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POLITICS – Is this a way to spread the news of the abolition of the diplomatic corps, announced in April? This Friday, May 20, Catherine Colonna was appointed to the Quai d’Orsay, inheriting the portfolio of Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs. A career diplomat, the one who was until now ambassador in London, 66, has a reputation for being a professional and rigorous woman, accustomed to crises, from the war in Iraq in 2003 to Brexit in recent years.
Entering the Quai d’Orsay on leaving ENA, the prestigious school for French elites, this woman with short hair, who grew up on a farm in central France and whose father is Corsican, is known to have been one of the faces of French diplomacy during the Chirac years.
She was for nearly ten years – a longevity record – from 1995 to 2004 the spokesperson for Jacques Chirac’s presidency, whose absolute confidence she gained through trips abroad and meetings during which developed the speeches of the Head of State.
Iraq crisis, Brexit, ambassador…
“She is a great professional, solid, rigorous, attentive, and she never made a mistake during her spokesperson,” says a former political journalist who worked with her. “A good little soldier of the Republic”, wrote the daily Release in a portrait he dedicated to her in 2004.
During the Iraq crisis, which in the early 2000s led to a serious deterioration in Franco-American relations, Catherine Colonna passionately defended the French refusal to take part in the war launched in 2003 by the United States.
After the Elysée, she made a brief stint in 2004 at the head of the National Center for Cinematography (CNC), a regulatory and funding body for French cinema. And that before returning to public affairs in 2005, where she was appointed Minister Delegate for European Affairs in the government of Dominique de Villepin, until 2007.
After a stint at UNESCO and then in the private sector, she was ambassador in Rome from 2014 to 2017, and in London since 2019. She had to manage a very turbulent period there, in the midst of negotiations on Brexit, and was even summoned once at Foreign Officean extremely rare event in relations between allies.
“Catastrophic reputation” or sign of goodwill?
Today, Catherine Colonna arrives to replace Jean-Yves Le Drian in a ministry plagued by “malaise”, where a strike call has been launched for June 2 by six unions and a collective of 400 young diplomats. They protest against an accumulation of reforms, particularly that enacting the gradual “extinction” by 2023 of the prestigious diplomatic corps.
The appointment of a career diplomat who knows the Quai d’Orsay perfectly can be seen as a sign of goodwill, some diplomats say. “It will be necessary to judge on parts”, estimates another, more cautious, affirming that it has “a catastrophic reputation as regards management”. Her arrival “is good news, she knows Europe well and Eastern Europe in particular, she is open, honest and transparent”, welcomes a diplomatic source from a country in Eastern Europe. ballast.
Politically, Catherine Colonna, who has served mostly in right-wing governments, has described herself as “too left to be right and too right to be left”, according to writer Anne Fulda in a book “Portraits of woman”. Very discreet, she never publicly opened up about her private life.
See also on le HuffPost: The announcement of the new government of Elisabeth Borne
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