Marcelo Ebrard, the foreign minister of Mexico, has been criticized on social media for posting a selfie with his wife, Rosalinda Bueso, while they were at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Around 2,000 heads of state and other distinguished personalities were present in London today to bid adieu to the monarch who had ruled over the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth for 70 years.

Ebrard, 62, had posted the picture on Twitter and captioned it, “At the State Funeral of HM (Her Majesty) Queen Elizabeth II.”

Who is Marcel Ebrard?

Born on October 10, 1959, Ebrard hails from a family that emigrated to Mexico from France’s Barcelonette in 1915. The former Head of Government of Mexico City received an undergraduate degree from El Colegio de México in international relations. He also attended École nationale d’administration in France where he specialized in administration and public planning.

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Ebrard’s political career began in 1978 when he joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He left the party in 1995, and by 2000 had joined the Mexico City cabinet of López Obrador as his secretary of public security. In 2006, Ebrard was finally elected as the head of government of the Mexican Federal District.

As the new head of Mexico City, Ebrard expropriated properties in the city that were being used by criminals and installed video surveillance devices in crime-prone areas. His actions brought down crime rate in the city by 11%. 

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Ebrard was fired from his position in 2004 by then-president Vincente Fox Quesada for not timely rescuing undercover law enforcement officials who were lynched by a mob in the Tlahuac suburbs. 

After serving as the President of the United Nations Global Network on Safer Cities from 2012, Ebrard was elected as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs in 2018 in the cabinet of López Obrador.