There are only three candidates left for the Direction de Sciences-Po. The two governing councils will vote on the issue on September 19 and 20. The election of Luis Vassy, outrageously supported by the political establishment, seems assured.
Formally, however, there are still three people who can hope to take over the direction of L’IEP de Paris:
Two are academics:
Arancha Gonzalez, the dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po and former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Rostane Mehdi, Director of Sciences Po Aix, Associate Professor of Law.
But, Except, to everyone’s surprise, it is the third candidate, Luis Vassy, who will be endorsed, thereby reproducing exactly the same pattern as that which prevailed for his predecessor, Mathias Vicherat, who resigned and was subsequently dismissed.
Indeed, Vicherat and Vassy share some similarities: Coming from the same ENA class as Emmanuel Macron, their partisan affinities are well known and identical. Neither one nor the other had a previous background in academia.. You can't change a system that is losing! ( Emmanuel Macron: Poor HR Manager but a Good Mate | Geopolitics.fr)
Indeed, if the career path of student Luis Vassy is brilliant, A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan (economics), the IEP in Paris, and a former student of the École nationale d’administration, there are nevertheless few elements that justify his ascension to the head of the IEP in Paris.
Luis Vassy is first and foremost a cabinet member rather than a charismatic leader. He is not only Emmanuel Macron’s political friend. Due to the successive positions he held (adjunct diplomatic advisor and then diplomatic advisor to Jean-Yves Le Drian in the Defense Ministry, deputy director of the same Le Drian’s Cabinet at the Quai d’Orsay, and then director of Cabinet for the ministers Colonna and Séjourné), No one better embodies François Hollande’s diplomatic continuity than Emmanuel Macron. A continuity in the decline of French diplomacy, his unconditional alignment with the United States, NATO, and Netanyahu’s Israel.
The person in question had to manage the Rebellion of the Ambassadors stationed in the Arab world (revealed by Georges Malbrunot) Israel-Hamas conflict: ambassadors in the Middle East express their concern (lefigaro.fr), In November 2023. They denounced the breakdown of the balance of French diplomacy in the Middle East and the alignment with the Netanyahu government. As the authors of the letter envisioned, this diplomatic line caused a loss of credibility and sympathy for France among the Arab countries.
These ambassadors who thought only of saving France’s influence and of being faithful to its diplomatic tradition They were severely admonished during a videoconference by Catherine Colonna and, above all, her Chief of Staff, Luis Vassy, he is much less experienced than many of them. The person in question has a regrettable tendency to confuse, sometimes, authority and authoritarianism.
Some saw their careers deviate from the normal or promised trajectory. The ANMO (North Africa and Middle East) management, once the spearhead of France’s «Arab policy» and boasting the best experts in the region, is now close supervision, requiring them to adapt to the diplomatic turnaround decided by the neo-conservatives on the left. (This neo-conservative left that has ruined French diplomacy | Geopolitics.fr).
Luis Vassy has only one post as Ambassador to his credit, which he obtained at an unusual age (39), in The Hague. Her passing left no indelible impression. In the post-COVID era, he was more notable for his public relations skills than for his human qualities. «Self-absorbed,» «believing that France always does better than others,» «Macron boy,» he struggled to take on the mantle of his predecessors and to embody the role with dignity.
Candidate, for a time, to the position of Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, a post usually entrusted to much more experienced diplomats, the person in question has ultimately dropped out of Sciences-Po, his second choice.
Therefore, it is a personality who has never held a management position beyond twenty people who is about to be promoted to head a facility that employs 1200 employees, not including the teaching staff.
How will this left-wing neoconservative be received in a school where international law is not scorned and the Palestinian cause finds wide resonance?
It is certain that of the three remaining candidates, Luis Vassy is the one who, a priori, ticks the fewest boxes. Sciences Po hasn’t had an academic leader in a long time and political proximity is the only thing that counts as legitimacy. A surprise, the nomination of one of the other two candidates would be a sign of the serenity that has returned to this school in recovery!
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