Hundreds of French diplomats took part in Paris in the general strike of the Foreign Ministry of the Foreign Ministry, which passed before the ministerial palace on the Orsa embankment, TASS reports.
According to information, the protesters launched large banners with slogans in front of the building: “Professional diplomats are striking”, “Diplomacy under the threat.”
Social protest, organized by trade unions of French diplomats, is designed to demonstrate the disagreement of employees of the foreign policy with organizational reform. The state decided to carry out a reform in order to ensure greater professional mobility of the state apparatus. Foreign Ministry employees are concerned that “the diplomatic profession is gradually disappearing, because over the past three decades, the states of the dip service in all categories have declined half.” Since 2017 alone, three thousand posts were liquidated. In the French diplomatic corps, they fear that now the most prestigious positions will not be received by professionals, but by “paratroopers” from other departments. New measures, according to the ministry, will lead as a result to the separation of the entire diplomatic mechanism.
The strike was supported not only in Paris, but also in the embassies of France abroad.