Emmanuel Macron's long-time loyalist was appointed minister of foreign affairs on Thursday, January 11. Stéphane Séjourné, secretary general of the president's Renaissance party and leader of the liberal Renew group in the European Parliament, replaced diplomat Catherine Colonna, who held the post since the French president's re-election, in 2022. At 38, he is the youngest head of diplomacy in the Fifth Republic. Macron initially proposed the position to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who declined.

Séjourné has been working alongside the president for almost 10 years: after working for the Socialist president of the Paris region Jean-Paul Huchon, he joined Macron at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance at the end of 2014 to become his adviser in charge of relations with elected representatives. Since then, he has never left his side.

Séjourné caught the political bug at a very early age. In 2001, he was living in Argentina, where his engineer father had been transferred, when the country went through an unprecedented crisis. He was barely 16. A few years later, studying law in Poitiers, Séjourné became active in UNEF, a students' union, and the Movement of Young Socialists. There, he became friends with Sacha Houlié, Pierre Person and Guillaume Chiche – who were elected to the French parliament in 2017 under Macron's political movement, En Marche ! – with whom he later formed what came to be known as the "Poitiers gang." Alongside them, he takes part in the mobilization against the Contrat Première Embauche (First employment contract), a new form of employment contract pushed in the spring of 2006 during Jacques Chirac's second term in office. It was ultimately shelved.

Reserved and uncharismatic, Séjourné doesn't seek the limelight. He has sometimes said that he can't believe the scope of his responsibilities, which in recent years have enabled him to rub shoulders with European heads of state and government, as well as leaders of EU institutions such as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her counterpart at the Council, Charles Michel.

"Stéphane Séjourné has unrivaled negotiating skills. In the European Parliament, he has demonstrated his ability to make deals," said someone close to him, pointing to his role in negotiations on the European recovery plan and the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

As foreign minister, he will have three priorities, according to his team: working to strengthen multilateral organizations (such as the UN, NATO, WTO, WHO...), which are in poor shape; practicing "real diplomacy" by developing aid to civilian populations in crisis zones, such as Ukraine or the Middle East; and above all working to build a "powerful Europe." In line with the French president, the new minister wishes to strengthen European security and defense integration and to revive cooperation between France, Germany and Poland within the Weimar Triangle.

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