Secretariat

The Secretary General is appointed by the Ministerial Council for a term of three years and derives his/her authority from the collective decisions of the participating States. He/she acts as the representative of the Chairman-in-Office, and as OSCE Chief Administrative Officer.

Ambassador Marc Perrin de Brichambaut

Prior to his appointment as OSCE Secretary General in June 2005, Ambassador Marc Perrin de Brichambaut held senior positions in the French administration as well as in international organizations as a member of the Conseil d'Etat.

A graduate of France's Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris (1974), Ambassador de Brichambaut started his career at the Conseil d'Etat, first as an administrative judge, later as Conseiller d'Etat. In 1978, he was posted to New York to work as Special Assistant to the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for International Economic and Social Affairs.

He returned to Paris in 1981, where he became an adviser to French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson.

In 1983 and 1984, he was Chief of Staff to Roland Dumas, then Minister of European Affairs. When Mr Dumas became Foreign Minister, Ambassador de Brichambaut continued to serve as his Chief of Staff.

In 1986, he moved to New York, as Cultural Counsellor for the French Embassy, returning to Paris in 1988 as Principal Adviser to Defence Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement.

From 1991 to 1994, Ambassador de Brichambaut represented France as Head of Delegation at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Vienna, which in due course became the OSCE. From 1994 to 1998, he headed the French Foreign Ministry's Legal Division.

His most recent post, from 1998, was as Director for Strategic Affairs at the French Defence Ministry.

Marc Perrin de Brichambaut was born in Rabat, Morocco, on 29 October 1948. He is married and has two children.