Dear readers,
for this second episode of the Why the West podcast, I am pleased to welcome Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, diplomatic advisor to French president Jacques Chirac from 2002 to 2007, and French ambassador to China, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
After 40 years of service in French diplomacy, he has published Les Autres ne pensent pas comme nous (“Others Don’t Think Like Us”), a book in which he shares lessons from his international experience as a top French diplomat.
You can watch the interview on the Why the West YouTube channel (click here). Unfortunately for English speakers, the interview is in French, but YouTube's automatic English subtitle translation tool works very well! Click the Parameter button at the bottom right of the video to activate it.
In this episode, we cover:
What does an ambassador do on a daily basis?
Discovering and studying other civilizations to better understand our own.
“Others don’t think like us! The motto of a lifetime.”
1998–2002: The risk of “tatamization” and the lessons from four years as France’s ambassador to Japan.
“Germans are not French people who speak German.”
One Germany or many?
Francophile Britons?
Universalism: A French and Western particularity.
Clash of civilizations?
At the Élysée palace with Jacques Chirac and relations with the United States.
France: Rebound or "Lebanonization"?
Chirac, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore, and Asia.
Reading recommendations: foreign civilizations and biographies of great leaders.
Enjoy watching!
Guillaume
P.S. Below is the interview about Japan that I mentioned in the episode:
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