Jean-Yves Le Drian, 74, bows out after ten years in power, first as Minister of Defense under François Hollande, then in Europe and Foreign Affairs alongside Emmanuel Macron. He is replaced by Catherine Colonna in the new government, announced on Friday May 20.
The transfer of power on Saturday took place two days after the filing of a strike notice, for June 2, in order to protest against the removal of two historical bodies from the Quai d’Orsay imposed by the Head of State on his minister.
Loyal to Mr. Macron to the end, Mr. Le Drian shared the diplomatic vicissitudes of this first five-year term without ever trying to stand out, from the election of Donald Trump in the United States to the war in Ukraine, via the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and the hasty withdrawal of the Americans from Afghanistan. A mission carried out in a climate of “brutalization of the world”in his words, against a backdrop of the rise of China and the loss of Western influence.
With the Head of State, the distribution of tasks has always been very clear: amateur of diplomatic coups, sometimes without a future, especially in Lebanon, Mr. Macron takes the light. His minister, he works in the shadows. The curmudgeon from the Quai d’Orsay plows the ground by multiplying trips abroad. Mr. Le Drian, who during his time in defense opposed the Quai on numerous occasions, has never had either the authority or the panache of the three foreign ministers who have marked these last decades: Alain Juppé , in cohabitation with François Mitterrand then under Nicolas Sarkozy; Hubert Védrine, in the Jospin cohabitation government under Jacques Chirac; and Dominique de Villepin, under Jacques Chirac.
There was no shortage of setbacks and failures
During these five years, Mr. Le Drian never entered the circle of intimates of the President of the Republic, unlike his Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, whose outspokenness often annoyed his surroundings. The latter was promoted to Minister Delegate in charge of Europe. Between the Elysée and the Quai, relations have gone through stormy periods: in August 2019, regarding the rapprochement then sketched out with Putin’s Russia, Mr. Macron did not hesitate to question “deep state” what the ministry would be.
Over the course of the five-year term, setbacks, even failures, have not been lacking either, sometimes cruel for a man who has made “strategic partnerships” military-diplomatic one of its trademarks. In September 2021, the minister flew into a rage, denouncing the “duplicity” of the Australian government, after the announcement of its alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom (Aukus), and the abandonment of the “deal of the century” relating to the sale of 12 French submarines to Canberra. The case had been negotiated by the same Le Drian, then at Defense, who wanted to make it one of the springs of French strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
In the service of Mr. Macron and even more so as Minister of Defense for François Hollande, Jean-Yves Le Drian was for ten years the unofficial “Minister for Africa”, the face of Paris on a continent where, especially in its part francophone, his word always carries a particular weight. However, nothing predestined the Breton elected official to become the privileged interlocutor of African heads of state, the contact sought by exiled or passing opponents.
His real entry on the African scene is sensational. In January 2013, when the north of Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups which threatened to extend their hold, France launched the “Serval” operation and its army to reconquer these territories. The former colonial power is applauded as never before, including in capitals that have never shone with their Francophilia. In December 2013, in a certain interventionist euphoria, the “Sangaris” operation was launched in the Central African Republic (CAR) on the grounds of a “pre-genocidal” situation.
Follower of an old-fashioned policy
In barely a year, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who on his arrival at the Hôtel de Brienne only had a few socialist and Breton networks to promote, has become the one who has all his entry points in the presidencies. His “friends”: the successive presidents of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou then Mohamed Bazoum, but also the Chadian Idriss Déby, who knew how to fully play his card as an indispensable ally in the battle against armed Islamism. With many others, relations will be more uncertain as with the Malian Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, going from a displayed complicity to the exchange of perfidy.
Jean-Yves Le Drian can only note, however, that the policy he embodied, made up of closeness to African leaders, even authoritarian ones, and military intervention, as in Mali and CAR or in Libya alongside Marshal Haftar , today seems largely rejected by African opinion. The tide is turning and this has recently brought a growing number of African leaders to Moscow.
Cruel epilogue, in the two countries where he was most involved, the CAR and Mali, Jean-Yves Le Drian is now perceived as an adversary. In Bamako, after weeks of war of words with the ruling junta, the French soldiers are now persona non grata and the former minister, as well as his son Thomas, are summoned to court on June 20, accused of “complicity in illegal taking of interest and favouritism” in the award in 2015 of the contract for the manufacture of biometric passports to the company Oberthur Technologie. A procedure to be placed in the context of the break that occurred at the end of 2021 between Mali and France.
In the Middle East, Mr. Le Drian’s lack of scruples about dealing with autocrats was even more apparent than in Africa. Faithful to his politico-security approach to diplomatic matters, the minister has forged very close ties with two of the most repressive heads of state in the region: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi and Mohamed Ben Zayed, the regent of made of the United Arab Emirates, which officially became president last week.
These partnerships, sealed in part in the name of the fight against jihadist terrorism and – in the case of Egypt – the fight against illegal immigration, have led France to turn a blind eye, at least publicly, to the violations massive human rights violations committed by Cairo and Abu Dhabi. Imperceptibly, Paris accompanied the authoritarian restoration movement in the Middle East, post-“Arab Spring”, of which Mohamed Ben Zayed was the great mastermind.
Stubborn VRP of the tricolor defense industry, Jean-Yves Le Drian was paid in return. It was during his time at La Défense that Rafale sales abroad finally took off, before accelerating during his tenure at the Quai d’Orsay. In the space of seven years, Egypt has placed an order for 54 Rafales and the Emirates for 80, a record contract, sealed in December, during the last visit of the French minister to Abu Dhabi.
In November 2021, secret-defense documents in support, the online media Disclose cast a harsh light on the dangers of cooperating with authoritarian powers. The news site had revealed that a reconnaissance mission carried out by French military intelligence in the Egyptian western desert had been diverted from its anti-terrorist vocation by the Cairo authorities, in full view of Paris, and that it led to deadly strikes against arms, drug and migrant trafficking networks. That is, civilians.
The online media said that the mission had been put on track in 2015, during a visit by Mr. Le Drian to Cairo. These revelations could have been very embarrassing for the minister. But after a quick internal investigation, the Ministry of the Armed Forces cleared itself of any responsibility for the deaths in the Egyptian desert. The majority formed a block in the Assembly, preventing any debate. And Mr. Le Drian was able to complete his decade in government without worry.