Jean-Yves Le Drian wants France to defend its place and its values in the world. For this, it will acquire a diplomacy of more “offensive” influence, the Foreign Minister said on Tuesday.
“Behind the battle for influence, there is a battle for political and human models,” he told some 150 cultural and cooperation advisers from his ministry. In this competition, France must “defend its model in a more assumed, more offensive way”, he added, pleading for the creation of a “real French team of influence”.
Develop French schools abroad
The great world and regional powers, from China to Turkey, are engaged in a race for influence through various tools, from development to cultural action. This observation implies the need to “register influence as a contested space, in the same way as cyber, oceans or space”, underlined Jean-Yves Le Drian.
This influential diplomacy involves in particular “excellent teaching of French abroad”, he explained, showing the ambition of “doubling the number of French schools (in the world) here. to 2030 ”. Currently, France has the world’s leading educational network, with 545 establishments abroad and 380,000 students, two-thirds of whom are foreigners, according to the Quai d’Orsay. We must also “attract talent to our universities” and “develop Franco-foreign establishments”.
A future diplomatic and consular school
In the cultural field, actions can also be developed, such as Franco-Indian film meetings, intended to promote the production of Indian films in France. In the same vein, France created in 2021 the Villa Albertine, an artists’ residence established in the United States on the model of the Villa Medici in Rome. France now has four artistic residencies in Rome, Madrid (Casa Velázquez), Kyoto (Villa Kujoyama) and the Villa Albertine in ten American cities simultaneously.
“We must make ourselves heard better in the international debate of ideas”, by welcoming more think tanks in Paris and by increasing the presence of French experts in international institutes, also noted the head of French diplomacy. As part of the reform of the Quai d’Orsay which is due to come into force in 2022, the future diplomatic and consular school will offer a “real sector of influence professions”, he said.