a hasty departure from Egypt… and still no replacement – ​​L’Express

“Marc Baréty has retired,” reacts the Quai d’Orsay. The departure of the ambassador was, it is true, scheduled for Official newspaper for the day after his 67th birthday, January 13, 2024. The diplomat, an expert on Arab countries having spent no less than twenty-six years of his career in eight capitals of the area, would simply have taken two months ahead of the calendar. “It’s his decision,” insists one of his colleagues and friends. On November 12, the ambassador organized a farewell party at the diplomatic residence. “He told us that his departure was normally planned for January, but that he had days off to take,” relates Hervé Majidier, French consular advisor for Egypt.

The fact remains that this very discreet departure was little anticipated, contrary to the best practices, which want the new ambassador to be appointed and operational as soon as his predecessor leaves. When François Gouyette, ambassador to Algeria, left his post in July 2023, having reached the age limit – information shared well in advance by the embassy account on the social network X and by the Algerian press –, his successor, Stéphane Romatet, had already been appointed two weeks ago. Within the French community in Egypt and in local diplomatic circles, the retirement without immediate replacement of Marc Baréty raises questions. “No one understands. In the embassy gardens, with elected officials, diplomats, even from other countries, we ask ourselves: ‘Who? Why?’ Usually, the successor is known well in advance, especially in a country as important as Egypt, central in issues such as refugees, humanitarian aid, Libya,” says Hervé Majidier.

The departure of Mac Baréty, former deputy director of the North Africa and Middle East Directorate (ANMO) of the Quai d’Orsay, where it is often nicknamed the “Arab street”, is also part of a tense context. According to our information, the diplomat is one of around fifteen ambassadors who signed a note addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Elysée at the beginning of November. This document, revealed on November 13 by Le Figaro, criticizes France’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict, described as too favorable to the Jewish state and detrimental to France’s image in the Arab states. There is nothing unusual about a diplomat sending a dissonant note to his superiors. That the editors coordinate among themselves in advance is, conversely, completely “unprecedented”, according to Charles-Henri d’Aragon, former ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia.

All the ambassadors of the North Africa – Middle East region would have signed the text, except three: Nicolas Roche, ambassador to Iran, former chief of staff of Jean-Yves Le Drian at the Quai d’Orsay; Nicolas Niemtchinow, stationed in the United Arab Emirates, former deputy director of the cabinet of Alain Juppé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, during the war in Libya, and director of strategy of the DGSE between 2017 and 2022; finally, Bernard Kouchner’s historical advisor, Eric Chevallier, ambassador to Iraq. The latter is also strongly expected to take over from Marc Baréty in Egypt.

“Diplomacy is not a matter of individual opinions […]. The duty of reserve and the obligation of loyalty apply to diplomats as to all civil servants,” Emmanuel Macron told those concerned, according to The chained Duck. A clear warning: any public expression will be punished. At the same time, the executive has refrained, at this stage, from repressing the authors of the note more severely. “Certain active colleagues and others already retired would publicly oppose it,” points out a diplomat, still in The chained Duck. Conversely, an advisor to the executive asserts that the recent presidential trip to the Middle East served to explain the French position to foreign heads of state, but also to “our embassies”.

The debate is basically the resurgence of an old quarrel. In February and then in June 2011, a group of diplomats named “Marly”, named after the Parisian café where its members met, rose up in The world against the diplomatic policy of Nicolas Sarkozy, considered to be at break with the years of Gaulle-Mitterrand-Chirac. “The policy followed with regard to Tunisia or Egypt was defined at the Presidency of the Republic without taking into account the analyzes of our embassies. […] Our following with regard to the United States confuses many of our partners,” criticized senior officials. In 2014, several of the members of this informal and anonymous group then founded the Club of Twenty, a collective of diplomats and intellectuals “Gaullo-Mitterrandians” attached to the image of France in the countries of the South, says Christian Lequesne, professor at Sciences Po. It was originally chaired by Francis Gutmann, ex-ambassador in Madrid and nephew by marriage of the general de Gaulle.

This circle “has the mission of defending the mental map of independence and rank against the Westernist mental map”, specifies Christian Lequesne in his work Ethnography of the Quai d’Orsay (2017). Three former Ministers of Foreign Affairs were originally part of it: Roland Dumas and Hubert Védrine (the latter left the club quickly), historical close friends of François Mitterrand, and Hervé de Charette, former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Jacques Chirac. The Club des Twenty also counts in its ranks Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, former Chirac Sherpa, as well as Régis Debray, another historic collaborator of Mitterrand. Everyone disagrees with the diplomatic policy of Sarkozy, Hollande and also… Emmanuel Macron.

The current president, after having often consulted Hubert Védrine and Dominique de Villepin in his first years at the Elysée, and appeared to give assurances to the “Gaullo-Mitterrandians”, in particular qualifying the “Westernists” of the Quai d’Orsay as ” Deep State”, disappointed these diplomats. “The tensions that we can see between Western countries and the rest of the world, which the Ukrainian crisis has reignited, must not lead to new clashes: France must continue to oppose the logic of the blocs and develop its dialogue with countries that want to be increasingly non-aligned”, wrote the Club of Twenty, in June 2022, on its website. An advice not followed enough to his liking by the Head of State.

Contrary to the “Marly” and the Club des Twenty, a perfectly opposed movement has gradually taken shape. As early as February 2011, other anonymous diplomats, under the name of the “Rostand group”, had contradicted the “Marly” in Le Figaro, calling them “guardians of the cracked temple”. “We would have to return to a mythologized past where France could only exist by opposing America, by standing halfway between everyone, that is to say nowhere, when demonizing France ‘NATO was a place for reflection. Best way, no doubt, to guarantee our audience with our allies,’ squealed the “Rostand”.

In The Hidden Face of the Quai d’Orsay, published in 2016, journalist Vincent Jauvert recounts the affinities maintained on the same theme by a group of diplomats nicknamed “the sect”. Among them, several future cabinet directors of ministers under Emmanuel Macron, such as Nicolas Roche, Luis Vassy, ​​his successor under Catherine Colonna, or even Martin Briens, who occupied the same position at the Ministry of the Armed Forces. A friendly “considered exaggeratedly Atlanticist, pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian” by its detractors, writes Vincent Jauvert. We could also describe these diplomats as proponents of the thesis of a profoundly anti-Western turnaround in certain Arab countries, starting with Iran.

In this “mental map”, summarized by the Rostands, it is necessary to ensure the security of the Western world before giving pledges to deeply hostile countries, which would amount to denying the evolution of the balance since September 11. This worldview seemed to be reflected in Emmanuel Macron’s aborted proposal to organize a “regional and international coalition” against Hamas. The diplomats who did not sign the “critical note” are also all three associated either with the results of Emmanuel Macron or that of Nicolas Sarkozy, symbolized by the war in Libya in 2011.

Conversely, among the signatories, none belonged to a so-called Gaullo-Mitterrand ministerial cabinet. “The North Africa – Middle East sector, which we thought was destroyed by the ‘neocons’, is still moving!” savors a former minister, asked for the “critical note”. Everything happens as if the “deep state” of the Arab sector of the Quai d’Orsay had suddenly rebelled against its tutelage. The continuation of an old tradition, notes historian Maurice Vaïsse, who points out that “the diplomats of the ANMO direction have always held positions more favorable to Arab countries in general.” A line not necessarily representative of the overall balance at the Quai d’Orsay – the strategic affairs department, for example, often holds divergent analyses. And concerns that are not necessarily justified are being demonstrated by the Elysée and the Quai d’Orsay. For a week, the executive has been trying to escape the age-old quarrel between the “Westernists” and the “Gaullo-Mitterrandians” to defend a completely Macronian synthesis. Calls for a ceasefire and announcements on humanitarian aid to Gaza bear the mark of this. The premises of a future diplomatic sector?