Speech by Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (7 January 2025)

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Ministers,
Members of Parliament,
Madam Secretary-General,
Ladies and gentlemen ambassadors,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I’m very pleased to be with you again for the 30th Ambassadors’ Conference, which the Secretary-General, her team and I wanted to devote to action – action by our foreign ministry at the service of France and the French people.

The context in which we are meeting is an exceptional one. 2025 is dawning with its share of hopes and fears, marked by international crises, the sound of boots, the return to trade wars, and the tragic consequences of a disrupted planet now in turmoil.

President Macron called on us yesterday to discuss with realism the state of the world today and the prospects for tomorrow. Realism without resignation, clear-sightedness without defeatism, and determined optimism, with the national interest, the interest of French people, at heart.

We have much to do together when it comes to French people’s security, our country’s prosperity and the affirmation of our model. And it is thanks to you that the road map put forward yesterday can be implemented.

Ambassadors, you carry out a unique profession, unlike any other. You were called to this because of a taste for the Other, for action and foreign lands. And now you are in all four corners of the globe, taking up new posts across the world every three or four years, without forgetting to return to do a stint at the Ministry. Bilateral issues, multilateral negotiations, consular affairs, central-government directorates: this very special career takes you to all fronts. Fronts that you tackle by making sacrifices whose burden on your private and family lives cannot be underestimated. Fronts that sometimes expose you to the world’s great upheavals.

The ministers delegate and I echo the gratitude President Macron expressed yesterday towards committed staff in Kabul, Kyiv, Port-au-Prince at the height of violence, in Beirut, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and so many other theatres where they demonstrate courage that commands our admiration.

And I’m not forgetting our colleagues who have lost their lives carrying out their duties to serve France. Louis Delamare, shot in Beirut as he travelled by car from the embassy to his residence in September 1981. Philippe Bernard, killed by a bullet in his office as riots broke out in the vicinity of the embassy in Kinshasa in January 1993. We are doing our utmost to ensure that such tragedies never happen again, but Frenchmen and women must know that representing France throughout the world will always carry a degree of risk because there is something intractable in the arbitrariness of violence.

Ambassadors, in the countries where you have been sent you carry a weighty responsibility: to represent France, our nation, in its entirety and its diversity. That’s no small thing. You are entrusted with a virtually impossible – at any rate, a very demanding – mission: to uphold, in all circumstances, the national interest, the interest of the French people. And to do this, you are always riding the crest of a ridge. Immersing yourselves, without getting bogged down, in cultural and political complexities that you must navigate with your eyes closed in order to act effectively. Keeping one foot in the present to grasp what can be grasped now; the other in the longer term, to overcome defeats and prepare the future. Seeking compromise when possible, while remaining uncompromising about what is essential. Managing in turn, and skilfully, charm offensives and power relationships, according to circumstances.

This is a profession that requires us to combine a few qualities that are not wholly universal. I talked about courage. I want to talk about perseverance. The perseverance that gives you the strength to keep working at things tirelessly, as we did in Lebanon for nearly a year until a ceasefire was secured, which is starting to produce effects, with the first withdrawals of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon yesterday. The first interruption of hostilities in the region since 7 October 2023, a genuine French diplomatic success; we owe it to the endless patience of our ambassador and teams, whom I thank and congratulate for their efforts. And I could provide further examples. So yes, sometimes we have to wait months, years, starting over and over again. But we have to imagine Sisyphus happy, especially when history, in the end, shows we are right.

Finally, I want to talk about humanity, because you entered the Ministry, this profession, with the passion to serve our country by helping build for it peaceful relations with the other nations of the world. You have chosen to follow in the footsteps of generations of men and women who, through diplomacy, have spared France from conflict and war, to be the people who, taking the art of language and translation to its limits, find words and answers to the most insoluble problems. You know how to obtain much more from your interlocutors by intelligence than by force, by dialogue than by brutality, by using your humanity to awaken theirs.

You put these qualities to which I have just paid tribute at the service of a profession I’d like to see you exercising fully, and that I’d like to ensure is better known by French people.

We shall therefore clearly develop certain aspects of the way we organize ourselves collectively.

First of all I’d like to strengthen your power to take action, because I have full confidence in you. To that end, we are going to give you more latitude to handle your budget, a devolution and delegation agenda that benefits you, with more freedom to decide on your operational budget – including with regard to training, property maintenance and emergency operations – and more room for manoeuvre for local recruitment. To increase your power to act, I’d also like to give you back time: every month we shall remove an order addressed to you, and every week remove a process that is not essential.

Secondly, I’d like to continue the development of our training tools in the diplomatic and consular professions. The diplomatic and consular academy will really take flight in 2025, with, among other things, a course to prepare middle-ranking diplomats and and level A officials for the competitive examination for administrateurs de l’Etat [high-ranking civil servants], as well as provision built around artificial intelligence. As part of the same drive, let me announce that the first cohort of the diplomatic reserve corps will be created in the coming months, with 300 participants.

Lastly, I’d like our diplomatic service jobs, places and successes to be better known by French people. In the second half of 2025, an accredited circuit will be created of 50 outstanding sites in our regions which, over the course of history, have been the settings for major diplomatic events in France. Our fellow citizens will thus have the pride of seeing that French diplomacy has been working close to them and has places it shares with every one of them. As you know, last autumn we launched the “Cinema and diplomacy” festival to talk to the general public about the perception and representations of our professions. I announce to you that this winter we shall be launching the Quai d’Orsay Literary Prize, which will be awarded for the first time in the summer, involving a pre-selection committee made up of volunteer Ministry employees, and a hand-picked jury. It is set to become a lasting part of the landscape when it comes to the most prestigious literary prizes.

Ladies and gentlemen ambassadors,

After paying tribute to your action and speaking about your noble profession, I’d like to ask you a question, an existential question for us: wherein lies the strength of our diplomacy? What are the strengths that enable France – as is sometimes said – to punch above its weight, be heard above the din, and bring other nations along with it?

The answer seems to me to lie in three aspects, three key strengths of our diplomacy which it’s our collective responsibility to bolster. The first is its unique voice. The second is its creative power. The third is the way it’s geared to serving French people. Let me discuss these in turn, starting with the unique voice.

Amid the rubble of the Second World War, which dishonoured and ruined Europe, and at a time when reconciliation was being forged between France and Germany, our predecessors worked with the conviction that there is no lasting peace without justice, to bring about an international order based on the law, on principles of peoples’ self-determination and territorial integrity, which were rooted in the United Nations Charter.

While this major achievement was increasingly challenged and relativized, while it risked being relegated to the status of “one system among others”, we never steered off course. And the reason why France’s voice is always listened to, always expected and sometimes feared is because it is always on the side of justice, the law and collective rules, in a world where they are constantly called into question.

And history has often proven us right, too. It is enough for us to remember those who have trodden this path in the past. The unique voice of Aristide Briand at the League of Nations. That of Robert Schuman in the Clock Room, changing Europe’s destiny. That of Maurice Couve de Murville, architect of France’s greatness and of the nuclear deterrence policy. That of Hubert Védrine, denouncing the unacceptable unipolar world. That of Dominique de Villepin, refusing to commit France to an unjust war in Iraq. That of Laurent Fabius, announcing the historic adoption of the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.

And the reason why, for nearly three years now, we have been so strongly mobilized to ensure that Ukraine can repel the Russian aggression and regain its freedom is, of course, because the Ukrainians’ fight is also ours. Each time the Ukrainians retreat, the threat grows closer to us, and French people’s security really is at stake. But it’s also because to allow the invader’s brute force to triumph, to close our eyes to his war crimes today would mean consenting in advance to all future violations, wherever they may be, and definitively endorsing the might-is-right principle.

The same is true of Syria, where we uncompromisingly fought the Assad regime. We never gave in to the temptation, which some partners may have had, of normalizing relations. We never stopped supporting civil society, the exiled opposition, Christian communities, and all those who today are being called on to build a new future for the country. We spearheaded the fight against impunity by protecting Caesar and the Tadamon whistleblowers, and by helping document the regime’s crimes, which will have to be punished to ensure the country’s moral and spiritual recovery.

Because for France, in Ukraine, in Syria and elsewhere, all human lives are equal in dignity. That’s why we denounce violations of international law and international humanitarian law everywhere and at all times – in Israel by Hamas, in Gaza by Israel, in Lebanon by Israel, in Israel by Hezbollah, in Sudan by the armed forces, in Syria and Iraq by the tormentors of the Yezidis, and in Afghanistan by the Taliban. There are no double standards in France’s language.
And these denunciations are not mantras. They are carried through into action to serve civilians. Whenever lives are at stake, France plays an active role.

A month after 7 October, the worst anti-Semitic massacre since the Holocaust, it was in Paris that the first international support conference for Gaza was hosted. A year after the start of the bloody war in Sudan, it was in Paris that an international conference was held which raised €2 billion in promised donations. And a month after the start of last autumn’s military escalation in Lebanon, it was again in Paris that we brought together the donors to raise more than $1 billion and thus prevent the collapse of Lebanon.

And beyond security and humanitarian issues, France does not avert its gaze from any of the challenges now confronting the whole planet, which do not end at our borders and which weigh heavily on peoples’ destinies. Ten years after the diplomatic success of the Paris climate agreement, we have ambitious engagements in Paris, in Nice and then in Belém. The Nice conference must be for the ocean what the Paris Agreement was for the climate.

The BBNJ Treaty, for which our country and our ministry in particular played a major and decisive role, must come into force. I call on you to go and seek the ratification of your countries of residence, and along with Éléonore Caroit and the other members of Parliament, I call for a collective mobilization to ensure we can achieve our goals. More broadly, in the run-up to Nice, I call on you to ask the authorities until June to announce new commitments.

But at a time when the law is under challenge, the voice of France, which tirelessly upholds balance and the law, will remain credible only if we reform the law.

Ladies and gentlemen ambassadors,

We can no longer wait to make what is strong fairer and what is fair stronger.
This means everyone finding their place in global governance. Every second we waste on the path to reforming multilateralism fuels challenges to the legitimacy of its institutions. The success of the BRICS, meeting in Kazan – even though its members have no shared vision of what tomorrow should look like – is a fresh warning we cannot ignore. We discussed it together yesterday.

So by 2026, when our country will be president of the G7, I would like some crucial projects for the future of peace and global governance to culminate. At a time when the UN will be celebrating its 80th anniversary, let’s make resolute progress to ensure our African partners are given a fair place within global governance, the [Security] Council and the international financial institutions; to ensure the broadest possible adherence to, and practical implementation of, the Paris Pact for People and the Planet initiated by President Macron; to ensure that the Paris Peace Forum’s initiatives bear fruit; and to ensure that the ICRC’s initiative to make international humanitarian law fully applicable – to which we are contributing alongside Brazil, China, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa – is carried through. On these issues, I’m counting on your unfailing mobilization and will, in the coming weeks, be contacting you with guidance. At stake is the credibility of France’s unique voice, of which we are the depositaries and which we have a duty to sustain, in the interest of the country and of French people.

That brings me to our second strength: our creative power. In an environment in perpetual motion, where communication is definitively disintermediated, we have succeeded in adapting and updating our way of conducting diplomacy.
How do we defend our interests in this environment? First of all by transforming ourselves.

During the diplomacy conference instigated by President Macron and initiated by Catherine Colonna, we asked ourselves some existential questions. The 350 recommendations featuring in the subsequent report were our compass, and we have scrupulously followed them. 80% of them have been implemented or launched. The posting process is now better planned, competitive exams are being modernized and employees better supported. The Team France Fund, global affairs advisers, beefed-up communication – particularly in Africa –, the continued modernization of our services for French people abroad, the major conference on parliamentary diplomacy and decentralized cooperation… so many changes which, in recent years, have brought a fresh spirit to our ministry that will have to spread further. I shall regularly chair an executive committee on transformation to ensure this.

Faced with a reshaping of the power balance and the emergence of global “issues” that need cross-cutting support from all stakeholders in our societies, French diplomacy has genuinely undergone a transformation. To the traditional and historical forums it has added some unprecedented formats that fully involve civil society, all the component parts of multilateralism, international funds, major opinion leaders, and regions and businesses.

Without seeking to be exhaustive, I shall nonetheless cite a few striking examples of formats we have been able to invent or reinvent.

The Weimar Triangle, a forum revitalized by Stéphane Séjourné, and one that we are developing with Benjamin Haddad, whom I would like to thank for being fully engaged. In addition to our efforts in Europe, this close collaboration aims to focus on the most critical issues at a time when war has returned to Europe. With you, I extend all my wishes for success to Radek Sikorski, my Polish counterpart, for Poland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, at a critical moment for our continent, which the President discussed at great lengths yesterday.

The AI Action Summit, which we will host in February, is a resolute initiative to increase our influence in the international conversation on something that is undoubtedly a Copernican revolution of our times. As the President stated yesterday, it is important to come up with a French and European strategy on this important topic, through dialogue with the major powers, including the main emerging countries, in order to benefit the public interest and training.

We have created formats to promote feminist foreign policy and in doing so, we are setting an example, with the gender equality roadmap that we adopted last December, and Autre Cercle’s charter to fight LGBT+ discrimination, which I will sign in January. In June, we will hold a large conference on feminist foreign policies in Paris.

And the 19th Francophonie Summit, which provided an opportunity to engage all the member States and Governments, but also – and I would like to stress – the participation of young people, entrepreneurs, and which proves that French diplomacy invests in other places, other dimensions, using a language that can be a driver of transformation and opportunities.

As ambassadors working in the field, you are the main people crafting our diplomacy. You lead Team France and know how to bring together all the vibrant forces who contribute to our influence in the world. Thank you for this. But the world is changing too fast for us to rest on our laurels. We need to strengthen our creative power and maybe even increase it tenfold.

We need to be even more agile. To do this, I wish to considerably reduce the distance between the Foreign Ministry and the diplomatic network. I will introduce a standing conference that will build on the momentum launched at our annual meeting, involving our posts and, above all, you as ambassadors, to draft our strategy on cross-cutting issues. Your voice must count. Also, when it will be time to conduct major negotiations, I would like for interministerial taskforces to be established at the Foreign Ministry so that we can help coordinate all sectors in order to speak with a stronger and more united voice.

To be more agile, we will start our data revolution. Starting 2025, I would like to see artificial intelligence incorporated into our tools for assisting our agents in joint tasks such as press reviews and legal research. In 2026, we will use artificial intelligence to assist in the drafting of documents. All the tasks that we can use these tools for will free up collective and individual time so that we can focus on our core duties, which is where we should focus our energy. You will be the driving force for proposals and leverage for action on these projects.

I would lastly like to launch reform of the Press and Communication Directorate so that we can develop communication to exert influence in the era of information warfare. This reform should be implemented in close cooperation with French and Francophone radio and TV stations outside of France and their partners, and with our agencies more broadly.

We should then beef up our training capacity by engaging economic actors – regional but also European and international – in our action with a circle-of-influence approach. I have therefore decided to entrust Catherine Pégard, whom I thank warmly, with an assignment focused on the contribution of businesses and sponsors to the financing and co-financing of our action in all areas, from humanitarian assistance to global issues.

I would also like for us to coordinate more closely decentralized cooperation of local authorities and official development assistance so that our cities, our departments and our regions are more involved in our action. We will talk about this tonight at a dedicated meeting and, from now on, I would like for us to introduce comprehensive and annual monitoring of all that our diplomacy is doing in our regions, in our national territory, for French people.

Lastly, in order to better unite, convince and promote our messages, I wish to invite, with the Minister Delegate, at least once a year all of the French delegations of the European Parliament to the French Ministry to take stock of France’s main priorities.

This brings me to our third asset – and it is perhaps the most important but the least known – our action at the service of French people, in the happy times but also in the most difficult times, to address their concerns on a daily basis.

You are leading consular efforts to provide a public service for which our fellow citizens have high expectations of efficiency. I know that you are working to improve quality, with the Foreign Ministry’s support, and I thank you for that. You provide an increasingly effective public service to our fellow citizens living outside of France, which constitute an ever-growing community.

You have updated voting procedures, and digital identity will soon be deployed. You have begun the digitization of a number of procedures that make the lives of our fellow citizens easier. You have improved social measures, for example, those fighting to curb domestic violence.

When our fellow citizens find themselves in difficult situations and when, at times, tragedies upend their lives, French diplomacy is there to provide them with assistance.

I would now like to take a moment to think of our hostages, whom we have not forgotten for a single second. The situation of our French hostages in Iran is frankly unacceptable. They have been detained unjustly for several years, in disgraceful conditions, some of which can be defined as torture under international law. Since the election of President Pezeshkian and despite our committed efforts at the highest level, their situation has worsened. And with you, I say this to the Iranian authorities: our hostages must be released. Our bilateral relations and the future of sanctions depend on it. And I am asking our fellow citizens to refrain from visiting Iran until the full release of our hostages.

Ambassadors, our fellow citizens living abroad can also count on our action in the education sector. Thanks to you, high-quality French schools are being developed across the globe. The President talked about this yesterday: more than 600 French and Francophone schools provide an excellent education to the children enrolled in them. At the start of the 2024 academic year, 25 new schools joined this wonderful network, thanks to your full commitment, from Cambodia and Morocco to the United States.

And French diplomacy is at the service of our fellow citizens in many other ways to address their concerns.

On to our fellow citizens’ concerns in the most extreme situations. We took part in the nation’s efforts to assist Mayotte by coordinating international and European aid and we will continue these efforts over the long term, under the Prime Minister’s authority. Just recently we provided resources to our fellow citizens after the violent earthquake in Vanuatu, as we did in Lebanon in October, when the security situation considerably deteriorated. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Crisis and Support Centre, which monitors, protects and provides relief wherever there is a need in the world.

On to our citizens’ concerns about security. Ten years ago to the day, islamist terrorism wreaked death in Paris and sought to break freedom of expression. The French people can count on their diplomats to help protect them. With you, I would like to pay tribute to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack. And I would like to thank Jul, an artist and real ambassador of humour, who has come today to draw our discussions, as a tribute.

The messages I took to Syria a few days ago, and across the region, are aimed at precisely that goal. We will not lower our guard when it comes to any breeding ground for terrorism whatsoever. And to those who are shocked by us going to meet the de facto authorities in Syria, I say, with you, that diplomacy and dialogue are the French people’s first line of defence. They are the first line of defence of our interests. And France’s diplomats always hold that line.

On to our citizens’ concerns about immigration. As the French President recalled yesterday, this is one of their biggest concerns and we need to be fully committed to an effective migration policy and balanced visa policy. And we are working to ensure that through our consulates and cooperation services. Our efforts are producing results when it comes to fighting irregular immigration. But the French people expect us to do much more. President Macron asked us yesterday to “help our country take back control” through a new culture. Vigilance, high standards and bilateral results will be the prerequisites for the tangible success of our attractiveness policies. That is why we have dedicated an event to the issue during this conference. And that is why I ask you, ladies and gentlemen ambassadors, in your respective countries, to be fully committed to this issue and to pass on your proposals to the Ministry’s central administration. Our diplomatic service is already working hard to establish the best cooperation possible on migration policy, addressing every dimension of our bilateral relations in the agreements we can bring to fruition. We cannot simply beg to differ when it comes to those who seek to misrepresent or diminish this work. We must simply show how effective it is. We must be clear-sighted and proactive when we can do better.

On to our citizens’ concerns about jobs. The results of our economic and export policy are impressive, and I welcome the recent arrival at the Ministry of Laurent Saint-Martin, one of the architects of this success. Two thirds of the foreign investment in France goes to medium-sized cities, where the country has suffered so much from deindustrialization in recent decades. And we are continuing these efforts to expand opportunities for our companies, as President Macron said yesterday. There is greater Europe and its 700 million consumers, including the United Kingdom, which we have a lot in common with, and the Western Balkans. There is the Indo-Pacific, a model for the cooperation partnerships we have established in defence. There is Latin America, with critical minerals. And of course, there is Africa, a continent of opportunity and growth, where we are reshaping our partnerships and actively deploying the Ouagadougou Agenda, for which we are opening the Maison des Mondes Africains, MansA, this year, which will be a genuine incubator for the cultural and creative industries.

On to our citizens’ concerns about our independence and supply security. This has been a focus for France since 2022, based on the recommendations of the Varin report, with a diplomacy of partnerships on critical metals that has led to cooperation with a number of partners including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Norway, Japan, Brazil, Serbia, Vietnam, Morocco and Mongolia. President Macron has been very clear on this: in every country where you represent us, you should promote this strategy, which needs to be more proactive.

We have powerful levers when it comes to addressing the concerns I just mentioned. Firstly, I have in mind official development assistance – and I nod to my colleague Thani Mohamed Soihili. We must always underline, to protect it from budget cuts, that by supporting development in the fields of the climate, the environment, health, education and gender equality, it helps build a more stable, balanced world, and thus address the expectations of the French people effectively.

That’s all well and good. But, ladies and gentlemen ambassadors, we must not just do. We must do better, better all the time, and above all, ensure everyone can see that.

Because no, what I just mentioned is not widely known. We all saw this during debates on the budget – and I know there are members of Parliament here – in which the Ministry’s contribution to meeting the French people’s expectations was sometimes ignored. The whole Ministry, from staff at the beginning of their careers through to the Secretary-General, must today be fully conscious of our response to the concerns of our citizens. They must be able to apprehend it, describe it as precisely as possible, and contribute to making it known and visible.

To do so, I want us to at last unify the branding of the work of our agencies under the Marianne logo and the flag. The graphics of our communication need to adapt.

Lastly, I am entrusting to the CAPS a project aimed not only at measuring both qualitatively and quantitatively the effectiveness and impact of our diplomacy, but also multiply our impact when it comes to the issues of migration, jobs, supply security, ecology and protecting our citizens from terrorism.

I would like us all to get used to communicating much more proactively with local elected officials and members of Parliament when it comes to the benefits of our work for their constituencies. They will be informed in real time by the Ministers Delegate and myself on these subjects, including European funds and work to support attractiveness and exports. And I will draw on the diplomatic advisers to regional prefects to foster these ties, in the spirit of the initiatives launched by Jean-Yves Le Drian. We will also ensure, under the authority of the Prime Minister, that major public agencies seek out European funds that are today not used sufficiently. Some €1.6 billion could be drawn on.

I will work, as President Macron encouraged me to do yesterday, to work with the Ministre d’État, Minister for Overseas France on improving the regional integration of our overseas territories, with your support.

Following the success we have already achieved on fostering exports and attractiveness, I would like us to extend the missions of our economic diplomacy to cover attractiveness for financial investment. The French investment funds of which we are supporting the expansion thanks to the capital markets union should benefit from the considerable sums deployed today by major sovereign investors.

Lastly, for our citizens abroad, the France Consulaire telephone hotline will be extended to cover the whole world by the end of the year. Online voting will be extended to all elections, and campaign materials will be fully digitized. We will digitize the civil registry system and extend the pilot project for remote passport renewals, which will make life a lot easier for our citizens.

I went on a bit long there, but please forgive me: I had so much to say! And I will conclude, cher Jul, with a drawing. “The Face of Peace”, produced together by Picasso and Éluard, is an invitation:

“We will flee rest, we will flee sleep
We will outrun the dawn and the spring
And we will prepare days and seasons
To the measure of our dreams.”

To achieve that, our country can count on exceptional teams, coordinated and led by you, ambassadors. It can count on its singular voice and its creative power, and your dedication to serving the French people. Those are all assets that I will work, with you, to strengthen in order to promote the interests of our country and our Europe. Long live the Republic, long live France.