News - Middle East: French diplomats will go on strike for only the second time in their history to protest what they call an “avalanche“ of reforms pushed by President Emmanuel Macron.

The strike, which won support from 500 Foreign Ministry civil servants, will begin on Thursday to protest reforms that unions say are undermining the foreign service at a time of global tensions.

Under the changes championed by Macron, and rushed through by decree in April, top foreign service officials would lose their special protected status and be absorbed in a larger pool of elite public sector workers.

The reforms will see France's roughly 700 most senior diplomats being asked to join other ministries and facing competition from non-diplomats for top postings.

"The reform of the senior civil service is the latest attack on our professions, our expertise, our future," said a strike notice. "This reform reflects an incomprehensible desire to undermine our ministry and risks permanently weakening our country's ability to project and defend itself in the world," it said.

France has the world's third-largest diplomatic network with about 1,800 diplomats and, in total, about 13,500 officials working at the Foreign Ministry.

The government argues that the shake-up would encourage more mobility between state services, which have historically been divided up into separate units, with rules and job protections that make moving between them very difficult.

The government is also keen to attract new, more diverse candidates to the diplomatic service by opening new routes to the ministry.

Critics, however, warned that the move could cause a danger of political interference.
The last and only strike by French diplomats was in 2003 to push for pay increases.