Joint training for young Franco-British Diplomats

I think one of the most important parts of my job as ambassador is to make sure that the links between Britain and France are continuing into the next generation.

Transcript (cont.)

Of course, I’m helped a lot in that by technology like Eurostar, by the huge movement of population in between the two countries.

But there are things we can do here as well. One of the themes through the State Visit was ensuring that Her Majesty was able to meet young people – both French people studying in English, learning about the UK and British people living here. For example, The Queen met members of the Promotion Winston Churchill at ENA, and also students from the University of London in Paris and from the British School in Paris.

Another dimension to that is working between the two foreign ministries. And this week we have in Paris the new entrant British diplomats in their first year or two of working in the British Foreign Office here for a week of working together, training together with their French counterparts. We are two of the most active diplomacies in the world, deployed right accross the world and it’s really good that our young people should start their careers by learning from each other, getting to know each other, forming friendships that I hope will last through their careers and will guarantee that the next generation are as close in their working with the French as I think we have been in mine.

I’m delighted that Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is going to give some of his time to come to a reception that we’re doing here in the Residence later in the week, to himself welcome the work going on between the two sets of young diplomats. So from the very highest level in the French government this programme of joint training has support.

For more information and views from the participants in the joint training, please visit our website