The news caused consternation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. On May 20th Catherine Colonna was named as the new minister for Europe and foreign affairs even though the ministry's dedicated anti-bullying unit had received several alerts concerning her behaviour. The appointment sparked astonishment among many sources in Paris to whom Mediapart has spoken (see Boîte noire below). These sources point to past management issues relating to the former ambassador that they say were widely known in the corridors of the ministry, which is located at Quai d'Orsay on the banks of the River Seine.
Several sources described behaviour that could be “destructive” and have “serious consequences” for staff. In particular, they point to officials who had to take time off sick in Rome and London, in the two embassies where Catherine Colonna was in charge. This was from September 2014 to September 2017 in the first case, and September 2019 until her appointment as a minister in the second. “It's quite well-known at Quai d'Orsay. There are lots of people who've suffered from it,” insisted one diplomat.
“Everyone knows that it's very difficult to work with her,” said another. “It's not simply that she is bad tempered … we're talking about people who, after a while, have a breakdown.” At a time when the foreign service is going through an unprecedented crisis against a backdrop of reform of the senior civil service, this appointment has not, to put it mildly, been received as a “positive signal”, according to several sources.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Questioned by Mediapart, the spokesperson at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne-Claire Legendre, pointed out that “statements collected by the 'hotline' contact person [editor's note, the hotline to the zero tolerance anti-bullying unit] are confidential and the anonymity of the people who make these reports is preserved”. Having assessed the alerts made to this unit, the hotline person can then “conclude that no further action is required, conclude that supportive measures are needed to resolve a conflict situation, or decide in the end that the matter should indeed be referred to the competent administrative authorities to carry out the necessary checks if there is a presumption that bullying has occurred”.
The spokesperson added: “Concerning the minister herself, the management at human resources has never had a referral from the 'hotline' point of contact calling for an investigation.” Yet according to Mediapart's information, the launch of an imminent inspection by ministry inspectors was announced at the start of May, just before Catherine Colonna's appointment. However, in the end this review was suspended after she joined the government.
Unlike those in other ministries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' inspectorate – the Inspection Générale des Affaires Étrangères (IGAE), headed by diplomat Kareen Rispal since March 7th – is not a separate ring-fenced professional corps. This means its members, who come from the ranks of the diplomatic service, do not have the protection they would be afforded if they were administratively independent of their minister.
A hasty and badly-received return to Paris
Several sources in Paris have told Mediapart that the planned inspection at the embassy in the United Kingdom was directly linked to the staff alerts emanating from London. Questioned on this, the ministry spokesperson said that “all diplomatic posts are the object of regular inspections, roughly every five years, according to a timetable left to the judgement of the inspectorate”. She added: “That enables the diplomatic posts to be checked to see they are operating well and ensure that they have adequate resources for the missions that they have been given.”
Anne-Claire Legendre noted that “the rule is that these inspections are only carried out when an ambassador is in post”. She continued: “As regards London, the last inspection took place in 2016, so an inspection was scheduled for 2022. Ms Colonna's return to Paris when she was appointed minister led to this inspection being rescheduled to [the autumn], when a new ambassador will have been appointed.”
The ambassador's return to France was described as “hasty” by several sources, as the decision to appoint Catherine Colonna was only made at the last minute. It was also “badly received” by many diplomats to whom Mediapart spoke. “It rather made one think of [Éric] Dupond-Moretti and the magistrates,” said one source, a reference to the tempestuous relations that the current justice minister had with some judges when he was a high-profile lawyer. “It is, after all, rather a curious signal to send at a time when so much has been done over the issue of bullying...” said another. “It somewhat amazed us.” Several sources also suggested that the new minister had had problems recruiting officials for her ministerial office.
According to Mediapart's information, the first alerts were sent to Paris back when Catherine Colonna was French ambassador to Italy. This former close ally of the late President Jacques Chirac – she was his spokesperson at the Élysée for nine years – was appointed to the post in Rome by President François Hollande in September 2014. At the time the 'zero tolerance' anti-bullying unit did not exist and procedures for receiving complaints about psychological or sexual bullying were almost non-existent at the ministry. But the ambassador's style of management was already raising questions.
It was the later alerts from London staff which triggered the “evaluation” - investigation - by the anti-bullying unit at the start of 2022. Officials at the London embassy did not respond when contacted by Mediapart. But according to our information the unit interviewed several people who had worked with Catherine Colonna in Rome and London. In each case the statements were broadly consistent, indicating management dysfunction.
According to several sources, some of them indirect, this dysfunction included confused instructions that were imprecise or even contradictory, bypassing officials, not taking into account their ideas or suggestions, demands for officials to carry out demeaning tasks that did not relate to their competences, behaviour or comments considered to be humiliating, implicit but repeated criticism of work carried out, and micro-management.
Concern at the ministry
Did the Élysée or the prime minister's office know about these alerts citing the former ambassador at the time she was appointed to the government? Emmanuel Macron's entourage referred Mediapart to the Ministry of Foreign Affair's reply and made no other comment. As the magazine ELLE revealed in the autumn of 2020, the Élysée's own diplomatic unit had itself been audited following cases of staff burnout and sudden staff departures.
On May 21st this year, during the formal handover ceremony with her predecessor Jean-Yves Le Drian, Catherine Colonna thanked him for the “way in which [he had] led this ministry, and had advanced France's interests and deals” during his time at the helm. “I will take inspiration from your example, just as I will continue your policy of equality between women and men and of zero tolerance, because we are all owed mutual respect,” she said, in a speech whose brevity was widely noted.
These comments had an impact at the ministry where some sources fear that Catherine Colonna's appointment will slow down the work that has taken place in the last few years on issues such as bullying and workplace suffering. “The zero tolerance unit continues, as it has done so since its creation in 2017, to gather and evaluate the reports that are made to it,” said the ministry's spokesperson.
Since December 2020 the zero tolerance anti-bullying unit has been run by diplomat Francis Étienne, a former French ambassador to Kazakhstan. It combines the hotline set up in 2017 to field complaints about professional equality between women and men, the unit created the following year to tackle sexual harassment, and the measures put in place at the end of 2019 to combat workplace bullying.
In September 2020, a few months before these three entities were merged, Mediapart revealed that France's ambassador to Ivory Coast, Gilles Huberson, was the object of a administrative investigation after several women accused him of sexist and sexual violence. Having been recalled to Paris following our revelations, the ambassador was forced to take early retirement. According to figures supplied by the ministry, the zero tolerance unit received 100 alerts in 2020, of which six led to investigations. In 2021 it received 116 such alerts, leading to twelve investigations.
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter