François Lonseny Fall

François Lonseny Fall (born 1949) is a Guinean diplomat and political figure. He was the Prime Minister of Guinea from February 23, 2004 to April 30, 2004.

Fall received a master's degree in law from the University of Conakry in 1976 and was Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the same university from 1977 to 1979. He then began a diplomatic career, holding diplomatic posts in Paris, New York City, Lagos, Cairo, and Conakry from 1982 to 1990; he was then Director of the Department of Legal and Consular Affairs at the Guinean Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2000.^[1]

Fall was Guinea's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2000 to 2002. In 2000, he was Vice-President of the Fifty-Fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly. From 2000 to 2002, he was a member of the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.^[1] He was then appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs on June 10, 2002. As Foreign Minister, he was Guinea's delegate to the United Nations security council during the debate over the United States military action in Iraq, and he acted as President of the United Nations Security Council in March 2003.^[1][2] He was also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Ministerial Committee for Security and Mediation from 2002 to 2004.

He was appointed as Prime Minister on February 23, 2004.^[3] After only two months, Fall resigned as Prime Minister on April 30, saying that President Lansana Conté would not let him attempt to fix the economy. He was not replaced as Prime Minister until December 2004, and until June 2004 there was some dispute as to whether he had actually left office formally.

In May 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Fall to be his Special Representative for Somalia.^[1] In that capacity, Fall also assumed charge of the UN's Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), located in Nairobi, Kenya. From the date of his appointment through mid-2005, Fall's principal task was to persuade and assist rival Somali warlords to lay down their weapons, resolve their differences, and restore national government to a country that had not had one since 1992.

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