Le Cadre d'Orient. Genesis, institutions, actors.

This study day is part of the ENTI seminar, "Écrire, négocier, traduire l'international (XVIIIe-XXIe s.)" proposed by UMR SIRICE, and is part of the Sorbonne Alliance initiatives.

Caricature d'un homme entrain de courir — Caricature de Maurice Le Roux de Villers, L'Album comique des Affaires étrangères, Joseph Mollard, 1869 © Archives diplomatiques‎

Since its foundation in 1795, the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes - now Inalco - has maintained very close links with the French Foreign Affairs Department. In fact, it supplied the Secretaries-interpreters for oriental languages and some of its staff sent to the Orient and the Far East. From 1880, it held a monopoly on training interpreters for the Orient and Far East, replacing the École des Jeunes de Langues, which had been responsible for recruiting drogmans since Louis XIV. As the diplomatic and consular network expanded, offering new career prospects in the Orient, Asia and Africa, more and more diplomats and consuls attended its courses. In the aftermath of the Second World War, relations with the Ministry were strengthened with the creation of the Orient competitive examination in 1946, for which the École prepares future agents from the Orient, the Far East and Eastern Europe. But the difficulties of recruitment and the lesser recognition of the Cadre d'Orient compared to agents who had passed through the École nationale d'administration would prompt the Quai d'Orsay to turn to other partners as well.

This meeting aims to look back at the tradition of Orientalism and its legacy within French diplomacy, the role of the École in the training of the Cadre d'Orient and its ability to renew the profile of the diplomats who come from it to best meet new challenges, and finally, the place it occupies in the implementation of France's cultural diplomacy.

Program

2pm - Opening remarks: Delphine Allès, vice-president of Inalco, and Violaine Sébillotte, vice-president of Université Paris 1 Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

2.15pm - Presentation of the half-day event, Laurence Badel, Professor, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

2.30pm - Être secrétaire-interprète d'Extrême-Orient dans le Quai d'Orsay de l'entre-deux-guerres. Une fonction qui refuse de disparaître, Gong Zhang, PhD in History, member of the Centre Chine, Corée, Japon (UMR 8173, CCJ-EHESS).

2.50pm - Le Cadre d'Orient: les incertitudes d'un corps entre spécialisation et généralisation (1946-1968), Isabelle Dasque, Senior Lecturer, Sorbonne University.

3:10pm - Le concours d'Orient. A pathway for French women to enter diplomacy at the Liberation? Laurence Badel, professor, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

3:30pm - Exchanges with the audience

4pm - Break

4:15pm - Languages and diplomacy: training, recruitment and careers of Orient agents, Leila Koochakzadeh, lecturer in contemporary Iranian history and Iranian geography at Inalco.

4.35pm - L'Inalco, l'Institut du monde arabe et la mise en œuvre d'une diplomatie culturelle en direction du monde arabe depuis 1974, Alain Messaoudi, professor, Université de Nantes, and Melissa Tedafi, doctoral student, Université de Nantes.

5pm - Grand entretien : Brigitte Curmi, former ambassador to Libya (2016-2018), Malta (2018-2021) and for Syria (2021 to 2024).

5.30pm - exchanges with the audience.