Increasingly, commentators have seen Royal as President François Hollande’s stand-in for some important state occasions. When Pope Francis touched down on French soil for the first time in his papacy with a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in November 2014, Royal was the senior French official there to greet him. After the deadly attacks against a satirical newspaper and a kosher supermarket in January 2015, she traveled to Israel to represent France at the memorial services.