Macron promises more money, more jobs to sell reforms to French diplomats

President Emmanuel Macron met staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, promising a bigger budget and major hiring spree in an effort to allay fears about the reform of France's vast diplomatic corps.

French diplomats on strike last summer in Paris. © AP - Nicolas Garriga

The president promised 700 new jobs and a 20 percent budget boost to what is the world's third-largest diplomatic apparatus, after the United States and China.

"I want to see our diplomatic service completely rearmed," the president said, perhaps unfortunately in the light of the conflict in Ukraine.

The Quai d'Orsay, where the ministry has its sumptuous central Paris headquarters, will have an annual budget of nearly 8 billion euros by 2027, Macron promised.

The presidential announcement came the day after Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna received the final report of a commission set up to consider internal opposition to proposed reforms of the diplomatic sector.

A profession under pressure

The profession is under pressure, faced with the war in Ukraine, several major conflicts in fomer French colonies in Africa, Europe's divisions on refugees, and the international effort to slow ecological disaster, not to mention the challenges posed by cybersecurity and online disinformation.

Last summer, hundreds of foreign affairs staff staged a strike, the first in decades, to protest changes which would, among other things, see certain specialised diplomatic staff lose their titles and status.

• French diplomats break 'bond of secrecy' in strike over foreign ministry reforms
• Suppression of diplomatic corps could leave France without professional diplomats

Under the reform, such lofty individuals as foreign affairs councillors and plenipotentiary ministers would become rank-and-file state employees.

The president sees the proposals as leading to increased coherence and adaptibility. The staff fear a loss of status and of hard-won skills.

"This reform is good for the state," Macron told Quai d'Orsay staff on Thursday. "It is good for your ministry and for you, the people who work here."

Referring to the controversial proposal to abolish parts of the the diplomatic machinery, Macron assured foreign affairs staff that their jobs will continue to be crucial, whatever the institutional framework in which they work.