Reform of Quai d’Orsay strongly criticized by opposition

Marine Le Pen, candidate of the National Meeting in the presidential election, MP Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) and Michel Barnier (LR), former Minister of Foreign Affairs, denounce the removal of two historic bodies.

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Emmanuel Macron had made a priority: the reform of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contested by diplomats, was recorded in a decree appeared in the Official Journal on 17 April. By removing two historic bodies from the Orsay Quay, the Head of State continues to redesign the high public service launched during his five-year. But in the middle of the campaign for the second round of presidential elections, the project has earned him virulent criticism from the opposition.

On Twitter, Marine Le Pen denounced the reform that had been over the past few months. “A few days after the end of his term, Emmanuel Macron published the decree removing our diplomatic corps. He wants to replace servants from the impartial state by copping,” lamented the candidate of the national gathering, who promises, if it is elected, restore “a diplomatic status based on merit and national interest”.

“France sees its diplomatic network after several centuries. The second in the world. Promo friends will be able to be appointed. Huge sadness,” reacted Jean-Luc Mélenchon (France unsuitable), MP -DU-Rhône. “This reform is an error,” said Michel Barnier (LR), former foreign minister, “an effective and influential diplomacy requires professional diplomats”.

Pull in a wider pool

The site concerns two bodies in the heart of the workings of French diplomacy: that of foreign affairs advisers and that of plenipotentiary ministers, “put in extinction” from 2023. These senior officials will then be able to join a new ” State directors’ body “, where the executives so far trained by the National School of Administration (ENA), itself replaced by the National Institute of Public Service since January 2022.

In the eyes of his craftsmen, the reform aims to boost the quarries by drawing up in a wider pool of candidates in order to pass “a logic of status to that of employment”, to summarize the philosophy of Amelie of Montchalin, the Minister of the Public Service. Nevertheless, “it causes a deep injury among the agents of the department and strong concerns”, Judge Olivier da Silva, a permanent of the CFDT of the Quai d’Orsay, very committed against the project put on the rails against the initial opinion of the initial notice Chief of Diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

In this future personal pool, diplomats will rub shoulders with prefects, sub-prefects or general inspectors of finance. In total, some 800 senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are concerned, out of 1,800 Class A executives. These staff are, to this day, either from ENA or, most often, recruited through the very Selective East Contest. They may, if they wish, stay in their old “extinction” body, but will be encouraged to switch into the new interdepartmental set, without much visibility, they fear, on the rest of their career. An evolution that goes wrong with interested parties, even though the famous East Competition is maintained.

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/Media reports.