Florence Parly in Paris, May 20, 2022. (AFP / GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT)
The shareholders of Air France-KLM gathered in a general meeting (AG) voted on Wednesday by more than 99% the appointment of the former Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly to the board of directors of the group, with the aim of taking head in a year.
The AGM was also disrupted by environmental activists denouncing the group’s greenwashing.
Appointed independent director of the Franco-Dutch group last December, Florence Parly officially takes over the seat of Isabelle Parize.
A first step which “is part of the perspective of the succession of Anne-Marie Couderc as president of the board of directors, at the latest at the end of the 2025 general meeting”, specified the group led by the Canadian Ben Smith in December.
Having reached the age limit, the former minister of Jacques Chirac, aged 74, was to leave this non-executive position in May 2023, but in the absence of a successor, Air-France KLM had decided to modify the statutes to extend it for another year, until the 2024 AGM which should have meant the end of his mandate.
On Wednesday, shareholders approved by more than 99% a new one-year extension of Anne-Marie Couderc’s mandate as president.
Énarque, former advisor to Lionel Jospin at Matignon in 1997 then Secretary of State for the Budget in 2000, Florence Parly knows Air France well, where she worked from 2006 to 2014, occupying the position of director of investment strategy, before to become deputy general director, first in charge of the cargo activity before short-haul.
She then joined the SNCF, then was appointed Minister of the Armed Forces in June 2017, a position she held until May 2022.
Like last year, the general meeting, which took place at the Hilton hotel in Tremblay-en-France (Seine-Saint-Denis), near Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, was disrupted by environmental activists, particularly from the Netherlands.
“You have to stop polluting the world and stop lying to us,” one of them called out during the question-and-answer session, accusing the group of “greenwashing”.
They then sang songs during the shareholder voting session and threw paper airplanes, as shown in a video posted on X.
“I apologize for the disruption, but on the other hand, it also allowed us to hear voices that we need to hear, given the challenges we face on the environmental level,” replied Ms. Couderc.
