French media and a French minister claimed that US diplomats have been interfering in the operations of French companies by forcing them to comply with President Donald Trump’s rollback of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives. The US diplomats in France apparently sent a letter to French companies they work with asking them to abide by Trump’s new rules.
French media said that the letter received by major French companies was signed by an officer of the US State Department who is on the staff at the US Embassy in Paris. The embassy didn’t respond to questions this weekend from The Associated Press.
The letter, as accessed by Le Figaro newspaper, said Trump signed an executive order in January terminating DEI programs within the federal government also “applies to all suppliers and service providers of the US Government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate.”
The document asked recipients to complete, sign and return within five days a separate certification form to demonstrate that they are in compliance.
“All Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws,” the letter said. “If you do not agree to sign this document, we would appreciate it if you could provide detailed reasons, which we will forward to our legal services,” it added.
Aurore Bergé, France’s minister for equality between women and men and combating discrimination, said Sunday that the letter is “a form, obviously, of interference. That’s to say it’s an attempt to impose a diktat on our businesses.” The minister said the government is following the situation very closely.
The minister said that “many” companies have told the government that they don’t plan to reply “because they don’t have a respond, in fact, to a sort of ultimatum laid out by the US Embassy in our country.”
