Arthur de Laborde
Faced with Emmanuel Macron, present for his traditional opening speech, the reception of the ambassadors for the start of the 2022 school year is likely to be quite fresh. Indeed, since the reform of the senior civil service defended by the executive, relations between the president and the diplomats have become strained. Europe 1 takes stock.
This Thursday, September 1st is also the start of the new school year for the ambassadors. And she is already rebellious. Two months after an extremely rare strike, the civil servants of the Quai d’Orsay are getting structured. They announced on Wednesday the creation of the French Association of Professional Diplomats, integrated in particular by two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Dominique de Villepin and Michel Barnier. Objective: to defend the tricolor diplomatic corps in the face of the reform abolishing its two highest ranks, foreign affairs adviser and minister plenipotentiary.
Unease between the Élysée and the diplomats
“This reform destroys professional diplomacy by replacing professional diplomats with people who no doubt have very high quality, but who in fact will occupy positions in diplomacy intermittently. Which for me is a very great danger for the foreign policy and for the public service that is diplomacy”, explains the president of the association, Benjamin Weisz.
And despite this discomfort, Emmanuel Macron, he holds on. With this overhaul, the Elysée explains that it wants to shake up careers presented as too linear and tap into more varied profiles than before to energize French diplomacy.
Emmanuel Macron will also chair a first defense council this Thursday devoted to the energy crisis and the means to overcome it.