It is a deletion that does not pass at all on the side of the senators and the report published on Tuesday shows it well. The reform of the diplomatic corps, at the origin of an extremely rare strike at the Quai d’Orsay at the beginning of June, risks in the state of weakening the influence of France internationally and must be suspended while adding, at least, safeguards, recommends the text. “This reform does not bring any improvement, quite the contrary, to the status and efficiency of our diplomats”, declared Christian Cambon, chairman (LR) of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during a press conference in Paris.
“This is a rather serious matter at a time when more than ever we need to strengthen our diplomacy and (…) where we need seasoned and competent diplomats”, he added, citing in particular the case the file Iranian nuclear power or the diplomatic offensives of Beijing and Moscow.
A reform that “will weaken the influence of France”
The application of the reform “weakens the French diplomatic apparatus and will weaken the influence of France, which derives its rank as a power of the United Nations Security Council from the excellence of its diplomatic personnel more than from its economic or military performance” , pin in the report the senators Jean-Pierre Grand (The Independents – Republic and Territories) and André Vallini (Socialist, Ecologist and Republican).
Faced with this observation, the Senate committee calls for “suspending” the application of the reform, “taking the time to open an in-depth dialogue with the staff” and implementing eight of its recommendations designed as safeguards. crazy. The report recommends in particular to set as a condition for becoming head of a diplomatic mission “to have exercised for at least three years the functions of number two of a diplomatic mission” – an exception for 20% of the posts of ambassadors could however be provided for.
It also recommends the establishment of a right of scrutiny – in the form of a public opinion – of the “competent permanent” committees of Parliament on the appointment of ambassadors within major international forums, such as the G20.
Diplomats regret a “lack of consideration”
Wanted by Emmanuel Macron, the reform of the senior civil service creates a new body of State administrators and provides that senior civil servants are no longer attached to a specific administration but are, on the contrary, invited to change regularly throughout the throughout their career. On June 2, several dozen diplomats, supported on Twitter by seasoned ambassadors, gathered in front of the Quai d’Orsay in Paris to express their “fatigue” and their anger at the “lack of consideration” contained, according to them, in the reform.
For the approximately 700 diplomats directly affected by the reform, this translates into a merger and then a gradual “extinction” by 2023 of the two historical bodies of French diplomacy, plenipotentiary ministers (ambassadors) and foreign affairs advisers. Clearly, these two bodies can now be staffed by State administrators – and no longer for a large part of them by trained diplomats – a development which in particular makes its detractors fear a loss of expertise on the field and in negotiation and in the long term a crisis of vocations.