Bernard Miyet
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations
In office
28 January 1997 – 30 September 2000
Appointed byKofi Annan
Preceded byKofi Annan
Succeeded byJean-Marie Guéhenno
Personal details
Born (1946-12-16) 16 December 1946 (age 77)
Bourg-de-Péage, France

Bernard Miyet, born 16 December 1946 in Bourg-de-Péage, is a former French diplomat and public servant. He served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from January 1997 to September 2000, and was the first French to be nominated to the position. Miyet is the current president of the French Association for the United Nations (AFNU), the official French chapter of WFUNA.[1]

Biography

Early life

Miyet attended the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies. He later graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 1976.[2]

Career

In 1976, Miyet entered the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he joined the United Nations desk of the ministry.[3] In 1979, he became First Secretary at the permanent mission of France to the United Nations in Geneva.[4] In 1981, he left the diplomatic service to become the Chief of staff of the Minister of Communications of France, Georges Fillioud.[2] He left the position in 1983 and became the president of Sofirad, a French public company whose mandate was the oversight of the French state's involvement in radio broadcasting and television, where he stayed until 1985.[5] In the spring of that year, he joined Schlumberger Ltd as special advisor to Jean Riboud, where he was tasked with the creation of the TV channel La Cinquième (now France 5).[3][6]

Following his work in the audiovisual sector, he served as Consul-General of France to Los Angeles from 1986 to 1989.[4] Miyet then returned to France as deputy Director General of cultural, scientific and technical relations of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he stayed until 1991. He then moved to Geneva to become the Permanent representative to the United Nations for France.[3][7] In 1993, then minister Jack Lang put him in charge of negotiating the Cultural exception during the 1993 GATT negotiations.[3][8] Miyet then became Ambassador of France to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in November 1994.[9]

On 28 January 1997, Kofi Annan announced the nomination of Miyet to Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.[10][11] This decision was reached after the United States used their veto to block a second term to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and pushed to elect Kofi Annan as Secretary General instead, which France initially opposed. Resistance was overcome when the French were promised the Under-Secretary-General seat, which was filled by Miyet, instead of the former advisor of Annan, Iqbal Riza.[12] Miyet was the first French person in the position, and since his term all of the Under-Secretary-Generals for Peacekeeping Operations have been French nationals.[13]

Published works

See also

References

  1. ^ "Qui Sommes Nous?". Association Française pour les Nations Unies (AFNU) (in French). Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  2. ^ a b "M. BERNARD MIYET, DIRECTEUR DU CABINET DU MINISTRE DE LA COMMUNICATION" [Bernard Miyet, Chief of Staff of the Minister of Communications]. Le Monde (in French). 5 June 1981. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d Bassir-Pour, Afsané (5 October 2000). "Bernard Miyet, un onusien à la tête de la Sacem" [Bernard Miyet, former UN head at the helm of the SACEM]. Le Monde (in French). p. 35. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  4. ^ a b "CFCE Bernard MIYET". Les Echos (in French). 12 October 1994. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  5. ^ Décret du 9 août 1983 M. BERNARD MIYET EST NOMME PRESIDENT DIRECTEUR GENERAL DE LA SOCIETE FINANCIERE DE RADIODIFFUSION (SOFIRAD),EN REMPLACEMENT DE M. MICHEL CASTE,APPELE A D'AUTRES FONCTIONS [Decree of 9 August 1983. Bernard Miyet is nominated CEO of the Financial Company of Radiotransmission (Sofirad), replacing Michel Caste, who has been called to other duties], retrieved 11 May 2019
  6. ^ Hirsch, Mario (1986). "La CLT serait-elle ingouvernable ?". Communication & Langages. 67 (1): 83. doi:10.3406/colan.1986.1742.
  7. ^ Mousseau, Jacques (1989). "La politique audiovisuelle de la communauté européenne". Communication & Langages. 81 (1): 73–90. doi:10.3406/colan.1989.1119.
  8. ^ "COMMUNICATION A L'UNIVERSITE DE LA COMMUNICATION D'HOURTIN M. Carignon propose plusieurs mesures pour favoriser " le rayonnement de la culture française "" (in French). 31 August 1993. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  9. ^ Décret du 21 septembre 1994 portant nomination d'un ambassadeur, représentant de la France aux négociations de Vienne, retrieved 11 May 2019
  10. ^ "SECRETARY-GENERAL ANNOUNCES NEW APPOINTMENTS. Press Release "SG/A/627"". 28 January 1997. Archived from the original on 30 April 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  11. ^ "Bernard Miyet, du contrôle des armements au maintien de la paix" [Bernard Miyet, from arms control to peacekeeping]. Le Monde. 30 January 1997. p. 5.
  12. ^ Fröhlich, Manuel; Williams, Abiodun (2018). "Kofi Annan, 1997-2006". The UN Secretary-General and the Security Council: A Dynamic Relationship. Oxford University Press.
  13. ^ Gowan, Richard (19 June 2017). "Why France Will Have to Step Up on U.N. Peacekeeping Missions". World Politics Review. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
  14. ^ Miyet, Bernard (1997). "Les Nations unies et la lutte contre les mines antipersonnel : au-delà d'Ottawa". Politique étrangère. 62 (4): 629–639. doi:10.3406/polit.1997.4703.
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