At the time of the war in Ukraine, the day after an exceptional pandemic crisis, the agents of the Quai d’Orsay decided to strike on June 2 at the call of the inter-union bringing together the majority of the trade union organizations and a collective of some 500 agents, including many young diplomats. This decision will not have been easy to make as long as it is not in the house culture.
It is the expression of anger at the brutal abolition of the diplomatic corps, which not only affects the corps of foreign affairs advisers and plenipotentiary ministers but will also have profound repercussions on the future of all personnel, whether they are foreign affairs and chancery secretaries, information systems attachés and secretaries and chancery technical and administrative assistants, whether tenured or contractual.
Many personalities have warned of the risks of such a decision which will allow appointments of convenience to the detriment of competence and will result in the destructuring of careers, a loss of expertise and a crisis in vocations. We face the risk of the disappearance of our professional diplomacy. Quai d’Orsay professions are learned over time, through the multiplication of experiences, particularly abroad and in difficult positions, and the transmission of knowledge and experience between agents..
A questioning of the ministry
Above all, getting involved at the Quai d’Orsay is a vocation and a life choice, exciting and full of opportunities of course, but also involving its share of personal and family constraints that are often underestimated. The agents are also rebelling against the suspicion, which underlies this reform, of a ministry withdrawn into itself. And for good reason, because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by nature oriented towards the interministerial coordination of the State’s external action, is already very open to other administrations: in the embassies and in the services, diplomats, soldiers , police officers, Bercy agents, members of the ministries of culture, national education, agriculture, ecology, etc.
The ministry also welcomes, in often precarious conditions, talented contract workers who come from very diverse backgrounds: private sector, NGOs, international organizations. Beyond that, it is the question of the human resources given to our diplomatic tool that this strike wants to raise. Already, in 2010, former ministers Hubert Védrine and Alain Juppé warned: “Stop weakening the Quai d’Orsay! »
You have 51.94% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.