Some of the French diplomats were on strike this Thursday, June 2. Those who are stationed on the American continent were always downstream. A call for a strike was launched by a collective of 500 young diplomats and the inter-union of Foreign Affairs to protest against the abolition of the diplomatic corps, planned by the reform of the senior civil service.
With our special correspondent at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris, Oriane Verdier
In front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a hundred or so people gathered behind a large sign: “ Not all the same path, but all the same vocation “.
The government reform plans to create a common pool of state administrators who can be mobilized from one ministry to another. The strikers present in the capital express the deep unease of the agents of the Quai d’Orsay.
On the megaphone, Olivier Da Silva, spokesman for the inter-union Foreign Affairs.
We must continue to disseminate and make it known that we are not doing an interchangeable job, and that the reforms which have meant that over the last thirty years we have lost 50% of our staff and our credits, lead us today working with bits of string. We’re about to run out of strings.
The abolition of the diplomatic corps, as part of the reform of the senior civil service, is one of the factors, it is the last straw. But it is also the incredible drop in resources.
An anonymous participant in the protest movement at the Quai d’Orsay
Arrived in France at 20 years old, jabbering French, became a diplomat from my adopted country at 34 years old, I strike for the 1st time in 17 years of profession so that France can count on its career diplomats to defend its interests at the ‘international #diplo2metier pic.twitter.com/vO1JhXpomG
— Tudor ALEXIS (@tudoralexis1) June 2, 2022
If the strikers ask for recognition of their specificity, they do not reject the possibility of interministerial mobility, which already exists, testifies Jean-Baptiste Lesecq, currently stationed at the Quai d’Orsay crisis center.
Me, I was two years at the Ministry of the Interior as sub-prefect. I was also at the Ministry of the Economy for three years, so this openness exists. But it is constructed in relation to a career in the ministry of origin. It is all this consistency of the course that we build over the long term that risks being called into question by the current reform.
►Also listen: Strike by diplomats against a backdrop of disputed reform: “Mismatch between ambitions and means”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not wait for the reform to evolve. This is also the message conveyed by the collective of 500, at the origin of the mobilization.
Arrived in France at 20 years old, jabbering French, became a diplomat from my adopted country at 34 years old, I strike for the 1st time in 17 years of profession so that France can count on its career diplomats to defend its interests at the ‘international #diplo2metier pic.twitter.com/vO1JhXpomG
— Tudor ALEXIS (@tudoralexis1) June 2, 2022
Like many of her colleagues, this young woman, who is a member of the collective, prefers to remain anonymous.
The Quai d’Orsay is an administration where there are remnants of the old regime, and at the same time which is fundamentally changing. If you look at the faces today, you will see that there are a lot of young people; there is gender parity; but there is also a greater diversity of profiles. We proved, even with this mobilization, in fact, which was done spontaneously, with the hashtag #diplo2metier, etc., that we could mobilize in a very modern way, without hierarchy. What is paradoxical is that the hierarchy joined this movement afterwards. This ministry is quite simply in the image of today’s France.
►Listen again: Does diplomacy only belong to diplomats?
This new generation inspires admiration and respect to the older ones. This is explained by Alain Faure, a retired diplomat.
These are young people who are no doubt more open to the world than we were, at least thirty years ago, who are very aware of what the world is like today, a complicated world. It is necessary not only, I would say, to be aware of the geopolitical and geostrategic stakes, but to know how to adapt to a country, to master its codes, even to speak its language, to be able to promote our interests, our values… Well, all this cannot be improvised.
You just have to go through the offices of the ministry, the embassies, and you have extremely diverse people who are recruited by competition, who come from Paris, from the suburbs, from the provinces (…) But the backbone, you need a body of professional diplomats.
Movement at the Quai d’Orsay: an anonymous participant
If I were still active, I would be on strike alongside my colleagues. #diplo2metier
— Gerard Araud (@GerardAraud) June 2, 2022
All generations combined, the diplomats mobilized call for the organization of assizes in order to match these realities on the ground, the objectives of French diplomacy and the means deployed to achieve them.
At a time when international relations are hardening, the strikers are calling for French diplomacy to be saved. A diplomacy which, for the time being, according to Jean-Baptiste Lesecq, is still the envy of many foreign countries.
►Read again: Faced with the abolition of the diplomatic corps, an unprecedented call for strike by French diplomats