Europe 1 with AFP 10:55 a.m., May 19, 2022
Six unions have launched a strike call for June 2 at the Quai d'Orsay (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
They denounce an "avalanche of reforms" ranging from the extinction of two French diplomatic corps to job cuts.
An extremely rare event in French diplomacy.
From the rififi to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
To express their "unease" in the face of an "avalanche of reforms", several unions have called for a strike on Thursday June 2.
This is an exceptional event since the one and only strike at the Quai d'Orsay took place in 2003 for compensation issues, as Olivier Da Silva, head of the CFTC executives' union, recalls.
"The Quai d'Orsay is gradually disappearing", worry the six unions as well as a collective of 400 young diplomats, denouncing in particular the reform acknowledging the end of career diplomats, the reduction of consular activities or the deletions of posts.
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"These measures dismantling our diplomatic tool are nonsense at a time when war has just returned to Europe," they write.
The most controversial reform concerns the gradual "extinction" by 2023 of the two historic bodies of French diplomacy.
The diplomats concerned - some 700 people - are called upon to join a new body of "state administrators".
The reform of the senior civil service desired by Emmanuel Macron provides that senior civil servants will no longer be attached to a specific administration but will, on the contrary, be invited to change regularly throughout their career.
"We are not interchangeable"
"It was the straw that broke the camel's back. There is a major concern about the continuation of careers, questions about the meaning of our mission and the relationship with power", explains Olivier Da Silva.
“We are very worried”, abounds an ambassador in post on condition of anonymity.
"We are not interchangeable! I have the greatest respect for my colleagues in other administrations, but I can't do their job and they can't do mine. Diplomats have a bad image of lazy kings who steal money. public money when in reality they are civil servants very attached to the republican administration", he pleads.
France has the third largest diplomatic network in the world after the United States and China.
About 14,000 agents are employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to official figures.