French diplomats from around the world went on strike for the first time in 20 years on Thursday to protest reforms initiated by President Emmanuel Macron that will abolish their special status and merge them with the rest of senior officials.
From Beijing to Paris, strikers posted photos and messages with the Twitter tag # diplo2metier (diplomat by profession) protesting that their job was a specialization that required knowledge and language experience that could not be simply changed for another government publication. “My baker is not my butcher,” said Jérôme Douaud, a diplomat.
“I don’t know anyone who is against the strike,” a former French diplomat told the Financial Times. “Everyone is in favor, senior diplomats and others, and even hired employees complaining about the lack of financial resources.”
Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister and foreign minister and an exponent of France’s refusal to join George W. Bush’s disastrous Iraq war two decades ago, said the abolition of the diplomatic corps would diminish. the French influence all over the world.
“Without this diplomatic corps, there would have been no opposition to US intervention in Iraq in 2003, nor to the Paris climate agreements in 2015,” he said. “For France, this means a loss of independence, a loss of skills and a loss of historical memory that will weigh heavily in the coming years as the world is reshaped, and in the same way that there are major crises in Ukraine, the South China Sea and the Sahel. “
Since the time of Charles de Gaulle, French presidents have often taken control of major foreign policy initiatives, leaving internal issues to the prime minister and allowing the Quai d’Orsay, the seat of the Foreign Ministry on the shore. left of the Seine, dealt with crisis and the day-to-day affairs of foreign affairs.
Macron has been particularly active in international diplomacy, especially in Europe, and before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine he complained about the “deep state” in the form of resistance by the French Foreign Ministry to its attempts to court Putin and bring Russia back into the European fold. .
The reform of Macron’s senior civil service, presented as a move against elitism, is seen by diplomats as a step too far. They say that the abolition of the two historic bodies of about 800 ambassadors and advisers – of 13,500 employees of the ministry – will mean that an official of the ministry of agriculture could be appointed number two of an embassy and end up in charge of affairs in the absence of the ambassador, without any diplomatic training.
“It looks like a silo break,” the former diplomat said. “But it’s part of a larger presidential movement. Macron doesn’t want to be limited…. So we’re moving toward less state neutrality and more politicization.”
The strikers are demanding a public hearing to address their complaints about reforms and repeated budget and staff cuts, and want assurances that they will be able to pursue a career as diplomats without being briefly transferred to other departments.
Macron’s appointment last month to Catherine Colonna, a career diplomat who was recently ambassador to London, as her new government’s foreign minister, is seen on the Quai d’Orsay as a wise choice that can help calm the angry diplomats.
“We need each and every one of you,” he told the Quai when he took over. “You can count on me to never forget who I am or where I come from, and I come from this place.”