Olivier Caron

Olivier Caron is a graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and a former student at the French National School of Administration. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1986 and served in Addis Ababa, where he was responsible for France’s relationship with African regional organisations. At the Foreign Ministry, he was then tasked with monitoring the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention, before representing France at the organisation set up in the Hague to work on the application of the convention. He then joined France’s embassy in Washington as a politico-military affairs adviser, before returning to the Foreign Ministry to head the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament branch. In that position, he was involved in the discussions on Iran’s nuclear programme and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In 2002 he was called on to serve in the Prime Minister’s cabinet as a strategic affairs adviser and later took the reins at the International Directorate of the Atomic Energy Commission, a responsibility shared with the Governor of France at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. After serving as Ambassador to Singapore between 2009 and 2013, he moved to Montreal to take up the role of France’s Permanent Representative to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and stayed there until September 2016.