Eva Joly, born Gro Eva Farseth on December 5, 1943, in Oslo, Norway, is a Franco-Norwegian magistrate and politician with a remarkable career in the judicial and political spheres, driven by her commitment to fighting corruption.
Born and raised in a modest family in Oslo, Eva Joly left Norway at the age of 20 to settle in France, where she worked as an au pair while pursuing her law studies at Panthéon-Assas University, earning a law degree and a postgraduate diploma in political science.
In 1981, Eva Joly passed an exceptional entrance exam for the National School for the Judiciary, allowing her to become a deputy public prosecutor at the Orléans High Court at the age of 38.
She was seconded to the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring (CIRI) in 1989, an organization that supports struggling companies in disaster areas, where she became the first Deputy Secretary General not to have graduated from the École nationale d'administration (ENA).
Eva Joly was appointed an investigating judge in the financial division of the Paris courthouse in 1990, investigating high-profile cases such as the Bernard Tapie vs. Crédit Lyonnais case and the Elf-Gabon case, which led to the Elf affair.
She investigated Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, former CEO of Elf Aquitaine and current President of SNCF, and had him imprisoned on July 5, 1996, and then opened files on the Taiwan frigates affair and the Dumas-Deviers-Joncour affair.
In 1998, Eva Joly indicted Roland Dumas, President of the Constitutional Council, who was forced to resign, and continued to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, including the Bidermann case.
In 2009, Eva Joly was called upon by the Icelandic government to serve as a special advisor in an investigation into possible financial crime that may have exacerbated the country's financial crisis, and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament on the Europe Écologie Les Verts list.
She chairs the European Parliament's Development Committee and is distinguished by her expertise in financial flows and economic crime, and has worked for the Norwegian government and the World Bank, contributing her expertise in the fight against corruption.
In 2012, Eva Joly called for the opening of military archives and the lifting of military secrecy "on nuclear tests in the sub-Saharan region and in Polynesia" in the 1950s and 1960s, and after 2015, she joined the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).
Eva Joly is the author of several books and continues to be consulted internationally for her expertise, making her a renowned figure in the fight against corruption.
