Sylvie-Agnes Bermann

A graduate of the Paris-Sorbonne University, the Paris Institute of Political

Studies, the French Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations and the

Beijing Languages Institute, Mme Bermann embarked on her diplomatic career in 1979.

Vice-Consul at the French Consulate in Hong Kong from 1979 to 1980, she became Second

Secretary at the French Embassy in China between 1980 and 1982. She was subsequently

responsible for policy relating to China at the Quai d’Orsay’s Asia and Oceania Directorate

until 1986, when she became Second Counsellor at the French Embassy in Moscow. In 1989,

Sylvie Bermann returned to Paris to take up the post of Head of the Southeast Asia

Department.

In 1992 she was appointed Second Counsellor at the French Permanent Mission to the UN. In 1996, she became Head of the Common Foreign and Security Policy Department

at the French Foreign Ministry, before becoming Ambassador to the Western European Union

and to the European Union’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels in 2002.

She headed the French Foreign Ministry’s directorate for the UN and international

organizations, human rights and Francophony, from 2005 to 2011.

She was Ambassador to China from February 2011 to July 2014, becoming the first woman to

hold the post of French Ambassador in a country which is a permanent member of the

Security Council. She was then French Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2014 to 2017 before being appointed Ambassador to the Russian Federation in September 2017.