Dominique de Villepin

• Challenges of International Relations
• Leadership and Collective Values
• Culture and Conflict Management

Dominique de Villepin was Prime Minister of France from 2005 to 2007

A champion of peace and justice in the world, Dominique de Villepin was the voice of France and the international community during the Iraq crisis. He is one of the foremost advocates of a new global governance based on multilateralism, and a reformist leader in French, European and global policy.

Throughout his career as a diplomat, Minister of Foreign Affairs, from 2002 to 2004, Minister of the Interior from 2004 to 2005, then Prime Minister, Dominique worked to formulate strategies and find solutions to deal with problems and conflicts. From the violence in the suburbs of French cities, which he brought under control by invoking a state of emergency at the end of 2005, to the regional conflicts of Africa and the Middle East. In France, he led the “battle for jobs” that produced a historic reduction of the unemployment rate by nearly 20 percent.

Dominique discusses the challenges of our time: terrorism, proliferation, immigration, and the environment. He points the way to an international response based on a new state and global governance. He also emphasises the importance of respecting identity and culture in founding a new international order. This in turn requires dialogue, justice and equal opportunity. It is an approach valid not only for states but also for businesses and international organisations.

As a former leader of a country he also shows how every individual and every nation have within them talents and capacities for initiatives which should be taken into consideration in all political and entrepreneurial strategies. This in turn calls for original and appropriate methods of command.