The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday unanimously approved diplomat Carlos França to be Brazil’s next ambassador to Canada.
Mr. França served as Jair Bolsonaro’s foreign minister between March 2021 and December 2022. He attended a putschist meeting with foreign diplomats at the presidential residence in July 2022, when Mr. Bolsonaro threatened not to accept the election results. The meeting was at the center of the electoral trial that made the former president ineligible to run for office for eight years.
However, the senators spared Mr. França from any uncomfortable questions about his role in the meeting.
On that occasion, Mr. Bolsonaro expressed concern about the possibility that foreign governments would immediately recognize a victory by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which was the most likely scenario according to the polls. Indeed, this proved to be the case, as key leaders were quick to congratulate Lula on his victory in the October 30 runoff.
Mr. França testified as a defense witness in the electoral court case. He denied sending foreign diplomats a copy of the slide presentation filled with electoral disinformation — the same presentation Mr. Bolsonaro gave to ambassadors during the meeting — which would go against an order Mr. Bolsonaro had given him publicly.
Senator Sergio Moro, a member of the Bolsonaro-friendly opposition, praised the Lula administration for Mr. França’s nomination. “He has shown republican spirit and grandeur, not confusing party politics with [the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s] professional diplomatic corps.”
Mr. França ascended to the Bolsonaro cabinet after his predecessor, far-right conspiracy theorist Ernesto Araújo, picked a public fight with China, Brazil’s largest trading partner.
He was part of a second wave of Jair Bolsonaro cabinet ministers who were less vocal on social media about cultural issues but did not necessarily break from the antics of their predecessors. During the 2021 United Nations General Assembly, he was filmed making aggressive hand gestures to protesters in New York.
The embassy in Canada will be Mr. França’s first time heading a diplomatic mission abroad. His nomination is subject to Senate confirmation.
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