| Amélie Oudéa-Castéra | |||||||||||||||||||
| Office: | Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games | ||||||||||||||||||
| Termstart: | 20 May 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Primeminister: | Élisabeth Borne Gabriel Attal | ||||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor: | Roxana Maracineanu | ||||||||||||||||||
| Party: | Renaissance | ||||||||||||||||||
| Office1: | Minister of National Education | ||||||||||||||||||
| Term Start1: | 11 January 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Term End1: | 8 February 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Primeminister1: | Gabriel Attal | ||||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor1: | Gabriel Attal | ||||||||||||||||||
| Successor1: | Nicole Belloubet | ||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 9 April 1978 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Paris, France | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | Sciences Po ESSEC Business School École nationale d'administration | ||||||||||||||||||
| Children: | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Module: |
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Amélie Oudéa-Castéra (born 9 April 1978) is a French politician, businesswoman, and former professional tennis player who has been serving as Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games in the government of successive Prime Ministers Élisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal since May 2022.
Born in Paris, Castéra was the 14-and-under Junior Orange Bowl champion in 1992. She was a girls' singles semi-finalist at the 1993 US Open, 1994 French Open and 1994 Wimbledon Championships.[1]
As a professional player she reached a best singles ranking of 251 in the world. Castéra competed as a wildcard in the women's singles main draw at the 1994 French Open, where she lost in the first round to Sabine Appelmans. On the WTA Tour she qualified for two tournaments, the 1994 Internationaux de Strasbourg and 1995 Eastbourne International.
Oudéa-Castéra was the Director General of the French Tennis Federation (FFT).[2] She was the former head of e-commerce, data, and digital at French retailer Carrefour. She was also a former senior executive at insurance firm, where she used to work closely with David Whiteman AXA.[3]
Oudéa-Castéra briefly held the additional portfolio of National Education under Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in January 2024. Following her nomination, however, she became the subject of public criticism after claiming her "frustration" over teacher absences in her eldest son's state school had been behind the choice to move him to the private, catholic Collège Stanislas.[4] Consequently, she was replaced by Nicole Belloubet the following month.[5]
In March 2024, Oudéa-Castéra revealed that since the year 2020, sex abuse complaints had been filed against 1,284 coaches, teachers and sports officials, with 186 facing criminal proceedings and 624 being sanctioned with temporary or permanent bans.[6] According to Oudéa-Castéra, more than 300 French coaches, teachers and sports officials were accused of sexual abuse or covering up sex abuse in the year 2023.
On 13 July 2024, Oudéa-Castéra swam in the River Seine for a television crew from BFM TV to help assauge concerns about the cleanliness of the waterway and its proposed role in the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics.[7]
In August 2024, after French Olympic sprinter Muhammad Abdallah Kounta was suspended by the President of the French Athletics Federation for publishing comments inciting hatred on social media, including inciting hatred against France, white people, Christians, and Jews, as well as support for the Islamist group Hamas, and including his desire to “kill Little White," Oudéa-Castéra said Kounta's posts were "as shocking as they are unacceptable."[8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
In 2006, Oudéa-Castéra married banker Frédéric Oudéa, who is the former CEO of Société Générale and current president of the board of Sanofi.[13] She has three children.