Initially studying science, Richard Boidin enrolled in Oriental Languages at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and the Institute for Higher International Studies (Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales) to qualify for the French Ministry of Foreign Affais (Concours d'Orient du Quai d'Orsay) in 1984 as a specialist in the Arab world and Africa. His first assignment was Baghdad, during the Iraq-Iran war, followed by a post at the Center for Analysis and Forecasting of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an analyst for the southern shore of the [...] 1988, he became the international affairs advisor to Jack Lang at the French Ministry of Culture. In 1990, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, the president of Unifrance (an organisation promoting French cinema around the world), appointed him as his delegate general; and in 1994, Jérôme Clément, the president of Arte, appointed him as his director of cinema in charge of policies concerning purchases and coproductions..In 2002, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed him to supervise all the foreign language programmes of RFI, TV5, CFI, the Fonds Sud and programmes intended for Africa. In 2009, he became the representative for the information society and was responsible for defending French interests in international negotiations on digital issues. In 2013, he was appointed as the director of the diplomatic archives, where he initiated electronic archiving and increased the number of publications and exhibitions of the [...] 2016 to 2020, he served as the French ambassador to Zimbabwe and Malawi.