At the end of every summer, the French diplomatic1
service summons all its ambassadors from around the world
to Paris for a week of brainstorming and fine cuisine. Usually,
the assembled crowd is monochrome, middle-aged and male.4
Since 2015, however, it has been marked by silk scarves
and coloured jackets: in that year, nearly a third of the
ambassadorial corps was made up of women, compared to 19%7
in Britain and 26% in the United States.
Indeed, France has transformed the place of female
diplomats. Surely, this has not happened without an official10
push: a few years ago, in 2012, France decided to reserve
a share of top public-service appointments for women,
with a target of 40% by 2018.13
Does a female ambassador change anything?
Besides the pressing linguistic question of whether to call
her Madame l’Ambassadrice (favoured by some younger16
diplomats) or Madame l’Ambassadeur (which some prefer
in order to avoid being taken for an ambassador’s wife),
the answer may be: not all that much. Perhaps most19
importantly, a less male representation projects a less fusty
national image at a time when soft power counts for ever more.
In fact, feminisation seems to be part of a broader French effort22
to “renew our global diplomacy for the 21st century”,
said Laurent Fabius, the foreign minister, whose predecessor
but one was a woman, Michèle Alliot-Marie.25
No longer so male and stale. Internet: < www.economist.com> (adapted).