Patrice Guillaume Athanase Talon[1] (born 1 May 1958) is a Beninese politician and businessman who has been president of Benin since 6 April 2016.

[3] After obtaining a "C" grade in his bachelor's degree in science at the University of Dakar,[4] he was transferred to the École nationale de l'aviation civile in Paris.

In 1990, after recommendations by the World Bank to liberalize economies in West African countries, Benin was called upon to withdraw from the cotton production chain.

[6] Talon was one of President Thomas Boni Yayi's chief financial backers, financing his campaigns in the 2006 and 2011 elections.

[8] In 2015, Forbes listed Talon as sub-Saharan Africa's 15th-richest person, with wealth valued at approximately US$400 million.

On 25 March 2016, Talon said that he would "first and foremost tackle constitutional reform", discussing his plan to limit presidents to a single term of five years in order to combat "complacency".

[12] Some of his policy goals are to reduce the power of the executive and limit presidents to single terms of five years.

[13] On 4 April 2017, the National Assembly failed to pass a bill that would have led to a referendum on Talon's proposal to limit presidents to a single five-year term.

[18] In 2018, Sébastien Ajavon, an opponent who came third in the 2016 presidential election, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for "drug trafficking" and "forgery and fraud".

[13] In March 2022, Patrice Talon was appointed the new president of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) at the end of a double ECOWAS-WAEMU summit.