At 66, the current ambassador to London Catherine Colonna, a career diplomat, has been appointed French Minister of Foreign Affairs of the government d’Elisabeth Borne. This woman has the reputation of a professional and rigorous woman, accustomed to crises, from the war in Iraq in 2003 to Brexit in recent years.
Entrée at the Quai d’Orsay following graduating from ENA, the prestigious school for French elites, this woman, 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 of the Chirac years.
The absolute confidence of Jacques Chirac
She was for almost ten years – a record of longevity – from 1995 to 2004 the spokesperson for the presidency of Jacques Chirac, whose absolute confidence she gained during trips abroad and meetings during which the Head of State’s speeches were developed. “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 left-wing 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. 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.
Eastern Europe
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 the Foreign Office, an extremely rare event in relations between allies. Catherine Colonna arrives in a ministry plagued by “malaise”, where a strike call has been launched for June 2 by six unions and a group of 400 young diplomats. They protest once morest 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 in 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 women. Very discreet, she never publicly opened up regarding her private life.
