Emmanuel Macron defends his controversial reform in front of the ambassadors

“This reform is good for the Quai d’Orsay”, assures Emmanuel Macron. The President of the Republic defended, Thursday, September 1, before the French ambassadors, his controversial reform of the senior civil service, at the origin of an unprecedented protest movement among diplomats. He felt that it would allow for diplomacy “more agile, more expert, stronger”.

This reform provides for the “extinguishing” of the two historic corps of diplomacy by the end of 2023 and the creation of a new state corps. Senior civil servants will no longer be attached to a specific administration and may change during their career. Emmanuel Macron also recalled that in 2023 the number of jobs would increase “for the first time in three decades” at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that the increase in financial resources was going to continue.

The project has aroused the concern and anger of many diplomats, including among senior officials, believing that it is not “interchangeable”, and worrying about a loss of professionalism and prestige of French diplomacy, the third largest network in the world behind the United States and China. The reform led to an extremely rare strike at the Quai d’Orsay last June. And an association “professional diplomats”, including in particular former ministers opposed to the reform, was created on Wednesday.