The History, Role and Functions of the Paris Embassy

The History, Role and Functions of the British Embassy in Paris

gov.uk/fco

The History, Role and Functions of the British Embassy in Paris

Thursday, 3 April 2014 Locarno Suite, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Edited by MD Kandiah ICBH, King’s College London

Additional Editorial Assistants: Matthew Glencross ICBH, King’s College London and Luke Gibbon, FCO Historians

The raw transcript of this witness seminar was produced by Ubiqus UK http://www.ubiqus.co.uk / infouk@ubiqus.com ISBN: 978-1-910049-08-2

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Contents

Introduction

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Brief Chronology

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Seminar: The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations 1944-79

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Chair: John W. Young, Professor of International History at the University of Nottingham and Chair of the British International History Group.

Papers presented by: Rogelia Pastor-Castro, Lecturer in International History, University of Strathclyde; Helen Parr, Lecturer in International Relations, Keele University; Isabelle Tombs, Historian, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Witness Seminar: The History, Role and Functions of the British Embassy in Paris Chair: Matthew Rycroft: Chief Operating Officer, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 2011-2014; Third, then Second, Secretary (Chancery), Paris Embassy, 1991-1995.

Witnesses: Sir David Manning GCMG: First Secretary, 1984-1988; Sir Christopher Mallaby GCMG: Ambassador, 1993-1996; Lord Jay of Ewelme GCMG: Counsellor (Financial and Commercial), 1987–90; Ambassador, 19962001; Sir John Holmes GCVO: First Secretary (Economic), 1984–87, Ambassador, 2001-2007.

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Introduction

The entrance to the British Embassy, Paris.

This event comprised of a witness seminar examining the history, role and functions of the UK Embassy in Paris, principally from the testimonies and perspectives of those FCO officials who served there. It also officially launched the publication of a new book: The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations 1944–79,1 and several of the contributors offered their perspectives on previous British Ambassadors to Paris.

The event was the sixth and final in a series of witness seminars sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and it is part of the Witness Seminar Programme of the Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH), King’s College London. The other witness seminars were: the British High Commission in New Delhi (17 November 2011); the British Embassy in Beijing (held on 7 June 2012); the British High Commission in Canberra (8 November 2012); the UK Mission to the United Nations New York (22 May 2013); and the British Embassy/ High Commission in Pretoria (26 November 2013).

Since 1986 the ICBH Witness Seminar Programme has conducted nearly 100 witness seminars on a variety of subjects, two in particular have related to the functions of UK Embassies: Washington (held in 1997)2 and Moscow (held in 1999).3 Both of these witness seminars were chaired by Lord Wright of Richmond and both have been published. These witness seminars have been well received by the academic community, who have increasingly come to see that it is important to examine and analyse how Embassies and High Commissions have worked historically in the promotion of British policy overseas, and also by practitioners.

A recent volume (2009) on The Washington Embassy, edited by Michael Hopkins, Saul Kelly and John Young, demonstrated precisely why it is necessary to know more about how UK Embassies operate and has suggested why Embassies will continue to be important for those who study diplomacy. The volume, as the introduction suggested, offered ‘valuable insights into change and continuity in British diplomatic practice’ over the period; it also

1

R Pastor-Castro and JW Young (eds), The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations, 1944-79 (2013).

2 G Staerck (ed), ‘The Role of the British Embassy in Washington: Witness Seminar’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 12, No3 (1998), pp. 115-38.

3 G Staerck (ed), ‘The Role of HM Embassy in Moscow: Witness Seminar’, Contemporary British History, Vol.14, No.3 (2001), pp. 149-61.

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showed ‘how the balance of attention … varied according to the pressure of circumstances, the current priorities of the government in London and the preferences of individual ambassadors’; and, importantly, confirmed ‘the pivotal role’ played by the Embassy and the Ambassadors in maintaining healthy bilateral relations.

However, the editors have also pointed out that ‘there are real difficulties in studying the broad work of the Embassy’: how it interacted with local staff; precisely how it performed day-to-day necessary social tasks; and so forth.4 The significance of history and the importance of gathering and utilising oral history interviews have also been identified in the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, The Role of the FCO in UK Government (published 29 April 2011). In oral evidence William Hague, Foreign Secretary 2010-14, stated: ‘history is vitally important in knowledge and practice of foreign policy’. He further stated: ‘One of the things that I have asked to be worked up is a better approach to how we use the alumni of the Foreign Office, [and] … continue to connect them more systematically to the Foreign Office.’ He went on to say: ‘these people who are really at the peak of their knowledge of the world, with immense diplomatic experience, then walk out of the door, never to be seen again in the Foreign Office.’

Unlike the other diplomatic representations examined in this witness seminar series, the British Embassy in Paris has been examined historically. In 1927, Beckles Wilson produced an examination of the Embassy between 1814 and 1920.5 John Herman examined The Paris Embassy of Sir Eric Phipps: Anglo-French Relations and the Foreign Office, 19371939, which was published in 1998.6 Focusing on the social and domestic side of the Embassy, Tim Knox wrote The British Ambassador’s Residence in Paris.7 This event also marked the publication of Rogelia Pastor-Castro and John W Young’s edited volume, The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations, 194479. Adapting their chapters in this volume, three papers were given by Rogelia Pastor-Castro, Helen Parr and Isabelle Tombs to the witnesses and audience before the start of the event. It was the intention of the witness seminar session to pick up where this volume ended.

Dr MD Kandiah Director, Witness Seminar Programme Institute of Contemporary British History King’s College London

4

MF Hopkins, S Kelly and JW Young, The Washington Embassy: British Ambassadors to the United States, 1939-77 (2009), p. 2.

5 B Wilson, The Paris Embassy: A Narrative of Franco-British Diplomatic Relations, 1814-1920 (1927).

6 J Herman, The Paris Embassy of Sir Eric Phipps: Anglo-French Relations and the Foreign Office, 1937-1939 (1998) 7 T Knox, The British Ambassador’s Residence in Paris (2011).

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Brief Chronology8 NOTE: The following was provided to all participants in advance of the witness seminar and was not meant to provide an exhaustive chronology of Anglo-French relations. It was intended to help refresh people’s memories by covering significant events and milestones in the history of France, with reference, where relevant, to the UK and to significant world events.

1944

British Embassy in Paris re-opened following temporary protection of the Swiss consul.

1945

VE Day.

1947

Treaty of Dunkirk between France and the United Kingdom.

The Marshall Plan announced.

1948

Treaty of Brussels or Brussels Pact between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

1949

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formed, consisting of Brussels Pact countries and United States of America, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.9 Council of Europe established by the Treaty of London. It included: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.10 Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic established.

Devaluation of sterling.11

1950

Schuman Plan declaration.12 Commencement of the Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953). UK and France allies.

1951

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) treaty signed in Paris by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany.

1952

European Defence Community (EDC) treaty signed in Paris.

1953

The UK tested first atomic bomb at Monte Bello Islands off the north-west coast of Australia.

1954

French National Assembly rejected European Defence Community.

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Compiled by MD Kandiah and R Pastor-Castro using a variety of open access online sources which have been acknowledged where appropriate.

9 www.nato.int/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 10 http://hub.coe.int/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 11 Witness Seminar: ‘The 1949 Devaluation’, Contemporary Record, Vol.5, No.3 (1991).

12 For the text of the Schuman Plan, see http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/symbols/europeday/schuman-declaration/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 6

Western European Union treaty signed in Paris.

Geneva agreements ended the First Indochina War. 1955

Messina Conference.13

1956

Egyptian President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal (26 July).

French Premier Guy Mollet visited London and discussed his offer of union between the two countries.

The Protocol of Sèvres (22-24 October).

The Suez Crisis (began 29 October).

1957

Treaties of Rome created European Economic Community (EEC) and Euratom. The Six participating countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany.

1957

Queen Elizabeth II paid her first state visit to France.

1958

De Gaulle elected President of France.

1960

European Free Trade Association (EFTA) founded by Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

France exploded atomic device.

President de Gaulle state visit to UK.

1961

British application for EEC membership.

Berlin Wall erected.14

1962

Évian Accords ended Algerian war.

Cuban Missile crisis.

1963

France vetoed British EEC membership.

1964

Beatlemania hit France.

1965

The Merger Treaty (or Brussels Treaty) merged ECSC, EEC and Euratom.

Empty Chair crisis: France boycotted the European Economic Community.

1966

De Gaulle withdrew French military forces from NATO’s integrated military structure.

1967

Second British application for EC membership.

Devaluation of sterling.

De Gaulle vetoed British entry.

British withdrawal ‘East of Suez’.15

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For the text of the Messina Declaration see http://www.eurotreaties.com/messina.pdf [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 14 See JPS Gearson, ‘British Policy and the Berlin Wall Crisis 1958–61’, Witness Seminar, Contemporary Record, Vol.6, No.1 (1992).

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1968

Evénements de mai – student protests in France.

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

1969

The ‘Soames Affair’ – In February the press revealed details of a lunchtime discussion between French President De Gaulle and British Ambassador Christopher Soames.16 De Gaulle resigned as President of France.

Anglo-French Concorde’s first flight, inaugurating the world first passenger supersonic airliner.17

1972

Paris summit: 1980 accepted as date for creation of Economic and Monetary Union.

HM Queen Elizabeth II state visit to France (her second official visit since 1957).

Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the Front National.

1973

UK accession to EEC. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced ‘Year of Europe’.

Arab-Israeli War (Yom Kippur War).

1975

Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe - Helsinki Accords.18

1976

President Giscard d’Estaing state visit to UK. Jacques Chirac founded Rassemblement pour la République.

1979

European Monetary System (EMS) introduced under Jenkins European Commission.

Publication of Jean Fourastié’s Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975.19 Ambassador Sir Nicholas Henderson’s valedictory despatch from Paris, ‘Britain’s Decline: Its causes and consequences’, which was leaked to the press.20 Margaret Thatcher elected Prime Minister.

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1980

Ronald Reagan elected President of the United States of America.

1981

François Mitterrand became President of France.

French franc devalued within EMS.

15

See P Catterall (ed), ‘The East of Suez Decision’, Witness Seminar, Contemporary Record, Vol.7, No.3 (1993).

16 See S Wall, The Official History of Britain and the European Community, Vol.2 (2012), pp.324-7.

17 See K Owen (ed), Concorde, Witness Seminar (2002).

18 See M Kandiah and G Staerck (eds), The Helsinki Negotiations: The Accords and Their Impact, Witness Seminar (2006).

19 J Fourastié, Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975 (1979).

20 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/1979_Henderson_despatch.asp[Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 8

1982

The Anglo-Argentine Falklands War.21 President Mitterrand called Mrs Thatcher on the day after the invasion and told her: ‘I am with you’.22 Argentineans sank British warships using French-made Exocet missiles.

Just before the end of the conflict, Prime Minister Thatcher warned Mitterrand: ‘If it became known...that France was now releasing weapons…that would certainly be passed to Argentina for use against us...this would have a devastating effect on the relationship between our two countries’.23

1983

US invasion of Granada.24 Beirut barracks bombing killed 299 French and US servicemen who were part of the Multinational Force (MNF) in Lebanon.

1984

Fontainebleau European Council: British budget settlement.

President François Mitterrand paid state visit to UK. Le Pen won a seat in the European Parliament.

1985

Jacques Delors became President of EC Commission.

Luxembourg European Council summit: Single European Act agreed.

Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the USSR.

1986

Portugal and Spain entered the EC. Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavík Summit.

Cohabitation: Mitterrand-Chirac (until 1988).

Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech criticised the development of what she called a European ‘superstate’.25

1988 1989

Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

Fall of the Berlin Wall.

1990

Iraq invasion of Kuwait: British and French troops join US military buildup and Operation Desert Storm.

German reunification.26 Britain joined EMS.

1991

Dinner for Le Pen at the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand was disrupted by the Campaign Against Fascism in Europe (CAFE). Le Pen forced to flee the hotel.

The 1st Gulf War.27 UK and France allies.

21

See A Dorman, M Kandiah and G Staerck, The Falklands War, Witness Seminar (2005). http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/110663[Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 23 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/124232[Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 24 See MD Kandiah, ‘British policy during the US Invasion of Grenada’, Witness Seminar (forthcoming).

25 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 26 See MD Kandiah and G Staerck, Anglo-German Relations and German Reunification, Witness Seminar (2003).

27 See MD Kandiah and K Utting, ‘Britain & Gulf War 1991’, Witness Seminar (forthcoming).

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1992

NATO’s Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps established.

Maastricht Treaty signed, creating the European Union (EU).

Britain withdraws from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.28 HM Queen Elizabeth II visited France.

1993

Collapse of EMS. Cherbourg incidents: fishing rights dispute (Mar-Apr), which followed the EU’s recognition in September 1992 of the UK’s right to exclusive fishing rights six miles around the British Isles.

Cohabitation: Mitterrand-Balladur (until 1995)

1994

Bosnian Crisis – NATO air strikes against Serb forces.

The Channel Tunnel opened by HM the Queen and President Mitterrand.29

1995

French football player Eric Cantona banned from playing for assaulting a fan during a match at Crystal Palace.

Saint-Michel metro station bomb attack by Algerian Islamic militants.

British designer John Galliano appointed to head Paris haute couture fashion house, Givenchy.

Ambassador Sir Christopher Mallaby established the Entente Cordiale Scholarship scheme (Bourses Entente Cordiale), which allows French and British scholars to study in the other’s country.30 Series of general strikes against the government of Prime Minister Alain Juppé plans for welfare cutbacks.

1996

President Chirac state visit to UK. Replacing Galliano, British designer Alexander McQueen appointed head designer at Givenchy. Galliano and Lady Harlech joined the fashion house Christian Dior.

1997

Diana, Princess of Wales died in Paris.

Cohabitation: Chirac-Jospin (until 2002)

1998

European Central Bank established.

Saint-Malo Agreement between UK and France, promising to collaborate on defence and security, and pledging to bilaterally co-operate and in a ‘bimulti’ fashion on Africa.31

1999

European Commission resigned following report on allegations of fraud and mismanagement.32 The Sangatte refugee camp open.33

28

MD Kandiah, Exchange Rate Mechanism: Black Wednesday and the Rebirth of the British Economy, Witness Seminar (2008).

29 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O70FRKl5IwM [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 30 C Mallaby, ‘The Entente Cordial Scholarship’, in A Corbett and H Footitt, Crossing the Channel: Promoting academic mobility within Europe (2001), p. 77. See http://www.francobritishcouncil.org.uk/data/files/reports/crosschann.pdf [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 31 http://www.atlanticcommunity.org/Saint-Malo%20Declaration%20Text.html [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 32 http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-032.pdf4970 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 10

2001

The Treaty of Nice on European enlargement signed.

2001

Terrorist attacks on the USA (9/11). NATO invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty in support of the USA. Afghan War. UK and France allies.

French electronic act Daft Punk dominated UK charts with Discovery.

British fashion designer Julien Macdonald replaced Alexander McQueen as chief designer at French fashion house Givenchy.

2002

Euro notes and coins enter into circulation in a number of Member States.

EU-NATO Declaration on European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

The Sangatte refugee camp closed.

2003

Franco-British Summit - Declaration on strengthening European cooperation in security and defence.34 The Invasion of Iraq.

2004

European Union enlargement – 10 new countries joined.

Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

President Chirac official visit marked the centenary of the Entente Cordiale.

HM Queen visited France.

2005

French and Dutch voters rejected ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty.

7/7 London bombings.

President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency following riots in Paris and other French cities in October and November.

2006

Youth protests against Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s Contrat première embauche, which would have deregulated the French job market.

HRH Prince of Wales and HRH Duchess of Cornwall visited France.

2007

England beat France in semi-final of 2007 Rugby World Cup held at Stade de France.

Treaty of Lisbon Villiers-le-Bel riots.

Series of general strikes over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s and Prime Minister François Fillon’s proposals to reduce benefits for certain public sector employees.

British-based French designer Nicole Farhi awarded CBE.

2008

President Sarkozy paid a state visit to UK. HRH Prince of Wales and HRH Duchess of Cornwall visited France.

33 34

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/may/23/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices1 http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Franco-British-summit-Declaration,4970 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 11

2009

HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant submarine collision.

France re-joined NATO’s integrated military structure.

The Palace announced that HM Queen was not invited to the sixty-fifth DDay commemorations in France.35 The British Embassy in Paris undertook cost-cutting measures, which included ceasing to serve champagne regularly and curtailing the number of social functions.36

2010

Lancaster House Treaties between the United Kingdom and France for defence and security co-operation.37 Arab Spring.

2011

Syrian Civil War began.

HRH the Prince of Wales and HRH the Duchess of Cornwall visited Fromelles, France.

Libyan Revolution.

Despite ongoing austerity, the UK continued to be the world’s largest consumer of Champagne. UK was 78 per cent ahead of the USA, Champagne’s second largest export market.38 However, British consumption of French wine dropped.

2012

The Scallop War or La guerre de la coquille saint-jacques (October).39

2013

French intervention in Mali and Central African Republic.

2014

UK-France summit in London – Prime Minister David Cameron and President Hollande.

HM Queen made a 3-day state visit to France to coincide with the seventieth anniversary celebrations of the D-Day landings.

35

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/may/29/queen-d-day-france-invitation[Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8026328/Costing-British-embassy-in-Franceswaps-Champagne-for-cremant.html [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 37 http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Defence-cooperation[Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 38 http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2012/03/champagne-ships-323m-bottles-in-2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5000164/Sir-Nicholas-Henderson.html 39 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/10/british-fishermen-attacked-french-channel [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 36

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Seminar: The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations 1944-79 Edited by Rogelia Pastor-Castro and John W. Young Chair: •

John W. Young, Professor of International History at the University of Nottingham and Chair of the British International History Group. His recent publications include David Bruce and Diplomatic Practice: an American Ambassador in London, 1961-69 (2014), Twentieth Century Diplomacy: A Case Study in British Practice, 1963–76 (2008) and, as co-editor with Michael Hopkins and Saul Kelly, The Washington Embassy: British Ambassadors to the United States, 1939–77 (2009).

Papers presented by: •

Rogelia Pastor-Castro, Lecturer in International History at the University of Strathclyde. Her publications include, co-edited with John W. Young, The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations, 1944-1979 (2013). She specializes in Anglo-French relations and the Cold War and has published on British and French diplomacy.

•

Helen Parr, Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University. Her publications include Britain’s Policy Towards the European Community: Harold Wilson and Britain’s World Role (2006) and, co-edited with Glen O’Hara, The Wilson Governments 1964–1970 Reconsidered (2006)

•

Isabelle Tombs, senior researcher with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historians. She has worked on international history during the Second World War and on Franco–British relations. Her publications include articles and chapters in books on exiled socialists in London and on British intelligence in France. She is co-author of That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present (2006) and of Britain in NATO: the First Six Decades (2009).

From left to right: Rogelia Pastor-Castro of the University of Strathclyde, John W Young (Chair), Helen Parr of Keele University and Isabelle Tombs of FCO Historians.

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The Ambassadorship of Sir Oliver Harvey, 1948-54 Rogelia Pastor-Castro University of Strathclyde

Oliver Harvey’s six years at the Embassy would see Anglo-French relations become the foundation stone for wider Western European co-operation. After 1948 Britain and France took a leading role in the Marshall Plan, the Treaty of Dunkirk paved the way for closer European defence co-operation, with the establishment of the Brussels Pact in 1948, then the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. But Harvey’s ambassadorship would also see the emergence of conflicting British and French conceptions of European integration and European security.

Two issues in particular tested Harvey as an ambassador, the Schuman Plan declaration of May 1950 and the issue of West German rearmament, which became linked to the European Defence Community.

There are a number of reasons why Harvey was well suited for the post; he had political capital and had previous experience in Paris. However, this experience also had the potential to give him a negative view of France. Harvey served at the Embassy in the 1930s and witnessed the deteriorating political situation and the military collapse. During the war he acted as Anthony Eden’s Principal Private Secretary, for the second time, and witnessed the difficult relations between Churchill, de Gaulle and Roosevelt. So when he returns to Paris in 1948, is Harvey going to look at France through the lens of 1940? The question is significant, because Harvey was often criticised by key figures in the Foreign Office for giving an overoptimistic assessment of France. But perhaps one could argue that this over-optimism was calibrated to a certain extent. Harvey recognised the weaknesses and the fragmented nature of politics in post-war France. But he was also aware of Bevin’s and the Foreign Office’s scepticism towards France. The FO questioned France’s commitment to the West and its capacity for political and economic recovery. In his dispatches, Harvey tried to challenge these assumptions. He had to strike a balance between emphasising the positive aspects of French recovery, while at the same time conveying France’s difficulties in a way that would elicit London’s support rather than contempt. It would be unfair to say that Harvey was overoptimistic about France. In many instances, he was also critical of the French attitude.40 But Harvey felt that it was important to encourage France, not only because of its internal weaknesses, but also because many French were deeply suspicious of British actions and would be quick to attribute any failures or setbacks to London’s lack of support for greater European cooperation.41 When Harvey described ‘the great and unexpected strides towards

40

The National Archives of the UK [hereafter TNA]/FO371/89189, Harvey speech at consular conference, 4 April 1950; FO371/89185, Harvey to Strang, 22 May 1950.

41 TNA/FO371/79044, Paris to FO, 25 Jan. 1949.

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economic recovery and an internal political equilibrium’ his position was at odds with the inclination of many in the FO to attribute to France a general, deep-rooted malaise. One official commented: ‘it is beyond the bounds of credibility that a country which nine short years ago had sunk so low not only in the character of its government but also in the general spirit of its people and Armed Forces, could have undergone a rebirth so utterly transforming, particularly when you remember that half of the intervening period was spent under the devastating moral influence of the German occupation…’ 42 Harvey came under criticism from the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir William Strang, who felt that the experience of two world wars had ‘broken France’s spirit.’ And there was ‘no reason to think that she would be more resolute in 1950 than she was in 1939– 40’. Harvey did not seek to change this mind-set; he did not have the power to change opinion but instead sought to grind away at some of these abiding cultural predispositions.

And there was some convergence; Strang did agree with Harvey that Britain should go on ‘encouraging and fortifying.’ 43 Harvey realised that the different mentality of the two countries would inevitably lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations about each other’s behaviour. However, he suggested that ‘we might be well advised to say occasionally rather more than we mean and to refrain from pouring cold water on other people’s grandiose schemes merely because we do not see how they can be immediately realised.’44 This view was tested in May 1950.

Schuman Plan Robert Schuman’s proposal for ‘pooling’ French and German coal and steel industries created discord in Anglo-French relations for a number of reasons. First, Bevin was infuriated

by French tactics. He felt Schuman had presented the British government with a fait accompli. Second, was the fact that it departed from the idea of an Atlantic Community towards a European federation. And third, the fact that Britain was given a 48 hour ultimatum to accept the principle of the High Authority before negotiations began. Paris insisted on a prior commitment by the British government, fearing that the participation of an uncommitted British delegation would undermine the project. However, Harvey saw the Plan as a bold, imaginative step and warned that, if London did not show appreciation for the ‘spirit’ behind the proposal, it would be accused of trying to wreck it.45 In fact there were serious reservations about the Schuman Plan in Paris. Quai d’Orsay officials resented having been sidelined throughout the process and were skeptical about supranational ideas. There were tensions inside the MRP and the Socialists feared that, without Britain, the plan could become the instrument of big business. 46 Harvey concluded that it was not in Britain’s interests to see the plan fail, because if it did, it could give voice to those who favoured neutrality and the appeasement of the Soviets. It was important for French morale to have taken the lead in Europe.47 Harvey saw the episode as a ‘classic example of the difficulty of reconciling French cartesianism with British empiricism, the French habit of proposing lofty aims and then thinking out the methods of achieving them

42

TNA/FO371/79045 Harvey to Bevin, 15 April 1949, minutes by Walmsley, 25 April, Russell, 30 April, Schuckburgh, 2 May, Mallet, 3 May and Strang 3 May 1949; Strang to Harvey, 6 May 1949.

43 TNA/FO371/89185, Harvey to Bevin, 23 Feb. 1950. Strang minute, 12 Mar. 1949.

44 Ibid., Harvey to Younger, 27 April 1950.

45 Document on British Policy Overseas [hereafter DBPO], Series II, Volume I, document 10, Harvey to Bevin 11 May 1950.

46 DBPO, Series II, Volume I, document 95, Harvey to Younger, 10 June 1950.

47 DBPO, Series II, Volume I, document 33, Harvey to Bevin, 19 May 1950.

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with the British habit of only advancing step by step.’ Harvey was trying to rectify cultural misunderstandings as well as methodological clashes.

German rearmament The issue of West German rearmament highlighted the different conceptions of European security on both sides of the Channel. Harvey reported that some French leaders were becoming more progressive in thought, meaning less anti-German, and would acknowledge that their aims of defending against a Soviet attack and preventing German military recovery were incompatible. But they were by no means representative of French opinion. Harvey advised that it would be counterproductive to press the French government on the issue of German rearmament. This view placed Harvey at odds with key figures in the Foreign Office who were frustrated with the French approach.48 In September 1950, when the United States proposed a commitment to European defence as part of a package that would include West German rearmament, the British accepted but the French responded with a counter-proposal.

The Pleven Plan effectively transferred the principles behind the Schuman Plan into the military sphere. It would establish a European army, under a European minister of defence, thus avoiding the creation of a German defence ministry or general staff.49 Although Harvey objected to the French proposals on the grounds that they were ‘visionary or impracticable’, and were likely to ‘delay West German rearmament,’ he remained consistent in his approach.

London should not oppose the new initiative simply because of its federalist nature, but show its ‘benevolent support.’50 Given the French tendency to criticise Britain’s European policy, Harvey sought to prevent accusations of sabotage.51 The European Defence Community, as the Pleven Plan became known, was adopted by the six Schuman Plan signatories, but was a source of tension in Anglo-French relations as Britain did not join and did not meet French calls for various forms of association. The situation did not improve with the return of the Conservatives in October 1951, when Harvey was able to work once more with his old chief and mentor, Anthony Eden. Harvey’s assessments were crucial in order for the Foreign Office to devise the timing and method of British association with the EDC. Harvey’s ‘benevolent support’ line was wise since the EDC had full American support, it was the only way France would accept some effective measure of German rearmament, and since the EDC would, in due course, encounter difficulties in France. Eden stated Britain’s willingness to ‘associate’ with the EDC in some way, but when Schuman called for participation, Eden would not be rushed into an agreement. 52 Whilst still acknowledging that Britain could not actually join the EDC, Harvey wrote to Eden with proposals for a close form of British association. He was confident Britain could meet French concerns, in order to help with the political situation in Paris.53 However, Eden’s response failed to impress the French, who wanted a solid promise of a long-term British troop commitment on the continent.54 Harvey’s earlier optimism disappeared and he gave a sombre assessment of the French position and the EDC. For Harvey, it was easier for France to

48

TNA/FO371/85052, record of meeting in Secretary of State’s room, 21 Aug. 1950.

MAE, EU 1944-60, Allemagne, Vol. 212, Note by Direction Europe on German rearmament, 6 Oc. 1950; G Elgey, La République des Illusions, 1945-51 (1965), p.234.

50 DBPO, Series II, Volume III, document 81, Harvey to Bevin, 25 Oct. 1950.

51 TNA/FO371/89189, Paris to FO, 16 Nov. 1950.

52 TNA/CAB 128/23, CM(51)21, 29 Dec. 1951; TNA/CAB129/48, CP(51)62, ‘Association of the UK with the EDC’, 28 Dec. 1951.

53 TNA/FO371/107976, Harvey to Eden, 20 January, Hayter to Hood, 28 Jan. 1953, and Hood to Hayter, 6 Feb. 1953.

54 MAE, PA-AP 217, René Massigli Papers, Vol. 70, Bidault to Ambassadors, 4 Mar. 1953.

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embrace a federal European framework, because ‘the French [were] not so attached to their own institutions’ and were ‘prepared to sacrifice them on the altar of a new idea which seems to promise them hope for the future and fresh honour among nations.’55 For Harvey, the reasons for EDC delay were clear, and his analysis outlined the domestic factors at work. Opposition to the EDC cut across all parties and the military was divided. Diplomats and officials of the ‘entente cordiale’ school of thought , such as Quai d’Orsay Secretary General Parodi and the French Ambassador to London, Massigli, regarded European defence based on Franco-German co-operation without Britain as misguided at best and at worst a betrayal of the national interest. The Communists, opposed both German rearmament and the existence of NATO. The non-Communist left still hoped that France could adopt a neutral posture in the Cold War, and right-wing nationalists feared a rearmed Germany. Hostility from the Gaullist deputies was directed not so much against German rearmament itself, but against the supranational structure, which would undermine France’s independence, while some Socialist deputies felt threatened by Germany’s revival and hoped to restore a close association with Britain. While Harvey was eager to prevent Britain being blamed for the failure of the EDC, at the Foreign Office preparations were underway for alternatives that would bring a level of West German participation in Western defence.

Conclusions In his final despatch, in February 1954, as he had done throughout much of his time in Paris, Harvey acted as a kind of ‘counsel for the defence’, highlighting the strengths rather than the weaknesses of the French position. But he was also realistic: Anglo-French relations like Anglo-American relations can never be taken for granted but require constant attention. Our interests touch for good or bad in too many ways and places. Part of the price we must pay for co-operation in Western Europe where France is vital to us is in attention to French interests and susceptibilities, however tiresome, pretentious or out-dated they may be.56 When Harvey arrived in Paris in 1948, the Quai d’Orsay’s head of Protocol, Jacques Dumaine, noted that Harvey ‘looked “clerical” for this term embraces both the civil servant and the ecclesiastic’.57 Harvey’s predecessor, Duff Cooper, felt that Harvey would ‘make a respectable if dull ambassador.’58 Both assessments were right. Harvey was scrupulous in his assessment of French motives and sought to explain French fears. He may have been criticised by key officials at home, and some of this may have been justified. Viewed in retrospect, however, his approach towards the Schuman Plan and EDC was an intelligent one, broader and more enlightened than that of others in the British government. While he accepted that Britain could not fully join either organisation, he urged support from the outside, in order to keep the Western powers together, meet French sensibilities and prevent Britain being accused of bad faith. The considerable sympathy shown to France’s recovery, coupled with a pragmatic view of Anglo-French relations, characterised Harvey’s ambassadorship. His views were steady and measured, in line with his reliable, ‘if dull’ character. The very fact that London did what it could to help the ratification of the EDC ensured that, whatever the strains, it preserved basically good relations with Washington, Paris and other Western European governments.

55

TNA/PREM11/165, Harvey to Eden, 3 November 1951.

TNA/FO371/112778, Harvey to Eden, 30 March 1954.

57 J Dumaine, Quai d’Orsay 1945-51 (1958), pp.152-3.

58 JJ Norwich, Duff Cooper Diaries (2005), pp.413 and 448.

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The Ambassadorship of Sir Patrick Reilly, 1965-68 Helen Parr Keele University

Sir Patrick Reilly’s career, indeed his whole life, was dominated by what happened to him in Paris. Sir Patrick went to Paris in 1965, following an Ambassadorship in Moscow, and senior roles in the Foreign Office in London. On 23 February 1968, he was recalled to London and told that while he could stay on until September, and so retain his pension, he was effectively being retired early and was to be replaced.

Sir Paul Gore Booth, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the FCO, did not do much to make Sir Patrick feel better about what had happened. Reilly wrote to him, to express his sorrow that he had not given pleasure to ministers. Gore Booth took two months to reply, and when he did, he said, ‘I do not think you should feel that your performance has not given satisfaction to ministers, nor would I think that, even if this were true, you should feel apologetic about it. Your chief client is somebody about whom everybody has a highly subjective opinion, except for this institution, which tries to keep its ideas emotionally objective and based on the national interest. But of course, the importance of the gentleman concerned and the subjectivity of approach to him makes it quite impossible for one’s attitude and performance to please more than a minority of those interested enough to have an opinion’.

Reilly spent the rest of his life trying to come to terms with what had happened. In no small part to try to explain events, Reilly wrote after his retirement a very lengthy memoir, based on his own recollections his personal letters and extensive research into the national archives. The memoir is not published, but it resides in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It runs to 12 volumes each of around 300 pages – making roughly 3,268 pages of typed script.

His memoir is an amazing source, and it gives a detailed insight into his life and times.

What explains Sir Patrick’s early departure from Paris? The most significant event of his Ambassadorship was Britain’s second application for membership of the EEC, bound up, of course, in the negative attitude of General de Gaulle towards it. Was Reilly a victim of the failure of the second application to achieve membership of the EEC in the short term? Was Reilly’s departure the result – as Gore-Booth implied – of a difference in view as to how to handle de Gaulle?

In part, it was, but only in part.

The core of Reilly’s Ambassadorship lay in his relations with Britain’s Foreign Secretary, George Brown.

Reilly was a middle class diplomat, educated at Winchester and taking a double first at Oxford, but he had a slightly brittle edge, perhaps explained by his five year separation from his parents as a young boy during the First World War. Reunified with his mother, he wrote, ‘perhaps naturally enough, she found much about me that disappointed her’. He was 18

perhaps also minded that he lacked the kind of independent means an Ambassador to Paris still needed to entertain lavishly. Brown in his memoirs wrote that an air of ‘arid frigidity’ hung over the Embassy in Paris. Service to the Crown and to the State was absolutely at the core of Reilly’s identity, and he had a profoundly modest view of the capability of civil servants to make a difference. Great men made history, and the job of the diplomat was to serve.

Brown, on the other hand, was a working class Labour politician, who had left school at 15 and remembered collecting food from the workhouse during the General Strike. He had worked his way up through the trades unions to become Foreign Secretary. He was unpredictable, ebullient, uncouth and often ‘tired and emotional’, and he brutally bullied Reilly on two occasions.

Their culture clash, and personality clash, goes a long way to explain what happened to Reilly, but it has to be seen within the context of Britain’s second application for membership of the EEC. Why did Harold Wilson launch the second application when it seemed certain that de Gaulle would veto?

The reality was that Wilson realised, whatever his personal views, that he had no choice but to move Britain into the European Community, if Britain wished to remain a power with international reach. NAFTA was not an option, Britain could only ever be junior partner. The Commonwealth was diversifying and the crisis over Rhodesia challenged Britain’s leadership there. As for ‘Going It Alone’, some Labour MPs were keen, but the Foreign Office counselled that this would condemn Britain to rapidly diminishing international status, a ‘Greater Sweden’.

The innovation of the second application was that while Harold Macmillan in 1961 had applied to enter only if certain conditions could be met in advance, Wilson did not attach prior conditions to the application. In 1967 then, Wilson stated that Britain could accept the Treaty of Rome and provided safeguards could be found for Commonwealth sugar and New Zealand butter, Britain would be able to join. His application united both political parties in favour of membership, a consensus that has not yet been broken by either party in power.

Wilson’s strategy of course involved negotiating with de Gaulle, as no application could be taken seriously without it. But the ballast of the application was in its hope of outlasting de Gaulle, by generating supportive opinion amongst the Five and, importantly, the European Commission. Hence, although in November 1967, de Gaulle prevented the opening of negotiations, the application could be regarded as a ‘successful failure’, and Georges Pompidou lifted France’s veto to enlargement at the Hague Summit in 1969.

Once the application was launched, Reilly was accused both of being ‘anti de Gaulle’ and also of ‘going native’. Reilly had a great deal of respect for de Gaulle, and got on with him very well: hence the accusations of ‘going native’. Reilly also had an exceptionally astute grasp of de Gaulle’s attitude. He believed that de Gaulle’s policies were motivated by a deep anti-American and anti-British sentiment, and that therefore Britain could not hope fundamentally to change his orientation. It felt somehow invidious to attempt to outmanoeuvre him by courting opinion in the Five and the Commission. For this, Reilly was labelled ‘defeatist’.

In reality, Reilly was neither defeatist nor too pro-French. He was caught in an extremely difficult position. In the summer of 1966, as George Brown arrived at the Foreign Office, Sir Con O’Neill wrote a paper to argue that Britain should make a declaration of intent to attain eventual entry, and meanwhile wait for ‘time and circumstance to play its inevitable role’. ‘What nonsense!’ Brown countered, ‘what are we here for?’

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Reilly doubted the ability of the Labour ministers to find enough appeal to convince de Gaulle to admit Britain. Macmillan, who Reilly greatly admired, and who had had a good relationship with the French President, had failed already at this kind of personal diplomacy.

Distanced from London, Reilly did not perhaps fully grasp the domestic significance of the application, and persisted in regarding it as initiated by Brown. Naturally, however, he was supremely professional and worked tirelessly for its success.

On two occasions, Brown was outrageously brutal towards the Ambassador and his wife.

First, during the visit of Couve and Pompidou in July 1966, Brown insulted Rachel publicly.

The French had organised the tables so that Brown would not be seated next to any of the three most prominent French ladies, but would be the ‘host’ at Madame Pompidou’s table.

This, Reilly explained to Gore-Booth, was ‘normal and complimentary’ French behaviour; but Reilly later revealed that the real reason was that Brown had recently asked Couve’s wife to sleep with him. Feeling slighted by the demotion, Brown abused Rachel for a time, and then loudly declared, ‘You are not fit to be an ambassadress in Paris’.

Subsequently, on 15 December 1966, while in Paris, Brown was angered to find that a dinner was informal, whereas he was dressed in black tie. On the way to the Quai d’Orsay, Reilly remembered, Brown ‘abused me in the most offensive terms, saying that I had failed grossly in my duty in not ensuring that he knew that the dinner that night was informal which of course had been typed on his programme for the day’. The following day, Brown left a dinner at the Quai early and could find no car waiting for him. Reilly followed him back to the Embassy, where: I heard padding steps and Brown came in, with the devil upon him, small hunched and evil looking. For what seemed an age he abused me. When he was transformed by this devil the force of his personality and his natural sensitivity combined to give him an extraordinary ability to say the things most likely to hurt his victim, and with devastating effect. Thus he was able to hit me where it hurt most. For I had always prided myself on not being in any way puffed up by my status as Ambassador, on knowing that my enjoyment of my honours and privileges must be brief and transient.

I remember that he said to me with scathing contempt ‘you call yourself Her Majesty’s Ambassador. Your job is simply to see that my car is available when I want it. I do everything that’s important here’.

Brown’s insult was both hurtful in the moment, but it also was a dagger at the heart of Reilly’s raison d’être. Service of the state was at the core of his self-perception and now the Foreign Secretary insinuated that he had got above his station. Reilly found this particularly difficult to bear, and his memory of the attack coloured the rest of his time in Paris.

Thereafter, Reilly’s perception of Brown dominated his time. He maintained that Brown had ordered him to suppress any negative indications that the application might fail, as these would look bad in London and, as Reilly believed de Gaulle would certainly veto, this gave him a tight, in fact almost impossible, line to toe.

However, it was not an inevitable slide to his departure from this point on. Reilly recovered from the attack, he was supported by the Permanent Under Secretary, Sir Paul Gore Booth, and until the moment of de Gaulle’s veto, Reilly’s tenure appeared to be going well. He was recalled to London in January 1966 to advise on how to handle de Gaulle in one to one talks and in April 1967 he suggested that Britain could offer to develop a nuclear weapon jointly with France. This suggestion was not pursued – because of the French policy towards NATO – but it was greeted with interest in the Foreign Office. In June 1967, following Wilson’s talks with de Gaulle, Reilly noted that he was ‘paradoxically 20

encouraged’, because although de Gaulle did not want to admit Britain, he now realised that he had to take the initiative very seriously.

Reilly’s problems became more acute after he met de Gaulle in October, as at this point, he rightly identified that de Gaulle would find a way to stop negotiations from beginning, and French documents confirm this was now de Gaulle’s intention. Following this meeting, he wrote to Gore Booth that while de Gaulle would prefer to avoid a veto, he certainly would exercise one if he felt he had to. ‘If however he [de Gaulle] is forced by the Five to pronounce himself clearly for or against negotiations, I think that he will be prepared in the last resort to impose what amounts to a veto at a moment of his own choosing and that he will be fairly confident of being able to ride out any resulting storm...’

A few days later, he wrote to Brown, with a very subtle difference of line. To Brown, he suggested: ‘His aim in the months ahead will be, I believe, to block our application without provoking either a major conflict with the Five or a political storm in France. An outright veto of negotiations might well have these consequences, so he is trying to avoid one’. Thus, Reilly was slightly more positive to the Foreign Secretary than he had been to the Permanent Under Secretary. This difference may have explained the denouement of his career.

It did come to the crunch in late November 1967, when following devaluation of sterling, de Gaulle announced that negotiations could not open. Reilly wrote, ‘I had shot my bolt, and now waited for the inevitable blow to fall’. What he meant was that he had been too negative about the prospects of success: he had been too defeatist about making an application at all, and he had shied away from wanting to provoke a veto, to bring a crunch in order to expose de Gaulle.

When the veto came, those diplomats who had warned that de Gaulle was never likely to admit Britain, may have had their judgement vindicated, but this was not welcome news in London. The difference in diplomatic opinion, however, was also not exclusively as Reilly suggested. Sir Michael Palliser, Wilson’s Private Secretary, wrote that: ‘it was always made perfectly clear at every stage in the exercise by those writing the papers that de Gaulle was likely to block us in the last analysis, but equally that this likelihood did not invalidate the basic soundness of the policy that was being recommended’.

It was at this last point where Reilly perhaps did fall short. He never fully believed in the soundness of the policy that was being recommended: in part because he was in Paris, not London, and in part because he was in Paris, not Brussels, where the pressure created by the application in favour of eventual entry was more obvious. But it was also in part because his view of the application was coloured, indeed perhaps dominated, by his relationship with Brown. He never quite recovered from the insult Brown had dealt him, and he never quite believed in the political integrity of the government of which Brown was part. He believed that the initiative was Brown’s brainchild, and he did not fully see the need to make the application in order to bring domestic opinion behind it. For Reilly, the application was made too soon and with too little tact.

This was a subtle difference of view, and it might not have mattered if events had played out even slightly differently. Reilly, in a sense was a victim of the application’s short term failure, along with Con O’Neill, author of the ‘wait and see’ paper in the summer of 1966, who was not made Ambassador in Bonn and subsequently resigned. But Reilly was also the victim of a deep rooted culture clash between the professional diplomat and the poor boy who had become Foreign Secretary and who lacked the diplomatic niceties that were at the centre of Reilly’s life. He was a professional diplomat, who prided himself on his service.

His early departure shattered Reilly, and he spent much of the rest of his life trying to understand what had gone wrong.

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The Ambassadorship of Sir Nicholas Henderson, 1975-79 Isabelle Tombs FCO Historians

I would like to present four main themes: first, give a feel of the atmosphere at the Embassy; second assess Henderson’s bilateral work with the example of President Giscard’s state visit; third concentrate on political reporting. I shall finish with his famous valedictory and draw some conclusions.

The Embassy Henderson was charismatic and stylish, ‘with a look of amiable derangement’, but he was very serious in his intentions to better Britain abroad. He inspired diplomats. For example Sir Stephen Wall dedicated his book A Stranger in Europe to him as ‘the model of the very best of British public servants’. Nicko, as he was known, skilfully and loyally led fifty diplomats.

They liked him and he liked them. He recognised their great qualities. Henderson was passionate about politics and the morning meetings were lively with ‘vigorous arguments’.

But he also knew how to delegate, in particular to specialists for example Nicholas Bayne, the financial counsellor, whom he described as ‘exceptionally brilliant’. Bayne established excellent contacts with the Treasury and the French finance ministry. This provided our two British diplomats with strategic weapons to exploit the Franco-French duel between the finance ministry and the Quai. They obtained the best information on France and its economic performance.

The Duff Cooper Library at the British Embassy, Paris.

Henderson was dazzled by the splendour of the Embassy where he arrived in 1975. This was in great contrast with the economic gloom of Britain (that no doubt many of you will 22

remember). He was soon subjected both to a press campaign against the Embassy’s costs and an inspection by the Central Policy Review Staff. It criticised the Embassy’s ‘Rolls Royce’ image and suggested moving to smaller premises in the suburbs. The Embassy’s Economic Minister commented bitingly: ‘if you represent a tatty country, you should accurately reflect it by being tatty also’. Henderson explained that Sir Christopher Soames, former Ambassador, had ‘set up an establishment designed to push the boat out and put Britain on the Paris map, regardless of cost’. Nicko fended off the most extreme ideas, was unapologetic in his flamboyance and used the Embassy as a diplomatic tool. For example, in a month, seven Cabinet Ministers, nine Junior Ministers and two groups of MPs visited. The Queen’s birthday parties were highlights of the Parisian calendar. In the 1978 party, sixteen-hundred guests consumed colossal quantities of champagne, strawberries and even the decorations crafted by his wife, Mary. The Embassy was a social hub of Parisian life equal to that of Duff and Lady Diana Cooper.

Bilateral relations Henderson soon realised that relations with France were in need of repair. Britain had a poor economic performance and it just had renegotiated its entry terms in the European Community. Henderson, himself a convinced Europeanist, observed that it resulted in French suspicion about Britain’s commitment to the European idea. For example, President Giscard who had welcomed the outcome of the renegotiation had been disappointed by its aftermath.

Nicko warned: ‘We risk being left out of the decision-making processes of Western Europe’.

As the British trade deficit was worsening, Henderson did his bit for the economy by continually hosting exhibitions of British goods. In 1977, ‘a line of girl guides in Laura Ashley dresses’ welcomed over 1,000 gardening traders to what Nicko jokingly named ‘Chelsea on the Seine’. In 1978 2,500 British businessmen visited. One of Henderson’s key achievements was winning a European cause, Airbus. By sheer perseverance and an impromptu breakfast he influenced the Cabinet’s decision to back BAE to join Airbus Industry. He also advocated a UK-France cooperation in nuclear energy. He explained that the economic crisis was rooted in rising oil prices and the French were haunted by Germany becoming the dominant nuclear power in Western Europe. In December 1977, he organised a meeting between Margaret Thatcher, the then leader of the opposition, and Raymond Barre, Prime Minister. They talked about inflation and unemployment, seeing eye to eye, Henderson remembered. They also discussed nuclear reactors. ‘Barre appeared taken aback when Mrs Thatcher… [Henderson recalled] with crossed legs and looking her most feminine, suddenly looked at him intensely and asked: “Mr Barre, what do you think of fast breeders?”’

Given French Presidents’ decisive role in foreign policy, Henderson concentrated his energy on improving relations with Giscard. He wrote: ‘However difficult the French and their leaders may be … we cannot escape contact with them’. Also France was ‘…a highly successful modern economic power’ with a huge post-war industrial growth. It had overtaken Britain in 1973 to become the world’s fourth trading power. Giscard appeared as a typical intellectual offspring of the grandes écoles. His detached book Démocratie Française only mentioned Britain once for its smaller GDP than France. Thus Giscard argued it gave France ‘a decisive advantage in the greatest rivalry in European history’. Yet Henderson remained cautiously optimistic, arguing that Giscard was not ‘governed by the Gaullist reflexes of the Quai, which cause them to jerk into a negative response when anything is suggested from across the Channel’ and he concluded ‘whatever we do, the French will remain awkward partners but it should not be impossible to do business with them when we have so much in common’.

In this context, Nicko wanted Giscard’s State Visit in June 1976, the first since de Gaulle’s in 1960, to be a success. To counter the initial lack of enthusiasm, he worked closely 23

with Sir Michael Palliser, the PUS, and Claude Pierre-Brossolette, the Secretary-General at the Elysée, building excellent relations. Henderson suggested launching yearly bilateral summits during the visit. It was so arranged that Giscard would present this key announcement as his own idea – a way of ensuring French enthusiasm! Both sides hailed the visit a success. Giscard reassured a press conference that the British were willing to take part in the future life of Europe. The Foreign Secretary, Tony Crosland, thanked Henderson for ‘so many imaginative and constructive suggestions’. The Press celebrated a ‘new entente’.

The Queen made a great impression on Giscard. She presented him with a Labrador, Sandringham Samba, another idea of Henderson’s. It had involved lengthy negotiations between the Embassy, Buckingham Palace and the Elysée, including training the dog in the language of Voltaire. Therefore, Henderson was ‘dismayed’ by a satirical article by Peter Jenkins based on an Embassy leak. Entitled ‘Man pats dog’, it trivialized the visit and concluded: ‘Perhaps [Giscard] may spare us an occasional fond thought as Samba comes obediently to heel’.

The visit was duly followed by yearly bilateral summits. The first in Rambouillet five months later could hardly have come at a worse time. A financial crisis had engulfed the UK. At the Labour conference, in September, Denis Healey, the Chancellor, in an ‘end of the world’ mood, was booed by the delegates. He had announced that Britain would ask the IMF for its biggest ever loan. That required a strict pay policy and big cuts in public expenditure.

The French media had a field day with such a humiliating British dégringolade (‘collapse’).

Just before the summit, the Embassy welcomed the Queen Mother on an official visit.

Henderson recalled that she ‘gripped her dry Martini and charmed the businessmen with her fluent French’. She boosted his morale. He was also slightly comforted by cracks in the Franco-German couple as France was showing signs of economic difficulties. He noted: ‘The French are not…affected by pangs of envy...towards us as in the past…the French are happy to see us down, but not out.’ In the end, the French ‘instructed their representatives at the IMF to be as sympathetic as possible’.

But in 1978, while the French economy was improving again, the British was deteriorating further. Giscard reinforced his relations with Chancellor Schmidt. Henderson advised Britain to take the lead in the EC by promoting industrial cooperation and play the card of true Europeans. London remained unconvinced, some seeing Henderson as an ultraEurophile. They also thought that historically, the French and the Germans ‘needed each other more than either needed us’. To make things worse for Henderson, both France and West Germany were pushing towards the Exchange Rate Mechanism without Britain if need be. In this dire atmosphere, unexpectedly, Chancellor Schmidt eased the third annual summit.

He had declared that a directly elected European Assembly was bound to seek more powers, which created strident indignation in France. Giscard had to defuse the crisis. He declared that it was not right for one country alone to dominate the Community. He also reassured Britain that she would not suffer ‘political consequences’ if she did not join the ERM from its outset. Henderson was relieved that the summit corrected ‘the recent intensification of the Paris-Bonn side of the triangle’ and that Anglo-French relations were back on an even keel.

For sure, in March 1979, the European Council meeting in Paris did officially establish the ERM, without British participation. Nevertheless, Giscard was extremely friendly with James Callaghan, the Prime Minister, suggesting meeting more often. This was encouraged by Henderson, in one of his last Paris official assignments, before he left in April.

Political Reporting The political background to Henderson’s time in Paris was the unsteady but inexorable rise of the left-wing combination of Socialists and Communists, on which his excellent team reported perceptively. The left was expected to win the 1978 legislative elections — certainly 24

until the alliance between Socialists and Communists broke up in 1977. Reasons for predicting a left victory were: the economic downturn in 1977, a marked inequality of income, unemployment rising, the division of the right after Chirac’s resignation as prime minister and Giscard’s regal lofty behaviour. Henderson had commiserated with the new Prime Minister. Nicko thought that Barre had the tall order of ‘instilling economic common sense into’ what the Ambassador labelled as ‘perhaps the most conservative and self-centred people in Europe’. If the Left were elected, Henderson warned of potential economic problems, a flight of capital, the collapse of the Franc, a stagnation of investment and social unrest.

In any case, the Embassy prepared for an ‘alternance’, the possibility of a left-wing government. George Walden, First Secretary for Internal Affairs, described himself as ‘a political pimp, providing the Labour Government…with introductions to promising figures who might shortly be in power’. He reported elegantly on events, political parties and intellectual trends. He met all key personalities. The Embassy ‘discreetly strengthened contacts with the Socialists’. François Mitterrand visited London in 1976. The ambassador drew a pen-picture of this ‘complicated… mercurial [and] touchy character with an elephantine memory’, as he put it. He did not speak English and showed very limited interest in a Britain he equated with ‘tweeds and pullovers’. Walden, who took him to Kew Gardens, had difficulty in extricating him from greenhouses and trees. They just made it to Number 10, where the conversation with Callaghan was ‘nondescript’. Nevertheless Walden concluded: a ‘man whose ultimate priorities in life are books, trees and women cannot be all bad’.

But surprise the Left lost the elections. Nevertheless, the Head of the Western European Department wrote to Henderson that ‘largely at your initiative…we are well placed…to keep on close terms with the next French government, whatever the outcome of the March elections’.

The Famous Valedictory In January 1979, the ‘winter of discontent’ paralysed Britain. This situation, combined with Henderson’s analysis of French economic success and his pro-European views fed into his valedictory lamenting Britain’s decline. Nicholas Bayne provided the economic substance.

For the first time in three centuries, Britain’s income per capita was below that of France.

Henderson was dismayed by what he called the ‘poor and unproud’ look of British towns, airports, hospitals and local amenities. His Europhile argument was that Britain had excluded itself from post-war plans of European unity, ‘when [he wrote] we could have fashioned it to suit our interests’, as ‘we had every Western European government ready to eat out of our hand’. He pleaded for ‘will … leadership’ and commitment to Europe.

His well-timed and authoritative despatch had considerable impact, heralding the Thatcher period. He sent it to the Foreign Secretary, copied to key posts a month before the general election. It received extensive publicity. It was originally hushed up by the Foreign Office until after the May election. But its ‘subversive tenor… [had] been leaked to the Evening Standard’, which published a sensational piece on 27 April. On 2 June, The Economist to whom it had also been leaked published the valedictory in full. His editor Andrew Knight argued: ‘if it stimulates public awareness of the European question more than this paper could do…I shall be delighted …If the Prime Minister reads it …I shall be overjoyed’. He meant Margaret Thatcher who had just become Prime Minister.

She chose Paris for her first trip abroad. She told British correspondents that she ‘found [the valedictory] very, very interesting … What I am determined to do is to get the position turned’. She then told the Commons that the valedictory was well-founded: ‘We had been trying to put across [this] analysis for a considerable number of months… if we want a German and French standard of living we must have a German and French standard of work.’

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Henderson was appointed Ambassador to Washington by Lord Carrington, who ‘wanted someone with panache’ not ‘a run-of-the-mill official’, as he told him on 18 May. Conclusions Henderson had cut a dash in adverse economic conditions when Franco-British relations were difficult. He broke down barriers with the instauration of high-level yearly summits, inaugurated by Giscard’s successful State Visit to which he had contributed imaginatively.

He also promoted British trade and industry.

Results concerning Europe were more mixed. He did not convince all FCO departments and the Labour leadership of the merits of integration or the ERM. And the Franco-German ‘couple’ was stronger than ever. But he kept the dialogue going and limited potential damage.

Another achievement was the Embassy’s reporting of the French scene - stimulating, informative and perceptive. It identified the failings that would bring the Left to power only two years later: unemployment and inequality, compounded by Giscard’s personality of a Republican monarch. Both Mitterrand and Chirac were identified as future key players.

Politicians liked Henderson because he gave them what they wanted: ‘the big picture’.

His valedictory had an impact in the highest spheres, particularly the new Prime Minister.

This may seem paradoxical given the difficult relationship that Margaret Thatcher developed later with the FCO, particularly over Europe. Towards the end of his life, Henderson said that her tenure had been the most disastrous for Britain’s EU policy.

Henderson’s leadership in Paris, encapsulated in perhaps the best-known ever valedictory, built his reputation as one of the most successful post-war ambassadors. When he had already retired, it provided an unexpected springboard to Washington, where his stand during the Falklands War made him even more famous.

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In response to the above three papers, Edward Mortimer, The Times Assistant Paris Correspondent, 1967-70, made a comment: I was a very junior correspondent for The Times at the end of Patrick Reilly’s Ambassadorship and I thought it was very interesting that Dr Parr began with his being told that he was going to be replaced. She didn’t mention who he was going to be replaced by, although there was a reference to Sir Christopher Soames,59 as he then was, in the subsequent talk by Dr Tombs.

I would just like to remember the extraordinary impact that Soames’s arrival had in Paris in the Autumn of 1968. He came by train for some reason, of course there was no Channel Tunnel then, though normally he would have come by air. He was received at the Gare du Nord by a suitable delegation of people from the Embassy and he immediately set about winning the hearts and minds of the French people.

I attended a dinner in Bordeaux in October of 1969 at which he made a very emotional speech about the friendship between France and Britain, in which I think he may even have hammed it up by pretending his French was less good than it was: ‘Comment dit le wealth? – Ah oui, la richesse!’ and this went down an absolute bomb.

You probably know the sequel. I suppose that Wilson and Brown thought that Soames could somehow get round the veto and charm de Gaulle with these memories of the great moments of World War Two. De Gaulle did indeed call him in at the beginning of 1969 and basically suggested an alternative. You know, ‘It’s not going to work having you in the European Community, but the European Community isn’t everything, and we could have this Directoire where France, Germany and Britain would get together with the United States and really decide the important things. Soames, of course, relayed this very important message back to London, and London was rather taken aback because their strategy was to cultivate an alliance with Germany and the Five, as you said, in preparation for de Gaulle’s departure which of course occurred quite soon after.

Their first move was to get on the line to Bonn and say, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ And it promptly leaked. French reaction was one of shock and horror: ‘What an ungentlemanly thing to do, to leak’, and it became known as ‘L’affaire Soames’.

I remember on Sunday morning being summoned round by Donald Logan60 to his home, he was the Press Counsellor in the Embassy at the time, to brief us about this disaster, and I asked, ‘I understand that you would have wanted to consult the Germans, but might it not have been the thing first to tell de Gaulle that, before we could take that any further, we would have to bring the Germans into the conversation?’ And Donald said, ‘Well, you can take it that this point of view was urged by this Embassy’. I think that was as far as a British diplomat at the time could go in alerting the media to a very sharp difference of opinion between them and their political masters in London.

59 60

Sir Christopher Soames (Lord Soames, 1920-87), HM Ambassador to Paris, 1968-72.

Sir Donald Logan (1917-2009), Information Counsellor, British Embassy, Paris, 1964-70.

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Similarly, a comment was made by Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith, HM Embassy in Paris, 1976 I served in Paris under Nicko Henderson and I knew Pat Reilly who used to turn up from time to time and I’d like to say something about both of them, or ask questions.

First about Patrick Reilly: was there minuting about moving him from the Paris Embassy? Because it does seem that it was an unhappy appointment for a number of reasons which you made clear, and I wondered to what extent this was recognised in London and whether the PUS had thoughts of shifting him at an earlier stage, which might have averted some of the unhappiness.

On Nicko [Henderson], I just wanted to say something relevant about his charisma which you mentioned, and you – [referring to Isabelle Tombs] – were absolutely right, it was a sort of dishevelment with charisma hiding a serious approach to policy. The dishevelment and the charisma were to a large extent constructed, and one of the ways in which he did this which reflects on the language that Edward Mortimer mentioned, was through his speeches and his use of the French language. His French was not marvellous, but he recognised that he had a weapon there if he cultivated his English accent and, in preparing his formal speeches, he had a method which I think is something worth studying by others. He would summon the lady from the Press Department of the Embassy, who translated, and me, because I was working in the Information Section. And he would go through a speech doing it himself in his own language and this created a sort of Socratic dialogue between the lady and Nicko, in which he would object to every sentence saying, ‘You can’t say that, this is how you would say it in French’. Then he would go over it again and it would still come out in his own language and in the end he got a speech which he felt comfortable with, rather than reading a text which had been prepared in some other Department of the Embassy. I think he made the best use of this. Probably formal speeches don’t play so great a part in the role of an Ambassador now as they used to, but I’m sure they still play some part.

And, on his relations with the Staff: you said he was popular, I think he was popular but not everybody liked him. And one of the reasons for this was, in a way, his strength, which was picking people, recognising people with talent and using it. Correspondingly, this meant that some people were not of interest to him. And the talent which he recognised was often the talent of the young. The engine room of the Embassy was Walden and Robin Renwick61 at the time I was there. His Private Secretary was Howard Davies,62 who became a lifelong friend, and of course, Nicholas [Bayne].63 Isabelle Tombs’s Response to Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith I would like to thank Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith, for adding additional insights as a member of the Embassy serving in Paris when Sir Nicholas Henderson was Ambassador.

Henderson’s obituary in The Telegraph of 16 March 2009 made a similar point in referring to his ‘attractive if studied eccentricity’.64 Also George Walden observed that ‘for some reason he wore gigantic collars and ties that were artfully knotted in order to be permanently askew … with … his affected clothes and unaffected amiability, Nicko was a

61

Robin Renwick (Lord Renwick of Clifton), First Sec., Paris, 1972-6.

Sir Howard Davies, Private Sec. to HM Ambassador, Paris, 1974-6.

63 Sir Nicholas Bayne, Financial Counsellor, Paris, 1975-9.

64 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5000164/Sir-Nicholas-Henderson.html [Accessed 12 Mar. 2014] 62

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stylish fellow.’65A point reinforced in The Times obituary of 17 March 2009: ‘No man ever spent more on shirts with collars that did not fit and ties that overflowed’.

The fact that his French was not brilliant has been commented upon by observers. I would argue that he managed to overcome this initial handicap. But Sir Michael goes one step further by showing how Henderson turned this potential handicap to advantage. His description of Henderson’s strategy in preparing speeches is reminiscent of Churchill or, on a different level, of show-business personalities such as Jane Birkin.

When I said of his staff that ‘they liked him and he liked them’, I simplified the message, mainly basing myself on George Walden’s remark: ‘It was impossible not to like him’.66 The Times obituary noted: ‘His effective professionalism commanded widespread admiration and for all his occasional petulance, he had a charm and sparkle about him that, most colleagues agreed, made it rewarding, and fun, to work alongside him’. However, the obituary also noted: ‘Many among his staff adored him, but there was some unease in his offices in Bonn and Paris’. I am grateful to Sir Michael for recalling this additional side.

Malcolm Dougal,67 who was First Commercial Secretary in Paris and served under Henderson for a few months noted: ‘He was good to work for, readily accepting advice on subjects he knew little about’.68 On the other hand, some of his political staff must have felt somewhat uncomfortable at the morning meetings. As noted by Sir Nicholas Bayne, Henderson was passionately interested in politics, giving quite a hard time to his political team: ‘His morning meetings were marked by vigorous arguments, in which he was quick to exploit any hesitations’.69 As noted by Sir Stephen Wall, ‘he was careful and meticulous in the judgements he sent to London, for example simplifying draft telegrams on the political scene, on the principle that a telegram had to be completely self-contained’.70 The inner circle included Howard Davies, Nicholas Bayne and George Walden, as illustrated both in Henderson’s diaries and in archival documents. Henderson described his Private Secretary, Davies, as ‘the most brilliant man of his generation’.71 Henderson appreciated complementarities. Thus, whereas ‘Nicko was all languor, Howard was all brain and tense, frustrated energy’ and while the ambassador was fervently pro-European, Davies ‘was radically inclined, rather Left-wing and very anti-Common Market’.72 Henderson acknowledged that he was less engaged in economics and allowed Bayne a free hand. Bayne provided the bulk of the economic reporting and advice, including for the famous valedictory.

As for Walden, Henderson referred to him in his diaries as: ‘An attractive and brilliant man of decided views and uncertain métier’.73 I would like finally to thank Sir Michael LlewellynSmith for drawing attention to the role or Sir Robin Renwick, whom Sir Nicholas Bayne also counted among ‘the galaxy of talent, with many gifted diplomats destined to the highest posts, like Robin Renwick, later Ambassador in Washington’.74 That Henderson recognised the talent of the young is shown in the farewell lunch given to him by members of the Chancery in the bistro, the Louis XIV, which he remembered as ‘one of the most enjoyable lunches I had in the whole of my time in Paris’. He recorded his

65

G Walden, Lucky George: Memoirs of an Anti-Politician (1999), pp.161-2.

Ibid., 162.

67 Malcolm Dougal, 1st Secretary (Commercial), Paris, 1972-6.

68 The Times, 21 March 2009.

69 N Bayne, Economic Diplomat (2010), p.85.

70 Information from Sir Stephen Wall to the author.

71 N Henderson, Old Friends and Modern Instances (2000), p.180.

72 Walden, Lucky George, p.162.

73 Henderson, Mandarin: the Diaries of an Ambassador, 1969–1982 (1994), p.266.

74 Bayne, Economic Diplomat, p.85.

66

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surprise ‘when one of the members of the Chancery said at lunch: “Do you know we are four grammar school boys to three public school ones?” It had never occurred to me that this question of class education featured in the mind of those self-confident and able young men whom I had observed daily at the morning meetings at the Embassy’.75

75

Henderson, Mandarin, p.260-1.

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Witness seminar: The History, Role and Functions of the British Embassy in Paris Edited by MD Kandiah Session One: Chair: • Matthew Rycroft: Chief Operating Officer, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 20112014; Third, then Second, Secretary (Chancery), Paris Embassy, 1991-1995.

Witnesses: • Sir David Manning GCMG: First Secretary, 1984-1988.

• Sir Christopher Mallaby GCMG: Ambassador, 1993-1996.

• Lord Jay of Ewelme GCMG: Counsellor (Financial and Commercial), 1987–90; Ambassador, 1996-2001.

• Sir John Holmes GCVO: First Secretary (Economic), 1984–87; Ambassador, 2001-2007.

From left to right: Sir David Manning, Sir Christopher Mallaby, Matthew Mycroft (Chair), Sir John Holmes and Lord Jay of Ewelme

MATTHEW RYCROFT: It is a large and extremely distinguished audience that we have today and you are all very welcome. My name is Matthew Rycroft and I am the Chief Operating Officer in the Foreign Office. Some of you who used to work here will probably know the role better as Chief Clerk: that is what I do. For the purposes of this panel discussion my credentials are, I suppose, that my first full posting was in Paris from 1991 to 1995, working for one Sir Christopher Mallaby. We are absolutely delighted to have such a star-studded panel. I do not think I have done anything in this job or any other where I have

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been surrounded by four gods of diplomacy. Four GCMGs76 or equivalent and we are extremely lucky to have them.

I am going to ask each of the panellists to introduce themselves and say just a little bit about who they are, what is their link to the British Embassy in Paris, and maybe just one highlight – one or two highlights – of the time that you were there. Just to get started; just to get everyone into the discussion and then we will take it from there. I think we will just go along the row in chronological order of final postings to Paris starting with Sir David Manning.

SIR DAVID MANNING: Thank you, Matthew, very much. I was first Secretary PoliticalInternal in the Embassy from 1984 to 1988 under two Ambassadors, John Fretwell 77 and Sir Ewen Fergusson,78 who were both enormously supportive of the political role, although very different in style. The Heads of Chancery were Christopher Macrae79 and Jeremy Greenstock,80 who were also very supportive and allowed me a long rein. It is difficult to choose two or three highlights. I suppose when I was there the big constitutional issue was what would happen to France if – for the first time under the Fifth Republic – the President found himself with a government from the opposing party.81 That is indeed what happened in 1986, and so the whole cohabitation issue was very much to the fore. In fact, I arrived in mid-1984 as Mitterrand82 was busy getting rid of Pierre Mauroy,83 his very socialist Prime Minister, in favour of the ‘bcbg’ (bon chic, bon genre) young Laurent Fabius.84 The latter gave the whole Mitterrand government a completely new look. Fabius did do a very good job, but in the end he lost the 1986 Assembly elections and Mitterrand was faced with cohabitation. Although it now seems pretty banal –co-habitation has happened twice in France – at that stage it was a step into the unknown. Raymond Barre85 said that co-habitation would result in a constitutional crisis and the right should refuse to co-operate, while Jacques Chirac took a different view, deciding to become Prime Minister. Then there was a battle of wits between Mitterrand and Chirac until the 1988 Presidential elections, when Mitterrand was re-elected for another seven years. Ironically, Mitterrand had of course, in the nineteen sixties condemned the Fifth Republic with its Presidential system as a coup d’état permanent.

I suppose the other highlight I would touch on is that it was a time in French politics when the far-left were losing ground rapidly and the far-right were gaining it. It is hard to remember now, but the French Communist Party had scored consistently over 20 per cent since the end of the Second World War in French politics. It was only in the 1970s they started to lose ground. When I arrived in 1984 they were just leaving government, having been successfully outmanoeuvred by Mitterrand, who had invited them to join the government in 1981. By the time of the 1986 legislatives, the parliamentary elections that Fabius lost, the Communists – for the first time since the war – scored below 10 per cent.

So there was a very profound shift going on in French politics, with the collapse of the

76

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Sir John Fretwell, Ambassador, 1982-7.

78 Sir Ewen Fergusson, Ambassador, 1987-92.

79 Sir Christopher Macrae, Political Counsellor and Head of Chancery, Paris, 1983-7.

80 Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Head of Chancery, Paris, 1987-90.

81 See chronology.

82 François Mitterrand (1916-96), President of France, 1981-95.

83 Pierre Mauroy(1928-2013), Prime Minister of France, 1981-4.

84 Laurent Fabius, Prime Minister of France, 1984-6.

85 Raymond Barre (1924-2007), Prime Minister of France, 1976-81.

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Communists and the rise of Le Pen.86 There was a debate in the Embassy as to whether someone should have contacts with Front National. It had to be discussed in London. Both my Ambassadors supported the idea and I was authorised to get to know some people in the Front National.

RYCROFT: I’m very honoured we asked you. Thank you very much David. Sir Christopher?

SIR CHRISTOPHER MALLABY: I was Ambassador in Paris from the end of 1992 to the middle of 1996. It, of course, is a thrilling thing to do in a thrilling house in a fascinatingly complicated country. I had an advantage which some predecessors, for instance Henderson87 and Tomkins,88 had not had, which was that the British economy was growing. It was growing for part of that time faster than France. This was not something that I rushed about boasting of, but it was something that was very convenient to be able to say very often and it was something which other people – French people – could not reproach me with in the way that they had denigratingly reproached some of my predecessors.

As to highlights to my work time in Paris, I have to mention first the tunnel.89 This was something I got very involved in. I actually went through it to go and take up my job.

The first British Ambassador, I think, to go to his new post on land – not dry land, but land – since perhaps when we had somebody in Edinburgh. In any case it was an obvious opportunity and the tunnel is close to my heart for that reason alone. The importance of it is clear today. I went yesterday to the twentieth anniversary of Eurotunnel90 and the Chairman of Eurotunnel91 said that the number of passengers going through the Tunnel since it was opened 20 years ago was five times the British population. That makes one realise that the tunnel is a really important development in the story of France and Britain.

One operational matter I will mention because it took up a lot of my time was Bosnia.92 The British and the French were there together. The Americans were not there, and this was a big moment in the development of British-French military/defence co-operation.

We were consciously doing our operation in Bosnia with a view to being able to co-operate militarily with the French more after Bosnia than before. The thing I particularly remember is a weekend staying with French friends in Normandy when there was a big decision to be taken about going deeper into the military involvement in Bosnia. I was telephoned by the Prime Minister’s – John Major’s93 – Private Secretary,94 about eight times during the weekend. I myself spoke with Chirac or his office about the same number of times.

RYCROFT: Thank you very much indeed and if I can jump in with my own personal reflections along the way. That was the big issue that I was dealing with when I was working for you and your predecessor Ewen Fergusson in the early 1990s. It went on to shape a large part of my own career thinking about the Balkans and picking up the pieces after the wars

86

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Président, Front National (FN), 1972-2011.

Sir Nicholas (Nicko) Henderson (1919-2009), Ambassador to France, 1975-9.

88 Sir Edward Tomkins (1915-2007), Ambassador to France, 1972-5.

89 The Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France via an underground tunnel was opened in 1994.

90 The Channel Tunnel is operated by Groupe Eurotunnel.

91 Jacques Gounon, Chairman of Eurotunnel since 2005 92 Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Conflict (1992-5) broke out.

93 Sir John Major, Prime Minister, 1990-7.

94 Sir John Holmes, Prime Minister’s Private Secretary (Foreign Affairs), 1996-9 and PM’s Principal Private Secretary, 1997-9.

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there. The other highlight which you might like to look out for that could prompt some further discussions from others was that there was a State Visit in 1992. One of three, I think, that the present Queen has paid to France. I know that others might have found those highlights as well. Thirdly, just to say at that moment in the 1990s there was a very rapid churn of French Prime Ministers. I recall in – I’m sure the wrong order – certainly Rocard,95 Balladur,96 Bérégovoy97 and Juppé98 and several others. It was also the time when one Ségolène Royal99 joined the French Cabinet. So some things have not changed from then to today. Now, Sir John Holmes.

SIR JOHN HOLMES: Thank you, Matthew. I had two stints in Paris. The first was from 1984-87, when I was First Secretary for Economic, looking particularly at French economic policy and how much they were cheating on subsidies to their industry. Secondly, as Ambassador from 2001-2007. I will not talk about the first bit because David has talked about it to some extent already. We were more or less contemporaries.

While I was Ambassador there are several things perhaps worth mentioning. The first is the Iraq War – the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 – when we had a very profound difference of attitude between the British and the French, and obviously a major souring of relations between Blair100 and Chirac101 as a result. The particular episode that stands out in that, is the moment when Chirac said just before the invasion that he would veto a Security Council resolution quel depende en circumstance, which was seized on by the British establishment like a lifebelt by a drowning man to show that the French were completely unreasonable and that is why there was not going to be a Security Council resolution so the invasion could go ahead. Which was opportunistic, shall we say. Obviously, dealing with that war trying to maintain the relationship despite all the consequences of that division of opinion occupied a lot of time, just trying to put the British point of view across. I remember my American colleague102 did not speak French and therefore the task of trying to defend the British position – which was not easy, as you can imagine – was left very much to me, publically at least. Also the major point was to try and keep the relationship alive to try and make sure that, whatever the politicians were doing at their level, the officials and generals were still getting on with things that we continued to be doing together, and that – I think – was remarkably successful in the circumstances.

The other big issue was obviously Europe. It is always there between us and the French – it still is – the Common Agricultural Policy,103 and the European budget. There was also the referendum of 2005 on the European Constitution104 whilst I was there, which the French lost in a catastrophic way. So that was always a big issue in one way or another.

Defence was another major topic, as I said – it has been before and since. Defence cooperation between the two big European defence powers. Defence industrial policy; could we actually collaborate between various projects and so on. So that was a major preoccupation.

95

Michel Rocard. Prime Minister of France, 1988-91 Édouard Balladur, Prime Minister of France, 1993-5.

97 Pierre Bérégovoy, Prime Minister of France, 1992-3.

98 Alain Juppé, Prime Minister of France, 1995-7.

99 Ségolène Royal, French Minister of Environment, 1992-3; Minister of School Education, 1997-2000; Minister of Family and Children, 2000-1, Minister of Family, Children and Disabled, 2001-2.

100 Tony Blair, Prime Minister, 1997-2007.

101 Jacques Chirac, President of France, 1995-2007.

102 Howard H Leach, US Ambassador to France, 2001-5.

103 The agricultural policy of the European Union is called the Common Agricultural Policy.

104 Held on 29 May 2005.

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The other, which was a bit different was immigration. What I mean by that is Sangatte, if you remember, the camp across the Channel from Dover where people were gathering to cross by whatever means they could, clinging to the bottom of trains and swinging on to lorries and so on.105 That became a major issue between us, until it was finally closed, which removed the problem. The actual camp itself was closed by Sarkozy,106 when he was Interior Minister, and that was actually the first time I think that Sarkozy swung into our consciousness as a serious politician who got things done, whatever else you might think of him.

Just two other quick thing to mention, one was the 2002 Presidential election when Le Pen came second in the first round and caused a huge shockwave in France and elsewhere. Of course, he lost the second round by a large margin. I think one memorable image from around that time was people going to vote – socialists going to vote with pegs on their noses and gloves on their hands – to show that they hated Chirac, but they hated Le Pen even more, so they were going to vote in favour of Chirac. So the other point really was the sort of constant theme of my time – and not only of my time – was the battle of economic models. The British idea of, what the French caricature as, wild capitalism – laissez-faire – and what we caricatured was their model of mollycoddling and social protectionism and so on. Who was doing better in this particular battle? Most of the time I was there we could say we were. It did not look quite so good a bit later, but that was something that was always there and major challenge to public policy to say the least.

RYCROFT: Thank you, Sir John. Finally in this introductory round I would like to welcome Michael Jay. LORD JAY OF EWELME: Thank you, Matthew. I was in Paris at the Embassy twice.

First, as Financial and Commercial Counsellor between 1987 and 1990. I think, probably, the main part of the job was at least pretending to try to stop EMU107 going ahead. There were various visits from Nigel Lawson.108 What I remember in particular is John Kerr,109 who was then the Assistant Under-Secretary for the EU here, suggesting to me when I went out that I should manufacture a row with him which he should then reveal to the Treasury in order to establish my own credentials with the Treasury, which was the most important part of the job.

I think this worked quite well as it happened. I was then back again as Ambassador between 1996 and 2001.

I think, on the British side, what I remember at that stage was the change from the rather tired last year of the Major government to the excitement of all of us, and particularly the French, to the arrival of Tony Blair. Then a really frenetic two or three years as the Blair government installed itself. I remember the fascination the French felt for Tony Blair. I remember when he came before he was Prime Minister and going to see Alain Juppé, who was then Prime Minister, and Blair explaining what would be the Labour Government’s economic policy. Juppé saying at the end, ‘That is fascinating, Mr Blair but it is far too rightwing for us.’ [Audience laughter.] I think that was something which I have not forgotten.

Secondly, I think it was the change on the French side. Chirac was President throughout, but

105

See chronology.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French Minister of the Interior, 2002-4; 2005-7.

107 Economic and Monetary Union (EMU): http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/emu/index_en.htm 108 Nigel Lawson (Lord Lawson of Blaby), Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1983-9.

109 Sir John Kerr (Lord Kerr of Kinlochard), Assistant Under-Secretary of State, FCO, 1987-90; Ambassador and UK Permanent Representative to the EU, 1990-5.

106

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then he misjudged the election and Jospin110 came in as Prime Minister and then one had Cohabitation. I think that was important because the government here, although it understands in many ways France, never really quite understands how cohabitation works.

Indeed, the relations between a socialist Prime Minister and a right-wing President with the British government are quite difficult to manage and there is a real role there for the Embassy. The issues are those which others have talked about – an awful lot of Europe, a lot of foreign policy.

What I look back on are a lot of the things I had not expected to become an expert on.

I had not expected to become an expert in BSE.111 I had not expected to become an expert on foot-and-mouth disease.112 I had not expected to be discussing in French with the French Agricultural Minister the pros and cons of extracting the insides of a sheep by vacuum suction, as I remember doing on one occasion. That was not what one thought one was going to do when joining the Foreign Office. I suppose when I look back on those moments now the defining moment that is not really in the summary here was the death of the Princess of Wales.113 The sort of thing which happens occasionally in one’s life. Something utterly unpredictable, unpredicted at one o’clock on a Sunday morning when most people are away, and just having to deal with something not really as diplomat or Ambassador, but as a human being faced with an extraordinary circumstance. I think that and its aftermath are probably what I remember most from looking back on that time.

RYCROFT: Thank you very much indeed, Michael, and to all four of the panellists. I think we have already got some good anecdotes out there, which future historians will enjoy. Just to remind you all, this is on the record. I am going to ask three questions over the next hour or so and have a good discussion amongst the panellists about each of them. They are designed to be broad enough for panellists to shape their answers as they see fit. I am going to start at the other end with Michael with the first one.

How did you, when you were in Paris, prioritise? How did you get the balance right with what you were putting your own personal time into in order to maximise the impact, to maximise the role, of the British Embassy while you were there?

JAY: It is a very interesting question and the answers are, I think, not perhaps the obvious answers. I have already talked about some of the issues that were at the top of my mind. I think what was at the top of my mind as Ambassador was what was the top of the FrancoBritish agenda at the time. Now that was not always the EU issues or the foreign policy issues, it was very often something completely unexpected. I talked about the agricultural issues, which were hugely difficult at times and were the ones that were very much at the forefront of the press. Foreign policy issues while I was there were less salient than I think they became under John’s time with Iraq, so that one prioritised by dealing with the issues that were on the President’s mind, on Prime Minister’s mind in Paris, and equally on Ministers’, or Prime Minister’s, minds in London and then tried to – as it were – advise each side on the best way of handling those very, very difficult issues.

That was not always easy. It was not always straightforward, but I think that way you could bring the weight of the Embassy most to bear on the things that mattered most at the 110

Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France, 1997-2002.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a disease that affects principally bovines or cows but has also crossed over to man.

112 Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is an infectious disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals, in particular cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and deer. http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-diseases/a-z/foot-and-mouth/ 113 Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-97) died in Paris, 31 Aug. 1997.

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time to both governments. Underlying that of course was the need to be constantly in touch, and the Embassy as a whole in touch and getting to know not just today’s leaders, but potentially tomorrow’s leaders. I think that was something, which I always thought was a crucial role for the Embassy which was knowing and getting to know who we thought would be the leaders of France in three, four, five, ten years’ time and making certain that they understood more about Britain than they otherwise might.

RYCROFT: Thank you, Michael. Which of the other three of you would you like to pick up on that, and perhaps answer the question on your own personal use of time? How did you divide your time between dealing with the urgent here and now that was top of the President’s or PM’s agenda versus that longer term investment Michael was talking about for the future?

HOLMES: Just to carry on from where Michael left off, I think a lot of the time is spent, as he said, firefighting whatever is top of the political agenda on both sides and that can be, as suggested, Sangatte. I dealt with the final phases of the BSE, which took a lot of time certainly in my early days, and then Iraq and all the rest of it. So the agenda to a large extent wrote itself, from what you were focussing on in trade in terms of what you were trying to achieve in the short term.

I think that the particular contribution the Ambassador can make, apart from trying to intervene and keep the thing on an even keel in all those areas, was also trying to keep an eye on the longer term as well, and the longer term of the relationship. For people in sitting in London that is not their problem, they just want to solve whatever issue it is they have in front of them, whichever department they come from. Whereas we at the Embassy are trying to make sure that somehow there is some kind of overview being taken of the relationship, and how you can make it work across the board and not lose sight of all the other things that are happening when some particular thing else is going wrong, as it always is, particularly between the British and French. That is just the way it is.

So trying to keep an eye on that relationship, trying to keep some kind of view on the longer term, because one of the things that always struck me is that the only people in the British government – apart from one or two officials in the Foreign Office, who are not close enough to it in a way – but the only people who have an overview of the relationship are the Embassy and the Ambassador. The Home Office has their concerns, the Foreign Office has particular concerns, the Treasury likewise and they are all fighting their own particular battles, and nobody is taking a close interest in that. The Foreign Secretary has thousands of other things to do. So trying to keep an eye on that overview and how one issue might relate to another issue and how you might need to make sure that even if things are falling apart completely on budgetary issues in Europe, nonetheless the defence relationship would still continue to matter. You had to keep working away that and not let it be affected by that. I think that is something Ambassador could do – and needed to do – and no doubt still does.

The other thing, which is crucial, and is the obvious thing to say – but it does not sound as though it ought to be really important between Britain and France but it is – is trying to ensure that people in London really understand what is going on in France. It is the next door country. It ought to be obvious. There is plenty of press coverage of it – at times, anyway – but actually people do not always understand what is going on, because the politics are complicated, they are different to ours, as Michael was suggesting. So for example, if Le Pen wins the second round in the election, everybody suddenly wants to know what is going on. How on earth did that happen? What on earth is going to happen next? You have to try and explain it and to do that you have to understand where that came from and what the roots of it are in order to understand it fairly coherently. So I think that understanding is very 37

important, but equally you have to be able to explain to people in Paris – at the most senior level you can get at – not only what the official view in London of this or that issue because what are the politics behind that? What politicians understand is somebody else’s political pressures. So you need to be able to explain that, to have enough contact with them not just by calling on them formally but in all other contexts where you can get that across and thereby hope to diffuse some of the problems, make it more constructive and mean that you can move together in areas you want to do that without the whole thing falling apart completely. That is where the other part of what Michael said is important: those contacts with people that come through the use of the Residence and the entertainment and all that.

You needed to have those contacts, which, as I say, on not just the formal ones that are maintained by normal diplomatic and friendship relationships.

RYCROFT: Excellent, thank you, John. So, an overview of the relationship as a whole. A bridge between the two leaders and advising each one how to deal with the other. And then explaining to London just what is going on in France. Others way of thinking about the absolutely top priorities that only the Ambassador can lead?

MALLABY: I agree with what has been said and I will try to illustrate it. One general theme in the Embassy’s work was providing bilateral back-up for British policies in multi-lateral negotiations involving France. The British Embassy in Paris in my day was kept in the picture by London, minute-by-minute, on negotiations that were going at the EU, NATO and elsewhere. The purpose of that was that we should know enough to go and speak to the right people in the French Government, occasionally also the people outside government, and explain why Britain had particular views, as John said, and what those views were. So then, if instructed to do something formally, you could do so very quickly. That was quite a big part of my life; going to see people on the basis on information I had about negotiations proceeding elsewhere. It is interesting because I know that French and German Ambassadors in London were unable to do that in my day. They were not given enough information about the day-to-day detail in multilateral negotiations to deal with French officials on the subjects in hand.

There is another thing which has not been mentioned yet, which is so-called public diplomacy. That is being the voice or the face of Britain in the French media, including articles in the press and interviews on television and radio, public speaking and so on. You have an advantage, which is you do not have to be paid to appear in any of these media and of course the hosts like that; and if you can actually do it properly in French and engage in repartee in French with a Jeremy Paxman114 à la française on television – if you can do that, the media will want to make use of you. So you get opportunities to say what Britain thinks and why; and why France and Britain agree on aspects of a problem, and why we think that for the bits where France and Britain disagree the British views are right. So you can advocate British views in public as well as to French officials in private; and that may influence French parliamentarians, commentators and others. I think my working hours were about 80 hours a week- 40 in the office and 40 out and about. Much of the latter consisted of this public speaking.

Finally, there is a possibility for an Ambassador, with his temporary, vicarious clout as the representative of an important government to do things which may benefit the bilateral relationship after he has gone. In Germany, where I had been before France,115 I founded the

114 115

Jeremy Paxman, former BBC television journalist known for his confrontational interviewing technique.

Ambassador to Germany, 1988-92.

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British Studies Institute at the Humboldt University at Berlin.116 What I did in France was to start the Entente Cordiale Scholarships117scheme, which identifies people who may be going places and want to go places in life in France or Britain, and send them for a year of postgraduate studies to the other country so they will come to understand this other country to a good degree. Knowledge is to a large extent the executioner of prejudice and you might get a more balanced view of Britain in the comment columns of Le Monde118 or indeed in the Council of Ministers if one of our alumni works there in later years. There have been 450 Entente Scholars so far and quite a few have done interesting things in government and the media. Just to take one current example – one of our alumni is working as an adviser in the office of Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister.119 RYCROFT: As usual Sir Christopher Mallaby is several steps ahead of me and has managed to prefigure both my next question and the one after that with that answer, but we will come back to that. Before we do I want to give David an opportunity to answer the first question about priorities and prioritising.

MANNING: I think, Matthew, my answer is rather different from the other panellists because I had a tightly defined job. I suspect that the interest in politics in France was sporadic as far as London was concerned. If the French Prime Minister changed, of course, London wanted to know who the new one was. If there was an election, of course, London wanted to know what the outcome was going to be and what it might mean. There was real interest in the cohabitation argument because it did seem uncharted territory. There was real apprehension about the rise of the extreme right, something of a feeling that it cannot really be happening, which reflects the sort of gulf that Michael and John were talking about in our appreciation of one another’s politics. In the end I do not think that it got quite the same attention that we might give it now, with the Front National Mark II. How did I prioritise? Clearly, if ministers were coming we wanted to explain what was happening in France, and provide a brief. We wrote our telegrams reporting what we thought they should know. Otherwise, there was plenty of scope to prioritise and explore: going off to party congresses and meeting the militants – the enthusiasts – who were there, as well as getting alongside ministers and deputies outside their offices; discovering France, with congresses taking place anywhere from Strasbourg to Marseilles, to Limoges. Then coming back and writing up the meetings and debates with a copy of Le Monde on your desk and the sun setting over the Grand Palais,120 looking out on the Embassy garden and thinking, ‘This might not be the most important job in the Embassy, but I bet it’s the best.’

[General laughter.]

RYCROFT: So the next thing I want to ask is about Europe. I suppose that is a bit of an old chestnut, but what is the role of a bilateral Embassy inside the EU? When I was there that was something which the Paris Embassy was not struggling with – certainly grappling with – and I expect it would have been a constant for all four of the panellists. So what is the ideal role of a bilateral Embassy? Christopher has already talked about the speed of information flow within the British system giving the British Ambassador in France a bit of an edge 116

https://www.gbz.hu-berlin.de/ http://en.entente-cordiale.org/ 118 Le Monde is one of the two newspapers of record in France (the other being Le Figaro). See http://www.lemonde.fr/ 119 Laurent Fabius, French Foreign Minister, 2012-.

120 http://www.grandpalais.fr/en 117

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there? A related question about the work that the Embassy does and did on behalf of other parts of the British government away from the Foreign Office, most notably for Prime Minister’s and Cabinet Office, for the Treasury, we’ve talked a lot about agriculture. How in your time did the Embassy grapple with that and find ways of adding value?

MANNING: I can say one word more from my time in Washington rather than Paris. In my day there were a lot of experts. The Washington Embassy had more people from other ministries than from the Foreign Office. The way that I dealt with technical subjects, agriculture is one example but it might have been science or the environment, was to rely on the Embassy expert. When I was needed, because we had a real problem to deal with, or a specific lobbying task, he or she would brief me, and I would go in and do it. So that was not really difficult because there were good people in the Embassy who understood the subject, had worked on it for some time, and could brief me. What interests me is how the Embassy operates now with far fewer people.

HOLMES: I think one of the striking things was arriving in 2001, which was a bit different to what it had been in 1994, was that most of what we were doing was nothing to do with the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office scarcely knew we were doing it because it was not their business directive. So we were dealing with a whole lot of other departments the whole time; obviously the Home Office, the Treasury, the Ministry of Agriculture and so on. The people that Christopher is talking about – either from the Foreign Office or from outside Foreign Office – were dealing direct with those ministries the whole time and were therefore trying to be as well-informed as they could be about what the particular issues were, particularly in the European Union, so that we could follow what the French position was, and try to influence it from our end as much as we could. Also to explain back to those departments in Whitehall what it was we were hearing, and again why the French were taking this position, which people in London might not understand. Why were they being so obviously perverse and stupid, when the obvious position was the one we were in? So you had to try and do that.

One particular advantage we had – obviously there was quite a lot of interaction, and there is even more now, between departments directly between experts and there is a lot of interaction between the people who are working on these issues in Brussels. Obviously, we could not follow those negotiations quite as closely as they were. One of the big advantages we had over anybody else, and certainly over the big departments sitting in London, was that we can see the context of what was going on and we could talk to them in their own language, which people in most government departments could not do so they had great difficulty in understanding the nuances of the position. So I think we could certainly help with that, help explain French positions on European issues as well as we could back to London. Again, doing that in reverse as well, explaining why London was taking the positions that it was and why they were not as illogical as they might have been thought to be in Paris. So there was an awful lot of that going on, and I think for all the reasons Christopher was giving earlier about the fact that we were kept informed and even though there were an awful lot of interactions between Foreign Office ministers and the other ministers usually we heard about it. We knew what had been said, and that simply was not the case for the French Ambassador in London and still less in the German case in many respects. So we were able to be effective in these areas and – whether a particularly difficult and dangerous negotiation was going on, for example, about the budget – to have a degree of expertise that was respected in Brussels in London, which meant that, for example, we could help people when they came from London to meet the right people, to have the right conversations and to facilitate that to make sure that eventually agreements were reached. So all of this was really 40

central to what the Embassy was doing and there was lot more of it than there was of classic foreign policy or classic bilateral diplomacy.

RYCROFT: Do you, John, have particular examples where you recall there were direct contacts between the two sets of authorities that somehow did not connect properly, where that lack of context that the Embassy was providing was a problem? Or were you able to catch up with those and provide that context?

HOLMES: I think one obvious case when I was there was immigration at Sangatte, where the Home Office was not bristling with French speakers, or with people with instinctive sympathy for the French point of view. Therefore being able to understand that and talk to the French Ministry of the Interior – which was similarly not bristling with English speakers or people instinctively sympathetic to the British point of view – to try and create a bit more understanding to have joint visits to get talking to each other so we can try and understand the problem as we eventually sort of did. Those were the sort of departments that had less contact with their opposite numbers, and some of the more obscure departments – the ones that did not have as much foreign policy aspect to their work – Transport, and so on, I think the Embassy can play a real role.

RYCROFT: Thank you, John. Michael?

JAY: I agree with what John has been saying. I think the key thing to remember is that negotiations themselves take place in Brussels but the policies are formed in capitals, and what you need to be doing in the Embassy is making quite sure that you, the ministers or the officials are in touch with key people in the capitals who are making the policy, and they are not always the obvious person. They are not the opposite number of the person in London who is trying to negotiate a way through a problem. So there is a crucial role for the Embassy in making certain the people in London know who the people are in the French administration who are really determining the policy. It might be in the Prime Minister’s office. It might be in the Élysée.121 It might be in the Trésor.122 But it very often will not be the obvious person. So that is one thing.

The other thing that I would say is that for me at least it is as important to be seeing the key people in London as in Paris. So visits in London to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to see the Agriculture Minister, to see the Home Secretary, to see their officials; to talk to them a little bit about what is the political background which causes the French to think in a certain sort of way. What are the sorts of arguments that are more likely to apply to them than the ones we might otherwise be thinking of using? It is that helping to facilitate an effective contact between people on both sides that without the intermediary of people who understand and know both sides, they will not do. I think there is a really important role for certainly, I suspect, all Embassies in EU countries.

Do not forget that there is a tendency to think ministers and senior officials can get on the phone all the time. There are 28 member states of the EU. There are goodness knows how many officials dealing with each issue. You cannot do all that from London. You have to have someone in the capitals who is helping you do it.

121 122

The Élysée Palace is the official residence of the President of the French Republic. http://www.elysee.fr/ The Trésor public is the Treasury ministry in France.

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RYCROFT: Thanks, Michael. David you worked in a sort of government-to-government role when you were in Paris. I wonder if you could approach this Europe question with a comment about the European-ness of France and the way French people particularly outside Paris thought about Europe while you were there? We have already heard from John about the 2005 referendum. I was there for the Maastricht Referendum,123 which was not lost but was very, very close. Quite often when you are in the UK you think of France as the archetypal pro-European country that is able to see Europe as a way of magnifying French gloire and yet when decisions come the people of France, particularly outside Paris, are less pro-Europe.

MANNING: Well, you will forgive my faulty memory, Matthew, but as I look back I do not remember great conversations about Europe in la France profonde. I remember it being a subject that we discussed a lot in Paris with various députés, and sometimes I found myself trying to explain to French députés why it was we had a particular position on Europe.

Somebody I came to know who is still on the French political scene and has just been elected Mayor of Pau, was François Bayrou.124 He was interested when I arrived in 1984 to see if there might be some sort of centre ground where the French centre and an elusive British centre could work together in Europe, and found it very difficult to understand British attitudes. He was fascinated by Mrs Thatcher.125 Could she really do this on Europe? Could she really do this to the miners?126 Was Britain going to collapse? These questions I am painting in primary colours, but Bayrou’s fascination with the issues reflected a more general, and often puzzled, fascination with British politics. Backbench MPs, députés, were interested in where Britain stood on those topics, but I cannot say that it was as a burning issue as far as I am aware beyond the Parisian classe politique. And of course François Bayrou was very pro-Europe so it was always, I think, top of his agenda.

Michael has said that one of the things Ambassadors need their staff to do is to identify the coming people. This is a role for the internalist among others. I got to know Dominic Strauss-Kahn,127 and Alain Juppé, who is still very much with us. He later became French Foreign Minister and I remember going with him and Douglas Hurd128 on a joint expedition where Douglas Hurd spoke in French and Juppé spoke in English. There was an interest in the 1980s on the French Right and Left as to whether it might be possible to do more with Britain. But it was very much a metropolitan issue in my experience, and not something I was being asked about in Limoges.

RYCROFT: Thank you. Does anyone want to come back on any of those European issues before we move on to that final round of comments in this section? John?

HOLMES: I think there is one point on Europe, I mean, we spent a lot of time trying to understand and explain back to London why a country that was at least as nationalist as we were, and possibly more so was – very sceptical of Brussels and all its works, at least as much as we were in some ways – nevertheless always finished up in the pro-European position, as it were, whereas we started in the same position and finished up in an anti123

In 2005.

François Bayrou, Mayor of Pau, April 2014.

125 Margaret Thatcher (Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, 1926-2013), Prime Minister, 1979-90.

126 Undertaken by the National Union of Mineworkers between 1984 and 1985, the miners’ strike was one of the most significant industrial disputes of the late-twentieth century.

127 Dominic Strauss-Kahn, Minister of Finance of France, 1997-9.

128 Douglas Hurd (Lord Hurd of Westwell), Foreign Secretary, 1989-95.

124

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European position. People were somehow always thinking that the French were really – if they thought about it properly would come round to our way of thinking. It has not happened and it is not going to happen. [Audience laughter.] So there is this constant search for a basis of understanding, which to be honest we have never really found which is why we have so many arguments. Whenever things are going well on defence and foreign policy as they do from time-to-time, it always founders on the rock of Europe because we do not really understand each other.

RYCROFT: That is quite a claim, and potentially a challenge to the role of the British Embassy if one of its purposes, as you have been saying, is to do that translation function. If we have failed to do that on something as crucial as Europe then has the Embassy failed?

JAY: Well, I think one needs to disaggregate it a bit. Certainly, my own experience was that you were not so much dealing with Europe as one big issue – you might be before a European Council – you would be dealing with different ministries and different ministers on different European issues where there was a chance, from time-to-time, of making sure people understood each other well enough to improve at least if not to succeed, but to improve at least the chances of reaching an agreement with a negotiation that came to a head in Brussels.

So I would not say that there is a permanent non-comprehension. There is always a risk of non-comprehension. I think all governments tend to be so fixated by their domestic positions that they do not think enough about how other governments are going to react and I think there is a job for an embassy in helping to prevent that being a problem.

RYCROFT: Thank you very much. I am going to move on now to the final round of discussion, which is about people outside the four walls of the British Embassy in Paris, but who are in the same sort of space. So multipliers of influence and leverage, I am thinking of the British Council, the scholarship programmes that Christopher mentioned earlier, businessto-business links, defence-to-defence links, people-to-people links more broadly, royal visitors, and other aspects of the bilateral relationship that the Ambassador and Embassy can bring to the benefit of the bilateral relationship. I’ll ask all of you for your comment on or examples of whether you were trying to do that and whether you were able to do that.

HOLMES: Obviously all those things matter. All those things are very important. I think there are some areas where I think you could expect to have more effect than others. Culture was there, the British Council was there, but on the other hand you have to accept that the ‘thickness’ of the relationship goes far beyond what the British Council can do. You are not dealing with Kazakhstan. You are dealing with France so there is a lot of things which the Embassy and the British Council will never get involved in. I am not trying to minimise their role, but there is such a big role out there it is a bit difficult to play a decisive role on that. I think defence is one area, obviously, where governments are very heavily involved and Embassies can play a role, and I think we did. Business: most business got on with itself, certainly by the time I got there as Ambassador. There were just occasional moments where there was a problem a big company was having where you needed to try and help them and to intervene, but it was not very common. It was not that there were not problems, but there were others ways of solving them that did not necessarily involve the Embassy.

People-to-people relationships, I think they are quite important but quite difficult. One of the things that was happening when I was there was huge numbers of British people moving to France and buying property in France – whether they live permanently there or not – and their numbers were quite staggering, and still are, although I think they may have come down a bit. At the same time there was a movement of the French, particularly in London, to 43

get away from the French economic culture and the dead hand of bureaucracy and whatever you want to call it. So there was quite a big increase on both sides of the Channel of population from each other’s countries, and quite a lot of interest in that. How you turn that into something effective is quite a difficult challenge, which I am not sure we ever managed.

We were not there to service the British population of France and they did not particularly need our help they could do it all by themselves, by and large. Although we always worried about what would happen when they became older and might all need assistance, and that might still happen as it does in Spain, but it was difficult to generate much of a political dividend out of the fact that all these people were moving in both directions. Therefore we ought know and understand each other better, and that did not seem to be happening. It doesn’t seem to be happening.

You mentioned royal visits. I was there for the Entente Cordiale state visit in 2004, which came one year after the Iraq War and could have been very difficult. Actually, it was not. Because enough of the relationship had been preserved and it was actually quite an important symbolic moment of reconciliation because the Queen was above politics. She remains remarkably popular in France – sometimes more popular in France than in Britain, not now but there were moments – because the French actually are more monarchical than the British, in some respects. [Audience laughter.] So that sort of event, although it had no immediate spinoff, was very useful for restoring a bit more balance to the relationship, restoring a bit more goodwill that had been absent after all the vitriolic recriminations after the Iraq War, which were still going on, it had not finished. So it did play quite a useful role at the time.

RYCROFT: Thanks. Michael?

JAY: I think outside the political system the group of French actors that I spent the most time getting to know were the top industrialists. I would have regular breakfasts once or twice a week one-on-one with the head of one of the top French companies. Partly because they wanted to know what was going on or maybe because they wanted to know what was going on in Britain, but also they were an extraordinarily good way getting an understanding of what was happening in France. In Paris today to know what industrialists think of Arnaud Montebourg129 as Economy and Industry Minister is something which is going to be quite an important issue. So I think getting to know the key French industrialists.

On the British side. I’ve found every government that I have known invents commercial work when they come into government. I suspect it always has been like that and it always will be like that. What top businessmen want to know when they come to Paris, they want to know the political scene. What is going in the political scene? Who are the key figures? Who are the key movers and shakers amongst the politicians? They want sort of political advice, actually, rather more than they want straightforward commercial advice, which they are far better at doing then we are ourselves. So I think that is an important point.

The second point – which is not quite the answer to your question – but I just wanted to re-emphasise what others have said about an Ambassador’s role with the press. Being constantly on radio, on the television, not just in Paris, but outside Paris in the regional press – that I think is hugely important and can make a real difference to the way Britain is seen.

Particularly when times are a bit tricky, having this reassuring voice making things seem better than they otherwise would.

Royal visits – gosh there are an awful lot of them – the Queen came to Paris when I 129

Arnaud Montebourg, French Minister of Industrial Renewal, 2012-4.

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was there in the first of a new style of royal visit when she stayed in the Embassy. This was an attempt at the time by the Palace to find some way of the Queen being able to visit key countries and not always being a state visit. That was for the unveiling of the Churchill statue – it was the seventieth anniversary of the end of the First World War.130 It made a huge impact at the time, and I think it was part of a series of visits, which does help –as John was saying – to provide an image of Britain which was hugely popular in at least a part of France and I think is very important to our relationship.

RYCROFT: Thank you, Michael. Christopher?

MALLABY: I agree that royal visits to France are popular. The French think that monarchy is a splendid arrangement for other people, but not for themselves. They are NIMBY131 monarchists, and that is something we can exploit. The Queen is going there very shortly.

The visit will be a great success, I am sure, and it casts a positive aura over the British-French relationship, at least for a time. Any Ambassador or other British representative, talking to French people, will of course say ‘Look at our economy and how it’s growing’ as well as mentioning the Queen; that juxtaposition of two very different advantages of Britain will impress many people in France.

I want to say something about Matthew’s question about other organisations. The British Chamber of Commerce, the Anglo-French Chamber of Commerce, regional Chambers of Commerce all over France or equivalent organisations: I spent quite a lot of time talking to those sorts of groups. My purpose was to explain what was going on at the time in Britain, explain British foreign policy, and talk about the British-French relationship.

The idea was that the audiences on these occasions were likely to be well disposed to Britain and might use some of my points in their conversations with French colleagues and contacts.

RYCROFT: I wanted to do a snap-round of quick-fire answers. And I want to give space for Christopher at the end, because you can’t stay for the Q&A to pick up on other things. So my quick-fire round is: thinking about what you were seeking to achieve during your time in the Embassy, how successful were you out of ten? A ten out of ten is that you achieved your aim, perfectly. A zero out of ten is you may as well not have been there. On a self-assessment about your time in the Embassy how well did you do against the things that were most important at the time?

MALLABY: I would need to have to break up your question and answer it on various points, but overall I cannot give a real answer because I do not know myself how effective I was. I better ask you actually because you were working for me, but I would say ‘seven’.

RYCROFT: Thank you. Anyone else want to hazard a guess at this? Michael?

JAY: I am not going to give a figure, but one thing which I think I referred to right at the beginning was the death of the Princess of Wales.132 One thing was, it is sort of an anecdote that two days after she died there was an article in The Sun. The front page of The Sun was

130

On 11 Nov. 1998, HM Queen Elizabeth II and French President Jacques Chirac unveiled a statue of Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister, 1940-5; 1951-55. The statue, located on Avenue Winston Churchill in Paris, was funded by contributions from the French public. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/212312.stm 131 NIMBY: Not in my backyard.

132 See chronology.

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‘10 Questions for the British Ambassador to put to the French Authorities’ which were basically 10 questions which if answered would show the French were responsible one way or another for the death of the Princess of Wales, but I realised that, if that got hold, this would have made that event another in a long line from Joan of Arc,133 through Fashoda134, to Mers-el-Kébir135 which could have damaged relations for probably 30 to 40 years, two or three generations. I think the only thing I could do was to ring up Alistair Campbell136 and say, ‘If you have any influence at all with the press, as you say you have, tell The Sun to shut up.’ He did, and they did, and it did not become an issue. I just say that because it was saving what could have been a really serious disaster for Franco-British relations.

HOLMES: I am not going to try and figure either because I do not think it would be very revealing about anything. I think that any Ambassador is, in the Anglo-French context, trying to stop bad things happening, because they are always on the verge of happening [Audience laughter.]. And we are always hoping somehow we are going to break through to the broad sunlit uplands where history is forgotten and our European arguments are forgotten and we can really get down to concentrating properly as we know we should on defence and foreign policy, but it has not happened yet and it does not look about to happen now either. I think when you left, if there had not been a complete catastrophe you felt you had done quite well.

I think in my case Iraq was the defining event of that particular period. I do not want to minimise it. It was serious and Blair and Chirac’s relationship never recovered. Maybe it would never have been that wonderful anyway because they were very different people. But I think having managed to steer through that without a complete breakdown and a much more productive relationship than, for example, the French and Americans had at that period, that was an achievement which I think helped to repair the relationship.

RYCROFT: Thank you, John. David do you want to hazard an answer?

MANNING: I suppose in my case it should be answered by Christopher Macrae or Jeremy Greenstock, who were Heads of Chancery and my line managers. I think I would give myself reasonably high marks for saying what was going to happen during the elections, which perhaps was not terribly difficult. I would not give myself high marks for making sure London took very much interest in French politics. I do not know whether this is just a condition of life, but I think it is a pity. Joking apart, I think if there was a deeper understanding of one another’s societies and political cultures it would help. I do not remember our succeeding very well in interesting large numbers of MPs to come across and talk to their opposite numbers about French politics in general, as opposed to specific issues such as defence. I think one of the things to think about is how you can deepen understanding. How do you try to develop a co-operative view of the relationship? Some of this has nothing to do with the Foreign Office. I am struck by the fact that there are now apparently 350,000 or more French living here. It may be that with these numbers attitudes will change, but that is entirely separate from what goes on in the Embassy. It is about the way young Europeans move around their continent, in particular the way the French are 133

During the Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc (1412-31) was burnt at stake for her part in victories against the English.

134 Anglo-French Imperial rivalry in East Africa came to a crisis in Sept. 1898 when the forces of the two countries met at Fashoda (now in South Sudan). The French subsequently withdrew and the episode has come to be known as the Fashoda Incident or Crisis.

135 British Navy bombarded the French Navy at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria, on 3 July 1940.

136 Alistair Campbell, Downing Street Press Secretary, 1997-2000.

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moving in to London. I would not be over-optimistic. I think nationalism is a very strong force, and as I look back at my time in the Embassy, I doubt whether my reporting sparked greater interest or deepened understanding.

RYCROFT: You are being very modest. The question was a bit of fun, but it had a serious intent behind it which was how do you actually measure the impact of something as intrinsically difficult to measure as diplomacy? It is something that we grapple with in the Foreign Office Board every month when we look at the impact of not just our Paris Embassy, but of all our network of embassies around the world. We are – as current members of staff – we are pushing people to try to answer that sort of question not necessarily with a number out of ten which is glib and gimmicky, but with some sort of specific and measurable, ‘Yes, this had a strategic impact’, or ‘This had a tactical impact’, and try to push people to separate out the bits which are absolutely, as David was suggesting, outside of our control completely, versus those parts where we do at least have the possibility of either preventing awful stuff from happening or making the most of the good things. So that was just a bit of fun at the end there. The final five minutes of this bit goes to Sir Christopher Mallaby in case there is anything that you would like to add in addition to the other stuff? Any other business, any other points that you would like to get out there that haven’t popped up so far.

MALLABY: I have one other point which has been around in this discussion but has not been articulated , namely the perennial question which has been going the rounds since 1870 – ‘Do you not find at the Embassy that ministers have so much contact together that you have nothing of importance to do anymore?’

There are three points in the answer. The first point is, ‘Yes, top-slicing happens.

Some of the most important and difficult decisions are taken in direct contact between British and French ministers.’ The second point is that the range and variety of the work of the Embassy – as has been said here – are infinitely greater now than in traditional diplomacy. In compensation for losing the top slice of the cake you get a much bigger cake to deal with.

And, finally, do not forget that these ministerial contacts are carefully prepared in their substance by officials. You do not get a minister walking in to meet his French opposite number to talk about any subject, even a simple one, without having official advice about how best to put the subject to the French, about the French views, about what the French minister is really like- his family, his hobbies, his attitude to Britain. This information comes from the Embassy which therefore has an influence on the minister’s handling of the meeting.

HOLMES: I just want to respond to what you just said, Matthew – at the risk of sounding like a real old fogey – about measuring the impact of Embassies. I honestly do not think you can do it. I know you have to try, and the Treasury will push you to try. But if you play on that ground and if you try and measure it – and it is the same problem as measuring the impact of the Foreign Office – you cannot win. You cannot prove it. The things that you prove may not be the most important things. Maybe there is no choice, but just do not expect any meaningful results out of it would be my strong advice.

RYCROFT: I am not going to prolong this debate because it is not really about the British Embassy in Paris, but it is not the Treasury that asked us. It is ourselves. Thank you to the panellists.

In anticipation of the next session, are there people in the audience who currently work in the Embassy in Paris or recently worked there?

One person …

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MANNING: It’s so small now. There are now so few staff left.

RYCROFT: Over the break would people consider how does the Embassy operate, now that there are fewer staff than before. We now say goodbye to Sir Christopher Mallaby.

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Session Two: Chair: •

Matthew Rycroft: Chief Operating Officer, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2011-14; Third, then Second, Secretary (Chancery), Paris Embassy, 1991-1995.

Witnesses: • Sir David Manning GCMG: First Secretary, 1984-1988.

• Sir Christopher Mallaby GCMG: Ambassador, 1993-1996.

• Lord Jay of Ewelme GCMG: Counsellor (Financial and Commercial), 1987–90; Ambassador, 1996-2001.

• Sir John Holmes GCVO: First Secretary (Economic), 1984–87; Ambassador, 2001-2007.

From the floor: • Gregory Anderson: King’s College London • Sir Nicholas Bayne, KCMG: Financial Counsellor, Paris, 1975-1979 • Dame Nicola Brewer, DCMG: Counsellor (Econ.), Paris, 1991-94 • Dr Valerie Caton: First Secretary (Chancery), Paris, 1988-92; Counsellor (Financial and Economic), Paris, 1997-2001.

• Nigel Cox: 1st Secretary, Paris, 1985-1990 • Dr James RV Ellison: Queen Mary, University of London • Dr Daniel Furby: Business for New Europe, Brussels • Dr KA Hamilton: formerly FCO Historians • Robin Kealy, CMG: Counsellor (Commercial), Paris, 1990-1995.

• Louise Kettle: University of Nottingham • Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith, KCVO, CMG: Minister, Paris, 1988-91.

• Dr Jatinder Mann: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada • Norman Paget: 1st Sec (Commercial), Paris, 1992-1996 • Dr Effie Pedaliu: LSE IDEAS • Dr Judith Rowbotham: SOLON, University of Plymouth • Dr Richard Smith: FCO Historians

The panel (minus Sir Christopher Mallaby) takes questions from the audience (pictured is Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith)

MATTHEW RYCROFT: Welcome back everybody. This is the final part of the day. This is where it’s up to you to ask your questions, or to add your testimony or evidence to the 49

session. What I thought we would do is just get two or three contributions from the floor, starting with former members of the Embassy, who are very welcome to comment on anything they have heard so far or to offer questions. We will do two or three of those and then we will invite the panel members to respond.

DR DANIEL FURBY: One of the issues I am interested in is the way that Franco-German partnership has impacted on British policy over time. I was just wondering – from the perspective of the Embassy – how conscious you are of discussions taking place between the French and Germans that you are excluded from, but which are very pertinent to British interests.

RYCROFT: That touches a very sore nerve indeed. A lot of British angst about the FrancoGerman relationship, to which I am sure the now-three panellists will respond to. I will take a couple more.

SIR NICHOLAS BAYNE: I was Financial Counsellor under Nicko Henderson, as you heard this morning, and I wanted to say a bit about the commercial aspect of the Embassy’s work. Once the single market had taken root – as Michael [Jay] and John [Holmes] have indicated – it became much easier. But in Nicko Henderson’s time it was a battlefield. The French government were notoriously protectionist and thought up all sorts of ingenious wheezes to prevent British products from getting into the French market. I will just mention four cases that I was involved in directly.

First, they refused to allow Lloyd’s of London137 to provide reinsurance services in France, because they said it was not a proper insurance company; we fought that one off.

They then said that the big accounting firms – PricewaterhouseCoopers138 etc. could only practice in France if they adopted French names; we got that removed. They threatened to levy VAT on the royalties from performances of pop music, like the Beatles and so on. We reckoned these royalties were worth £7 million a year; we lobbied hard and got rid of that threat. Their most ingenious idea was to get medical testimony to the effect that drinking spirits after a meal was very healthy, but drinking spirits before a meal was very bad. This meant that Cognac and Calvados could be taxed very lightly, but heavy taxes could be levied on English gin and Scotch whisky. We fought that off too, I am glad to say. Thank you.

[Audience laughter.]

RYCROFT: Excellent. Thank you very much indeed for your testimony rather than your question: ROBIN KEALY: I was Director of Trade Promotion and Investment at the Embassy between 1990 and 1995. Just picking up briefly on what Nicholas [Bayne] was saying just now. Fast forwarding to my time it was ‘transplants’ that was the problem - whether the Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans produced in Britain would be recognised by the French as European-made and therefore not count against the quota for Japanese car exports to France.

That required a lot of ‘softly, softly catchee monkey’ work by our Embassy as well as by Nissan, for example. Also the commissaire-priseurs of France- whether they were going to

137

Lloyd’s of London.

PricewaterhouseCoopers http://www.pwc.co.uk/. At the time Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand were separate firms.

138

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allow Sotheby’s139 and Christie’s140 to have proper access to the French fine art auctions market. Sotheby’s of course had Nicko Henderson working for them in those days.141 But I have a more generic question about the use of the Residence and the Chancery next door to each other, both beautiful refurbished buildings, marvellous landscaped gardens joined up through holes in the wall. I would be interested to hear about the uses you made of them both to help bilateral political diplomacy/ public diplomacy- and also of course to boost British exports to France. Thank you.

RYCROFT: Great, so three great questions there. What I suggest to the panel members is that not everyone answers every question, but everyone answers some aspect of one or other.

LORD JAY OF EWELME: Let me have a go with France and Germany to start with and just see how it goes. The answer – the question was the Embassy conscious of what the French and Germans were up to: yes, constantly. It was always clear to us that – it was always clear to me anyway – that the relationship between France and Germany is the most important bilateral for each for reasons of history, which we all understand. One of our tasks, I think, was to make London realise that this was the case and that ideas of some kind of equal trilateral relationship or some special relationship with one that would exclude the other was never going to happen. That remains my view. That does not mean that we cannot have extremely good relations with France and extremely good relations with Germany on some forms of countering industrial protection or EU aspects, but the idea that one is going to get in the way of the Franco-German relationship, I think, I personally think is for the birds. I also think that it is hugely in Britain’s interest that there should always be a strong FrancoGerman relationship because you do not have to look all that far back in history to see that if the French and the Germans do not get on we tend to suffer. So my own view is that a strong Franco-German relationship is important, but we need to organise things ourselves so that we have good relations with each and do not try to make it into some mirage of a trilateral relationship.

SIR JOHN HOLMES: I agree with what Michael said about the Franco-German relationship. It was one of those things that always kept coming back because often the French and the Germans were getting on badly and actually each of them disliked each other more than they disliked us. In some ways, but that did not matter. At the end of the day, as Michael said, they had to get on so they did get on. So at different times we nourished this illusion – and I think I may have nourished it at a certain time – that somehow we could make it a triangle. But we never succeeded and I do not think we ever would have done. I think it’s changed now, for all sorts of different reasons. It is still there, but it much less important than it was at an earlier stage.

On the use of the Residence and the Embassy. I mean obviously anyone who has been a former British Ambassador is going to say, ‘What a fantastic asset. We used it wonderfully it was absolutely fundamental’. But it was true at the same time. The French elite in Paris knew it, liked it, liked coming to it and would respond to an invitation to come to it in a way that they would not respond to many invitations. So not only could you respond to quite a high-level dinner when you had visiting people or whatever, but actually an extremely good and productive way of using it was for the type of things Michael was talking about. One-to-

139

http://www.sothebys.com/en.html http://www.christies.com/ 141 Director, 1989-2009.

140

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one lunches or breakfasts or whatever it was, with politicians, with opposition and government, with businessmen, with other serious people around Paris and they would come.

One of the great features of the French is that however busy they are they will always have lunch. So you know, you could always get to come for what they thought would be and what usually was a good lunch, including a good glass of wine.

So, can you measure the impact of that? No, you cannot but I think it was important and it is important. It helps to nourish the thought in the French elite’s mind that we are still a country that does things properly and which counts. Again, how you measure that – I do not know. So it was well-used, and both the Residence and the Embassy were also used in much more obviously commercial ways because they were made available to British companies that wanted to hold events to promote their goods or their ideas or whatever it was and that was happening much more while I was there and is continuing to do so. I think we made good use of it from the point of view.

Just on the commercials points I think Nicholas’s point is right. When I was at the Embassy there were very few of these big bilateral commercial issues. It did not mean that we were not trying to promote British commercial interests, but we were not bombarded by companies trying to say, ‘It is not fair. We cannot do this.’ I am not saying that there were not any problems, but they could usually be sorted out in between them and we did not need to intervene very much at all, in my recollection.

SIR DAVID MANNING: I very much agree with Michael and John on the importance of the Franco-German relationship. It is easy to say and hard to do, but I think we should be far more relaxed about it. I think it is very important to Europe.

I would like to come back to the point about what use we make of the Residence that Robin [Kealy] raised. I think the Foreign Office ought to be completely unapologetic about this. At this level diplomacy is a branch of theatre. You have got to have a stage, and if you want get the elite of the Parisian political class and everybody else to come and see you, it is no good having a bungalow on the ring road. [Audience laughter.] And in fact MPs expect that, when they come to Paris, they will be looked after properly, and that they will have access to the key people. The Paris Embassy and residence provides the setting that ensures that happens. I look back and think of the success that Ewen Fergusson had in getting the candidates for the presidential election of 1988 to come to dinner, with their wives. They might have come because Ewen was Ewen. But I have absolutely no doubt that coming, seeing that great house, being taken round to see Pauline Borghese’s142 bed, all that is a huge attraction.

There is a wonderful mirror in that house, that belonged to Pauline Borghese – well there was, Matthew can correct me – that makes you look thinner than you are.

[Audience laughter.]

RYCROFT: I don’t remember that!

MANNING: Monsieur Barre stood in front of it; he was a little portly. He looked twice, and pulled himself up and smiled, suddenly taller and thinner. To be serious, I do not think we should assume that you can do business easily without having the right facilities and the right environment. From my experience later, in Washington, it is absolutely vital. Using the

142

Pauline Borghese (née Bonaparte, 1780-1825) wife of Camillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, 1804-14; 1815.

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Residence intelligently and being unapologetic about it is something that I very much hope that the Foreign Office continues to do.

JAY: Just to pick up on something David said. I was really worried the first time Robin Cook143 came to visit us in Paris. He looked around and I could see him being a little bit doubtful about this rather glorious un-Cook-like palace that he was in and he said, ‘Well, why have we got this?’ And I said, ‘It is a symbol of Franco-British relations over 200 years. The French absolutely love coming here. We have concerts, and we have lectures and we get the best of British intellectuals here to speak about whatever is important and commercial companies pay an awful lot to bring their guests here too.’ And he looked a bit doubtful then later that afternoon I was walking with him down in the garden with the Dutch Foreign Minister144 and the Dutch Foreign Minister said to him, ‘Robin, how on earth can you possible explain a place like this given the state of Britain and the world?’ And he said, ‘Oh well, you do not understand you see this is a garden of joint Franco-British history, it has concerts, it has lectures, and the French elite come here and love coming here.’ I knew it was going to be okay after and so I hope it will be okay in the future, Matthew.

RYCROFT: Yes it will. I have been put on the spot and it definitely will be. Now let’s do another round of questions and comments.

LOUISE KETTLE: I am from the University of Nottingham. My question is really to think a little bit towards the future, as to whether there are any specific pearls of wisdom that you could offer future diplomats that is really unique to the Paris Embassy?

NIGEL COX: I was First Secretary (External) at the Embassy in the late 1980s. I was wondering if we could take forward the discussion about the access of the Embassy in Paris, particularly the Ambassador’s access. Has that changed over the period from the mid-1980s to the present? How does it compare with the access of other Embassies in Paris or British Embassies elsewhere – Berlin, Washington and so on? And perhaps, linked to that and following on from Christopher Mallaby’s parting points about ministerial contacts, I wonder whether you ever had problems with British ministers who had seen a lot of their French counterparts and thought they had built strong personal relationships and knew what made them tick but you had to explain that they had not got them right and that things were more complicated that they thought and the world was a tougher place.

SIR MICHAEL LLEWELLYN-SMITH: May I follow on Nigel to ask for your comments on language and interpretation? I have been present at meetings where British ministers have thought that they understood, but have not. Perhaps you have insights on that subject. My other comment is about going back further than 1945: if you look at the history of the Embassy and Franco-British relations since 1815 you find many, many continuities which are relevant to this conference and which we have not really explored.

MANNING: I think it is really important, and I do not think this is a specifically French point, that if you are going to succeed in a posting you have got throw yourself into a country, and really make people feel you are interested in it and them and their politics and that you are not just, as it were, here for the beer. So I do believe in specialisation. This is easy to say

143 144

Robin Cook (1946-2005), Foreign Secretary, 1997-2001.

Jozias van Aartsen, Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, 1998-2002.

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and hard to do for a small foreign service. But having people who go back, who were there as third, second secretaries and come back later and really do know the country, really do grow up as it were with a whole range of people who are going up to the top, I think that is very important. The French have a reputation, particularly in Paris, for being standoffish and difficult. That was absolutely not my experience. When it was clear that I was keen to learn about French politics, I found that the French political parties were open to me, and that it was surprisingly easy to have those wonderful lunches that someone else was talking about or go to a political congress and plonk yourself down amongst the party faithful. As soon as it was clear that you were interested, they were open and keen to talk about what mattered.

Identifying with the place you are in and being enthusiastic is not the only thing, but it sure helps.

I think both John Fretwell and Ewen Fergusson had very good access. They were obviously highly intelligent and very sympathetic as far as their interlocutors were concerned.

I remember many lunches and dinners when they brought all sorts of people to the Embassy without difficulty. Even if there were public spats, as Michael and John would know far better than I do, behind the scenes the French are very realistic people. They want to be able to talk to the Ambassador easily and intimately behind the scenes, so that they can manage whatever crisis may be complicating bilateral relations. In my experience, the Ambassadors had very good access across the piece.

JAY: I think that first question, Louise’s question, is a really interesting one. I think if I were talking to a young diplomat in Paris now I would say first of all, ‘You are going to a country that is hugely important to us because we mirror each other.’ We are members of the P5,145 we are members of the EU, we have really important bilateral defence arrangements and nurturing those, talking to the key people, and making certain that the importance of that relationship is not forgotten on both sides of the channel is hugely important. That is one thing.

The other thing we have talked about before, before tea, but it is a role of the Embassy and the role, as David has been saying, particularly for the younger members of the Embassy in getting to know and identify the future leaders. Now this is not something you can be certain about, but if you are enthusiastic about a country, you speak the language, you want to get around, you are really interested in places you are going to, you meet the local deputies and the mayors then you can enthuse them about your country as well as learning about their country and that can pay huge dividends in ways that will not always be entirely clear at the time, but can be hugely important later on. I think coming from that just enjoy yourself, actually, because I think in many ways that is the most important thing if Matthew [Rycroft] gives you enough money to do so, but I think it is important.

On the language point, yes, there is a terrible tendency on the part of British ministers to think they speak French. Sometimes they do: people like Joyce Quin,146 who was absolutely fluent in French, and Gillian Shepherd,147 that used to make a huge difference when they would come. There are others who can speak French and who make speeches in French. Tony Blair made a brilliant speech to the Assemblée Nationale while I was there in French. I was struck that Blair would have private meetings with Chirac. Chirac, although he spoke quite good English, he would always have an interpreter. He would let the interpreter

145

The United Kingdom and France are two of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

146 Joyce Quin (Baroness Quin), Minister for Europe, 1998-9.

147 Gillian Shephard (Baroness Shephard of Northwold), Conservative MP between1987-2005.

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interpret. The British Prime Ministers tended to think they understood and wanted to give the impression they understood and so they did not wait for the interpretation. The importance of waiting for the interpretation is not just you understand better what has been said, but you have time to think about how you are going to respond to points that have been made to you.

So it is a diplomatic tactic as much as anything else. So my advice to a British minister would be curb your instinct to think that you speak French and make use of the interpreter that the Embassy will be happy to provide for you.

HOLMES: Well I think my pearl of wisdom I have already delivered, which is that lunch is the most important thing. [Audience laughter.] I agree about enthusiasm. The other thing is visit the rest of France. Paris is not France, although a lot of the French think it is, and therefore go out and understand the rest of the country as well, which you will enjoy. I do not know if the access of Ambassadors has changed now since I was there, which was not that long ago, but I will just echo what others have said. I think it is extraordinary. I can remember being able to give a private breakfast for Ségolène Royal148 when she was the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, similarly for Hollande,149 this was before he was the candidate. They would just come and you could spend a couple of hours and you could learn an awful lot about them and what they thought from that kind of discussion that you would never get from a formal contact. So that access is still there. Funnily enough the access that I found I did not have very much was to the Foreign Minister because they did not need it. They were talking to the opposite numbers all the time about all sorts of things, and therefore they were not terribly interested in seeing you because you couldn’t have done a great deal at that level, but other ministers were different.

On the language: I echo what Michael says. The worst example of this that I came across was Tony Blair. I was there working for him when he came across and gave that famous speech in Paris. Actually, he worked incredibly hard. He trained on that speech weeks before he delivered it. The impact was not entirely what he expected. He was now the hero of the French right, and a villain of the French left – anyway, judging by the applause in the National Assembly, as I recall. No, the worst example was Blair and Jospin, because Blair prided himself on his French, which was certainly not as good as he thought it was, and Jospin thought he spoke English, but he did not speak it very well. So you had at once this perverse situation where Blair was speaking in French and Jospin was speaking English and neither of them understanding each other very well or expressing themselves very well. If you had done it the other way around it would have worked perfectly well. It was just completely mad. Actually Chirac did not speak English terribly well at all. I mean, he always said he did because he had been a soda jerk in the US, but if you ever tested him his English was minimal.150 Anyway that is a different point.

RYCROFT: Does anyone want to tackle Michael Llewellyn-Smith’s question about going back even before 1945? Which is rather difficult to do. Anybody have anything on that or any pointers for historians to look at?

JAY: I’m afraid I have forgotten the question.

148

Ségolène Royal was presidential candidate in 2007.

François Hollande, President of France, 2012-.

150 During the summer of 1953, Chirac spent time at Harvard University and worked as soda jerk at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2788051.stm 149

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LLEWELLYN-SMITH: It was really a statement, but perhaps it should be posed as a question. Is the structure of a meeting like this the ideal structure when history is a continuum? It does not start in 1945, let me put it like that.

HOLMES: I will make one point that was always very striking in Anglo-French relations, which was the asymmetry of our views of history. So for the French, Fashoda was a very important moment. Has anybody in Britain ever heard of Fashoda? [Audience laughter: most people put their hands up, indicating assent.] I mean people in this room may have done.

Leaving aside this room a very, very small number indeed. Similarly Mers-el-Kébir, which was a very important psychological moment for the French. Nobody in Britain – not nobody, but it is just not an incident of significance in their own history at all. So understanding some of those points, and being aware of them at least is quite important in trying to judge the relationship over time. It was very interesting being there for the Entente Cordiale because that forced me to look at that period between 1904 and 1914 which we’re looking at again, which was a very interesting period of history.

JAY: I think one thing that strikes me on that point reading some of the histories on FrancoBritish relations up until or immediately after the Second World War and the role of Embassies and Ambassadors there, it was a very much more personal thing between the Ambassador and the Ministers in Britain and sometimes President or Prime Minister. The range of issues that were being dealt with was tiny by comparison with what an embassy in the EU deals with now, and I think that is one of the things which has come across a bit from this discussion. The enormous range of issues which are important to the relationship and to which an embassy if it is well plugged in can make an enormous contribution to - so I think that is something that I would want to stress. I think this meeting from my point of view is extremely interesting and thought-provoking. It provoked my thoughts anyway.

DR VALERIE CATON: I was twice posted to the Paris Embassy, first in 1988 to 1992, where I took over from David [Manning] dealing with internal politics. Then from 1997 to 2001, I was Counsellor (Financial and Economic). I just want first of all to endorse what has already been said about the importance of the bilateral embassies’ breadth and continuity of contacts. This is something which I think gives bilateral embassies a special role even inside the EU. Just to give you an illustration of that from my own experience. For my first posting following internal politics I did manage, like David, to travel all around the country and I got to know all kinds of people. It was the best job ever, I have to say, and it meant that you got to know a lot of politicians really, really well. So I spotted the ambition of Nicholas Sarkozy before he became a Minister and arranged for him an official visit to the UK and he was absolutely delighted with his trip to the UK. I think it made a big impression on him.

Also, we got to know people in the different Ministerial cabinets under the Rocard governments.151 So when I was then back in Paris again in 1997 and Chirac dissolved parliament early and suddenly in came a very surprised Jospin, head of a Socialist government, some of the contacts I had made in cabinets in Rocard’s time came back into the Ministerial cabinets for Jospin. So I was able to pick up those contacts again and to introduce people in different UK Ministries to them.

I just would just like to ask one question about one difference between France and the UK that struck me. We have always prided ourselves on being so pragmatic – the British – but the thing that always impressed the French, I don’t know if the panel would agree or not, 151

1988-91.

56

was how radical we were, and how radical our policy changes were. This was partly down to the adversarial, cockpit style of our parliament but not only that. I can remember one parliamentarian saying to me, ‘I really can’t understand that Mrs Thatcher can even contemplate introducing a poll tax.’152 It would be politically unthinkable to do that in France.

DR JUDITH ROWBOTHAM: One of the things that I would like to say in response to the comment that we formalised the great deal more in terms of the business of the Embassy. I think it is important to remember that in the nineteenth and early twentieth century there was a much more cosmopolitan social elite, and I think there was a great deal more of business going on at an informal level that was related to the Embassy, but was not fully managed by the Embassy in the same way. Look at parties that were held in the Embassy during the latenineteenth century/early-twentieth century there were a great many British manufacturers, people like that going across who expected to do their business not with direct help from the Embassy just all the same they were invited there. They could be trusted they felt to manage themselves, certainly, by the government of the day.

My particular question, I have sat through a number of these fascinating events and one of the things that has stood out is that in places like Beijing, Pretoria, the British Embassy worked with a handful of others where they felt that they had particularly close interests. So regular meetings between say the French, the American, the Germans and the British Ambassadors were taking place to discuss what were our joint interests. Now was there anything similar that happened in relation to Paris? Or was it more a bilateral or direct negotiation? Something that I suppose has been implicit in what you have been saying about the attempts to get a bilateral agreement going, was there anything besides bilateral?

DAME NICOLA BREWER: First Secretary in Paris 1981 to 1984. My question follows on from Judith’s and it is not just about co-operation with other Embassies in the capital to which you are posted, but also with your opposite number in London. Was there anything that you were able to do during the time you were posted in Paris with the French Embassy in London?

Let me add a very quick rider because this is a pearl of wisdom that just before I went to Paris somebody on the panel passed on to me that I have never forgotten and I have used it in every job since. As a young diplomat, and probably as an old diplomat too, your job sitting next to somebody at something like a dinner or lunch is to find out what story they have got to tell, and that leads to all sorts of interesting discussions.

RYCROFT: Brilliant! Trade craft from the top.

DR K HAMILTON: This is not a question. It is just a response to Sir John’s remarks about British and French memories of Fashoda. There is in the correspondence of Cecil Spring Rice153 in the Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge, a letter written in July 1903, just after the state visit of President Loubet154 to London. The letter from Louis Mallet, a Foreign Office official, to Spring Rice, reports a conversation overheard between two workmen on

152

The Community Charge or as it was more popularly known, the Poll Tax, was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in the rest of the UK in 1990. It was replaced by the Council Tax in 1993. See V Preston (ed), Resistance to the Poll Tax, Witness Seminar (2003).

153 Sir Cecil Spring Rice (1859-1918), Ambassador to Washington, 1912-8.

154 Émile Loubet (1838-1929), French President, 1899-1906.

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the upper deck of a London bus. The streets were then decorated with the French monogram ‘RF’ – République Française – and one workman said to the other: ‘I wonder what RF means – Republic French, I suppose’. ‘No’, replied his friend, ‘I think it means “Remember Fashoda”’.

[Audience laughter.]

RYCROFT: Thank you.

HOLMES: Just on the question of did we work with other embassies. The short answer is no we did not. It was a very much a bilateral relationship there were no groups of European Ambassadors meeting because you were in a European country. So the diplomatic corps was not really an important source of information or active diplomacy. Having said that I used to stay in touch very regularly with the American Ambassador,155 which was not very difficult because they lived next door and they did not always know all that much but they were important players – and with the German Ambassador, to make sure we were keeping track of what they were doing. But the problem there as somebody was saying this morning was that the German Ambassador was not in the loop of what was going on between the capitals.

He used to spend most of his time complaining about how little he knew about what was going on.

So I am not saying it did not happen and of course you have contacts and you have to go to some national days and you knew your colleagues, but it was not really something that was very important to most of your working life.

In response to Nicola [Brewer]’s question about contacts with opposite numbers in London and I did work very closely with the French Ambassador in London, Gérard Errera,156 particularly after the Iraq War because we shared an agenda of not letting this argument get out of hand. So we did actually conspire together to make things happen. So we did work together very closely on the one hundredth anniversary of the Entente Cordiale to try and make sure that was an opportunity taken to put the bilateral relationship back on track again. So that was a fairly active relationship. It was not always an easy relationship, but we did work closely with them.

155 156

Howard H. Leach, US Ambassador to Paris, 2001-5.

Gérard Errera, French Ambassador, 2002-7.

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MANNING: I think the French think we can be both pragmatic and unpragmatic; and we cannot make up our minds which really. I mentioned in my earlier remarks that some of the deputies were staggered by the miners’ strike, by Mrs Thatcher’s tough take on Europe, which to them looked ideological not pragmatic. On the other hand I think there was a sense that when it comes to a negotiation the British could often be very pragmatic about doing deals.

It is also interesting how different our political systems are. The French are often surprised by what goes on in parliament particularly as the Assemblée Nationale157 can sometimes seem rather unimportant in the French political scheme of things. It is not only the French who are struck by our way of doing things. When I was in the United States, Americans were amazed by Prime Minister’s question time, amazed by the adversarial performances in Parliament. So I think the way we conduct our politics is rather different. It comes back again to the point that we expect them to know how we work, and we think that we know how they work. But actually the systems are very different.

JAY: Just very briefly on the point that John [Holmes]’s answered said about contact with other ambassadors. I think the answer is certainly when I was there, there was very little and very, very little I think certainly in the larger EU countries by comparison with others with the exception in my case certainly of the Americans. Then with Pamela Harriman158 and with Felix Rohatyn159 and we had two – in their different ways – exceptionally able US Ambassadors and there was real work and so on that could be done together. Other than that EU Ambassadors would meet once a month or so under the presidency or chairmanship of whoever was President at the time for lunches with key French ministers and that was quite useful, particularly for the smaller embassies who did not otherwise have the sort access that we would have done.

RYCROFT: We are going to have another round now. Loads of people want to come in.

GREG ANDERSON: I am a student at King’s College London. My question is, I was doing my Master’s thesis and I found that there was a specific way that both the French and the British used the situation in regards to the Arab/Israel conflict. They both tacitly agreed that they both knew more than the rest of their European partners. My question is, has that sort of attitude continued?

DR JRV ELLISON: I’ve worked on the Ambassadors from the 1950s to the 1960s. I noted not only how we represented the United Kingdom to France and also but also how we worked on a particular foreign policy trajectory. Sometimes requested otherwise or not requested. I just wondered what opportunities you have from your terms of office to comment on the general diplomatic direction?

DR EFFIE PEDALIU: My question has to do with the transatlantic relationship. How far does the British Ambassador find the relationship with the USA – the ‘special relationship’ – hindrance when based in Paris? Or how much is the ‘special relationship’ an opportunity for Britain to get close to Paris so that they can explain to the French what the Americans think?

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http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/ Pamela Harriman (1920-97), US Ambassador to France, 1993-7.

159 Felix Rohatyn, US Ambassador to France, 1997-2000.

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The other aspect of my question is how far were British/French defence negotiations affected by the fact France was not a member of NATO? MANNING: I can attempt to answer the transatlantic question from perspective from jobs that I did in Brussels and Washington.

I think it is a great mistake for Brits to think anybody needs to help facilitate or translate the relationship between the United States and France. They manage perfectly well on their own. I don’t know about Michael’s and John’s experience of their American counterparts in Paris, but certainly my French counterpart in Washington was absolutely outstanding. He certainly did not need any help from us. I think one of the pervasive myths is that somehow or other Britain is uniquely well-placed to explain America to other people.

As for NATO I do not think it was nearly as much of a difficulty as some French like to pretend, for political reasons. Although the French remained aloof from the integrated military structure in my day, it was certainly my experience that whenever there was a big political or geo-strategic issue in the Balkans or wherever, the French were always at the heart of the debate. It could depend on personality. I was very lucky to coincide with a French Ambassador to NATO who was very constructive and collegiate and paid, I think, a bit of price for it back in Paris. He was succeeded by somebody who famously was not constructive. Nevertheless, the French were keenly aware of what their defence interest was and whatever posturing went on – standing up to the Americans and not being dictated to by Washington or whatever – underneath, the working relations within NATO were pretty good.

When the French re-joined the military structure160 – I guess John would have been Ambassador at that time – it seemed to go through without any real trouble at all. Of course being outside the nuclear arrangements was an issue, as far as the day-to-day arrangements were concerned, I doubt that the ideological posturing really mattered very much.

HOLMES: Just on the first point. I am not sure I entirely understood the question, but I think the British and French have always thought, in our mutual shared arrogance, that we knew more than the other members of the EU about foreign policy and not just Arab-Israel and therefore had a special wish to talk about it bilaterally, particularly because that was an area where most of the time the Germans were not competing. They really did not want to have a foreign policy of that kind. That may change now, but that was traditionally the position. So we did spend a lot of time talking about these things, which is to say we agreed about them necessarily; we often disagreed about them in quite important ways. But there was certainly quite a lot of talking and I think we both thought that if we both agreed about something or some foreign policy issue there really was a chance of making something happen. So, certainly having a unified European position, and if you lined it up with the American position you really could get somewhere. So I think that was the driving force behind a lot of those discussions about foreign policy issues like Palestine.

Do we have an opportunity to comment on British foreign policy trajectories? Yes. Of course you did. There were two ways of doing it. One was privately through letters to Number 10 or Permanent Under-Secretary of State or whoever you get to listen to your views from abroad. The other was trying to make sure your views appeared in your telegrams without being too obviously visible about where things ought to be going so you also had a chance to comment on issues and describe issues so if you are a senior ambassador in an important post you are trying to reflect these things in one way or another.

On the NATO point I agree essentially with what David [Manning] was saying. One 160

France re-joined NATO military command in Mar. 2009, which it left in 1966.

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of the most irritating things about being in Paris was always being asked by French politicians the same question: ‘When are you going to choose between the US and Europe?’

To which we had a completely stock answer: ‘Why should we need to choose, they are both equally important blah, blah, blah’. You never seemed to be able to get away from this, unfortunately. So this issue of the ‘special relationship’ is an issue or was an issue maybe it is a bit less of one now. Lack of membership of NATO was one symbol of that so I think it is a good thing that it has now disappeared. It actually happened under Sarkozy161 just after I left, but as David said it was not the great obstacle they thought when they actually did it. The military always wished they were part of NATO really. It was the politicians who did not like it.

JAY: Two quick points, on foreign policy more generally I found by far the best way to do that was with a whisky by the fireside late at night with the Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary and you could have quite useful conversation then.

On the transatlantic relationship, the only time I remember it being awkward was when I was invited on primetime television and the presenter said to me, ‘I am very glad you are here I tried to get the American Ambassador but could not. We want your comments on the Clinton162-Monica Lewinsky163 relationship.’ [Audience laughter.]

I turned the conversation back to BSE. [Audience laughter.]

RYCROFT: We have time for a quick final round.

NORMAN PAGET: Former Press Counsellor, 1992-1996. Two questions, one is on the role of local staff as you will have lived and worked with them and the role that they play in an increasingly localised environment. How did that work in your time? Secondly, on the role of the consul generals in France, there are a few of them from the UK, I think there are still some from France. How did you use consul generals in your time?

DR JATINDER MANN: Following the previous round of questions I was thinking about the UN Security Council and the fact both the UK and France are permanent members. What impact, if any, did that have on the work that you did in Paris?

DR RICHARD SMITH: I am from FCO Historians. In the view of the panel is Paris the top diplomatic posting?

RYCROFT: Can I invite the panel to answer those questions, and to make any other comments that you would like to make, either to underline something you’ve said or to add in something that you wish had cropped up earlier.

JAY: Just this on local staff first of all, hugely important, particularly the commercial staff.

You simply could not operate at all really without bilingual effective commercial staff knowing the language, knowing their sectors. Absolutely important and the others who were important at least in my case were the translation staff who were absolutely vital for

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Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, 2007-12.

Bill Clinton, US President, 1993-2001.

163 Between 1995 and 1996, President Clinton admitted to having an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.

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everything an ambassador did.

UN Security Council a very interesting question I think it is one of the reasons why the Franco-British relationship is a hugely important one and will remain so is that we are both permanent members of the UN Security Council which means that there is a need to discuss together virtually every foreign policy issue. Does not have to be done at the ambassadorial level, but the Embassy will be following it so it is very important and was important certainly all the time I was there.

Is Paris the top post? It depends how you measure it. If I was saying to a young diplomat now where would you aim to go I would say aim to go to China, aim to go to India, aim to go to Afghanistan, aim to go to a country that is really difficult, that is not particularly well-structured where you can learn the language you can get to know the people you can get into the system and you can make a real difference. So I would put Paris lower down than it probably was when I went there and lower down than it was 10 years ago. It is hugely important but for some other different reasons. That is really a question for Matthew.

HOLMES: I agree with Michael on local staff. I suppose part of your question is now there are a good deal fewer UK-based staff in Paris than there used to be and a lot of jobs that used to be done by UK-based staff are done by local staff does that make a difference? Well, I do not really know because I do not know how it works now. Clearly, we had some very important local staff when I was there – both times – particularly people who for example were very often British but local staff who knew all about the French agricultural scene in a way anybody coming from the outside for two or three years was not going to find very easy.

But I do not think there is a person like David [Manning] or Valerie [Caton] now. I think that is largely done by a local staff member. I am not sure that is such a good idea because they do not come with the same British side of the thing to give back from what you are getting from what is going on in British politics. People are very status conscious – how easy is it to penetrate? A First Secretary can tend to be much higher as it were in the hierarchy and get a lot of access. I’m not sure how easy it is to remember local staff, I wonder if that’s still thecase.

Consuls General are interesting. I regret the fact that they disappeared, but it does not surprise me in the financial circumstances of the time. If they were good, they got to know their local politicians who were also national politicians. That was one of the features of French life, that they were usually mayors of important towns as well, and so you could sort of really get some good access to that. In my time the Consul General in Lille was extremely important on Home Office/Sangatte immigration front because they really played a huge role with the local officials and managing the situation we really could not do quite so easily in Paris. Of course commercially and in consular terms they were important too. So I think it is a pity they are gone. I agree with Michael’s point on the P5 but it is vital because that is what gave us reason to talk to each other about every issue in the world because they were on Security Council agenda.

Is Paris the top diplomatic posting? No, you cannot say that I think Washington has to be the most important one. Even now, and inevitably people are more focussed on Beijing and Delhi because they are such huge populations with such massive commercial opportunities and so on. My fear is that you will simply think you can manage Paris without worrying about it too much because it so close we can understand it. And we do not. So I think we need to be careful not to denude the Embassy of too many staff and downgrade that role and think that it is all done in the European Union now and it doesn’t matter. I just do not think that is true. I would say that. We would all say that, but I happen to believe it is true.

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MANNING: I just want to come back for one moment to this very interesting question on defence. I think if you look at the co-operation between France and NATO in the Balkans during the 1990s, that gives the lie to a great many misconceptions.

On local staff, I very much agree with John and I would refer back to something that we said earlier. If you do not have UK-based people in those jobs, you cannot build up a pool of Foreign Office expertise. We have to think structurally about this, about ensuring that there are jobs in the Embassy preparing people to be Ambassador in Paris later on.

RYCROFT: I hope you all enjoyed that and got as much out of it as I did. It has been a fantastic session, and I want to just close with some Thank Yous. Thank you to all of you for coming along and providing those excellent questions and that testimony. Thank you to Patrick [Salmon] and Richard [Smith] and the Foreign Office Historians for having the idea of these sessions and for making them all happen.164 This is the last of a series of half a dozen which have been great, and what a way to end.

And finally a huge thank you to our four – now three – extremely distinguished panellists for bringing such insight into the life and works of the British Embassy in Paris. I cannot help thing that the words breakfast, lunch and dinner have appeared very regularly in their evidence. But seriously, I think the role of the Embassy, the role of the Residence and the role of the Ambassador are crucial. It does continue to be one of the most important jobs in the diplomatic service. It’s not absolutely at the top, and the factual answer to which is the most senior of the bilateral ambassadors is Washington and Beijing. But Paris is certainly right up there, and it is certainly one with probably the longest queue of people who want to do it.

So once again thank you to everyone involved.

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This series of six witness seminars were convened on the initiative of Dr Kandiah, Director of the Witness Seminar Programme, ICBH King’s College London.

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