Marie-Laure Phinera-Horth (born 28 June 1957) is a French politician, who was the first woman from
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...
to be appointed to the
French Senate
The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 348 senators (''sénateurs'' a ...
in 2020. Prior to her role as a senator, she was mayor of Cayenne from 2010.
Biography
Phinéra-Horth joined the
Guianese Socialist Party
The Guianese Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste guyanais, PSG) is a political party in the French '' overseas région'' of French Guiana, in South America.
History
It was founded in 1956 by Justin Catayée, beforehand the founder of the G ...
(PSG) in 1988, of which she was treasurer for two years. She was elected as a municipal councillor of Cayenne in 1995, re-elected in 2001 and 2008. From 1995 to 2008 she was the sixth deputy to mayor Jean-Claude Lafontaine; then first deputy to his successor
Rodolphe Alexandre
Rodolphe Alexandre (born 26 September 1953 in Cayenne) is a French politician from French Guiana. The former Mayor of Cayenne, he was president of the Guiana Assembly, the deliberative assembly of French Guiana, since its
establishment on 1 Janu ...
. When the latter acceded to the presidency of the regional council, she was elected to succeed him as mayor on 8 April 2010.
Supported by both the PSG and
Walwari
Walwari () is a political party in the French overseas department and region of French Guiana, founded in 1992 by Christiane Taubira and her husband Roland Delannon. On 23 March 2014, she was re-elected and won the municipal elections in the first round with 6,976 votes, or 69.75%. She was officially invested by the municipal council on 28 March.
On 20 May 2016, she founded a new political party - Guyana's New Force ( fr), which is primarily active in Cayenne. Leading an NFG-Walwari-PSG-Guyane Écologie union list, she again won the 2020 elections with 60.46% of the vote. Phinéra-Horth was elected French Guiana's first female senator on 27 September 2020.
In February 2022 she was taken to court, accused of falsely collecting a salary as a speech therapist during her time as mayor from 2013 to 2016.