Rama Yade (born Mame Ramatoulaye Yade; 13 December 1976) is a Senegalese-born French politician and the author of several books. She served as the French Secretary of Human Rights from 2007 to 2009, and the Secretary of Sports from 2009 to 2010. She was the Permanent Delegate of France to UNESCO from December 2010 to June 2011. She held the vice-presidency of the centre-right Radical Party up until 25 September 2015. She announced her candidacy in the 2017 French presidential election, but was unable to catch enough signatures to be aparticipant in the presidential race. Her campaign was aimed at "the forgotten people" of France.
Yade was born in Ouakam, Dakar, Senegal. She comes from an educated, upper-middle-class, Lebou family. Her mother, Aminata Kandji, was a professor and her father, Djibril Yade, also a professor, was the personal secretary of Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor and a diplomat. She moved to France with the rest of her family at the age of eight. After her father left the country when she was fourteen, she moved into a council flat in Colombes with her mother and three sisters. She was educated in Catholic schools and then at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, where she graduated in 2000.