has the number of French ambassadors increased as Emmanuel Macron promised?

From his first term, Emmanuel Macron promised to feminize diplomacy. A wish reaffirmed in 2019 during the conference of ambassadors: “French diplomacy must also serve equality between women and men. (…) We must pursue true feminist diplomacy.” To date, 39 of the 160 French embassies around the world are headed by women. A relatively good figure, but less impressive results when looking at the most important embassies. There are only three French ambassadors in the G20 countries and only one in the G7, figures far removed from the initial ambition.

Declining figures since 2021

“Since this announcement in 2018, we have not seen a linear increase in terms of the appointment of female ambassadors or consuls. We have remained between 18 and 21 appointments on average per year since 2018 and 38 to 54 male appointments”, explains Alice Apostoly, co-director of the gender institute in geopolitics. In 2019, a year after its advance, the number of French female ambassadors in the G20 countries increases slightly, from four to 6, before falling again to reach three women at the head of one of these embassies in 2023 A level lower than 2017 and even below the four ambassadors in office on average during François Hollande’s five-year term. France does not do much better in this area than Italy (2) and Germany (4), and is significantly behind the United Kingdom (7). Despite the announcements, we are still far from a feminization of diplomacy.