomé Zourabichvili's Movement'. In January 2006 she announced the establishment of a new political party The Way of Georgia, criticizing the country's "de facto one-party system." Although Zourabichvili enjoyed some degree of reputation in Georgia she was long unable to establish herself in the political field. At the city council elections in Tbilisi on 5 October 2006, only 2.77% of the constituency voted for her party. Six months before, an opinion poll conducted by the Georgian weekly Kviris Palitra suggested that she would garner 23.1% of the votes at presidential elections. Since October 2007, her party was part of the United Opposition alliance, which nominated Zourabichvili as a Prospective Prime Minister in case of their candidate Levan Gachechiladze's victory in the January 2008 presidential election.
As part of a 2009 campaign of the Georgian opposition to force President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign, Zourabichvili led a protest march together with three other prominent opposition figures – Nino Burjanadze, David Gamkrelidze and Eka Beselia – in Tbilisi on 26 March 2009. Zourabichvili had previously accused Saakashvili of democratic backsliding.