Jean-Marie Cambacérès

Jean-Marie Cambacérès (b. 5 June 1949, Nîmes, France) is a French top civil servant, politician and bussinessman who was close to the two socialist French presidents France elected in the 1980s and 2010s, François Mitterrand (26 Oct. 1916 – 8 Jan.1996, pdt. 1981 – 1995) and François Hollande (b. 12 Aug. 1954, pdt. 2012 – 2017), and who wrote a biography of King Norodom Sihanouk that came out shortly after the Cambodian sovereign’s passing.

After advanced studies in agronomy, political science and public administration, Cambacérès, who had joined the Socialist Party in his youth, was elected mayor of Sommières (Gard), deputy to the National Assembly, and was appointed advisor to various ministries — including the right-wing Gaston Defferre at the Ministry of Interior — , as well as principal private secretary of the Party’s Chairman.

In charge of Asian affairs, he directly supervised the official visit President Mitterrand paid to China and North Korea in Februrary 1981, taking unusually detailed notes from the various meetings he took part in [see Judith Bonnin, Les voyages de François Mitterrand: Le PS et le monde (1971−1981), Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014, 346 p. eISBN: 978 – 2‑7535 – 5966‑0]. As the diplomatic and political process towards the October 1991 Cambodia Peace Accords were in full gear in France, he was in touch with the Cambodian factions and kept close to Prince and later King Sihanouk.

During his frequent visits to Phnom Penh Royal Palace at that time, he came to know Norodom Nanda Devi, the eldest of the 13 sons and daughters of Prince Norodom Chakrapong (b. 21 Oct. 1945) and a granddaughter of the king. Cambacérès, then 43 of age, and Nanda Devi, then 25, married in Nîmes on 30 Aug. 1992. They had one daughter together, Jayadevi, and divorced in 1999.

While supporting François Hollande’s presidential campaign in 2012, Jean-Marie Cambacérès was appointed to the Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE) in 2015, staying in charge of the European and International Affairs until March 2021. Earlier, he had led an audit mission at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale (IHEDN), was the president-founder of the association France-Asie (since 1993), and presided over since 2000 the NGO Harmonie Mékong, aimed at supporting the studying of French language and literature across Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

In November 2025, it was reported that the Cambodian Minister of Tourism, Huot Hak, received J.M. Cambacérès to discuss strengthened cooperation in promoting tourism and international promotion of Cambodia, in particular through one of Cambacérès’ communication tool, the website L’Essentiel des Relations Internationales [1].

[1] The quadrilingual (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish AI-generated versions) website seemed to have accessibility issues — in October 2026, we got an “Access denied” message when we tried to create an account from Cambodia, which seemed compulsory in order to consult the publication archive.

Publications

[with Philippe François & Vincent Desportes] “Mongolia’s Geostrategy: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, Politique Etrangère 4, 2008: 899 to 909.
Sihanouk, le roi insubmersible [Sihanouk — The Unsinkable King], Paris, Le Cherche-Midi, 2013.
Dans les coulisses des voyages présidentiels (du général de Gaulle à François Hollande) [Presidential Trips from General De Gaulle to François Hollande: Behind the scenes], Paris, Le Cherche-Midi, 2015.

Photo: Paris-Match, 2015