Edith Cresson was the first woman prime minister of which country?

Edith Cresson (born Édith Campion, 27 January 1934) is a French politician. She is the only woman to have held the office of Prime Minister of France. Her political career ended in scandal from corruption charges while she was the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Technology.

Cresson was appointed to the prime ministerial post by President François Mitterrand on 15 May 1991. She soon became strongly unpopular among the electorate and had to leave office after less than one year, following the Socialists' poor showing in 1992's regional elections. She spent the shortest time in office of any Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic so far. Her strong criticism of Japanese trade practices, going so far as to compare the Japanese to "yellow ants trying to take over the world", led some to consider her also to be a racist. She also said, discussing the sexual activities of Anglo-Saxon males, "Homosexuality seems strange to me. It's different and marginal. It exists more in the Anglo-Saxon tradition than the Latin one."