Bertrand Besancenot
Bertrand Besancenot spent most of his career in the Middle East as a French diplomat. In 1977, he joined the Quai d’Orsay as Secretary for Foreign Affairs for the Middle East. At the age of 26, he became First Secretary at the French Embassy in Qatar. From 1981 to 1995, he was Deputy Consul in New York, Advisor to the Permanent Delegation to NATO in Brussels and Deputy Representative of France at the UN Conference on Disarmament.
In 1998, he was appointed French Ambassador to Qatar. From 2002 to 2007, he was Diplomatic Advisor to the Minister of Defence Michèle Alliot-Marie, and was appointed French Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 2007, a post he held until 2016. In February 2017, he was also appointed Diplomatic Advisor to the French government, special envoy of President Macron for Gulf affairs, from 2017 to 2019. He joined ESL Rivington in March 2019.
