[A-List] France: Chirac vs. US

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

France is defending global order

Jacques Chirac is not concerned with Iraq, but US unilateralism

Jacques Amalric
Thursday October 31, 2002
The Guardian

So here's Jacques Chirac, coming out of his corner fighting, flooring George
Bush, and with one mighty blow vanquishing the awful spectre of an
Anglo-American military intervention against Saddam Hussein's Iraq . . .

Ah well. There is every chance, it now appears, that pacifists of every kind
and from every nation will soon have to put that appealing but rather
simplistic image back in the storeroom of history.

The struggle between the French and American ambassadors that has been going
on for the past two weeks in the corridors of the United Nations does not,
of course, mean that Mr Chirac has suddenly rekindled his former love affair
with Iraq, which dates back to the early 1970s, and that he is trying by
every means available to save Saddam's skin.

No, what the present incumbent of the Elysée palace is defending is an
international order - or an international disorder, depending on your point
of view - that was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is
threatened today by the new US doctrine of preventive unilateral
intervention.

Mr Chirac was, incidentally, obliged to make that point clear at the close
of the Francophone summit in Beirut earlier this month. Several Arab
countries claimed to see in France a rampart of the Iraqi regime, forcing
the French president to reprimand his audience.

"The crux of the matter," he said, "is that the international community must
not provide cover for any 'automaticity' of intervention against Iraq before
we know the extent to which the Iraqi authorities are actually going to
cooperate with the weapons inspections."

It is France's desire to hunt down and weed out every last risk of
automaticity in the US draft resolution, not any desire to protect Saddam,
that explains the laborious negotiations in New York.

And privately, French diplomats who are close to the action are under no
illusion at all: for them, it is quite clear that Iraq will never comply
fully with the very strict obligations likely to be imposed on it next week
by the security council.

Then it will be time to move on to phase two of the Chirac scenario, which
is the adoption of a second resolution authorising the use of force.

But the Franco-American disagreement is also about - although Mr Chirac
avoids saying so too loudly - the priorities of US action in general. In
these days of the war against terrorism (or should we say war against
terrorisms), in the wake of the attack in Bali - to say nothing of the
recent tragedy in Moscow - is the priority of priorities really to get rid
of Saddam Hussein?

The fact that no formal link whatsoever has been established between the
regime in Baghdad and the nebulous al-Qaida network, and the fact that
Washington practically gave carte blanche to Ariel Sharon to carry on with
his policy of repression, are, of course, further weaknesses in the American
position that France has not hesitated to expose.

But when it comes to Mr Chirac's personality we have to add a psychological
footnote. Frustrated by five years of power-sharing with a Socialist prime
minister, Lionel Jospin, who condemned him to adopting a humiliatingly low
profile in terms of foreign policy, Mr Chirac is determined to make up for
lost time. He is no longer prepared to sit on the sidelines, champing at the
bit.

That explains his multiple recent interventions in multiple different
places, all with the objective of making France, for want of a united
Europe, the principal counterweight to the all-powerful United States of
America.

Even if the analogy makes one smile, it is no accident if conversations at
the Elysée palace these days often include references to the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962, during which General Charles de Gaulle assured John Kennedy
of his fullest possible support.

But we are not back in 1962 and Mr Chirac, who is a lot more pragmatic than
he would ever like to admit, knows very well the precise weight of France.
Hence his considerable irritation at seeing Britain align itself with
Washington's positions, thereby blocking a general Europe-wide acceptance of
the Chirac strategy.

So in Brussels last Friday, Tony Blair bore the brunt of Mr Chirac's
displeasure. This was no bad thing for the French president in terms of
domestic politics, even if Mr Blair's criticisms of the Franco-German accord
on the common agricultural policy bore the stamp of plain common sense.

But is Jacques Chirac really a European? He says so, but very rarely -
except at times when the French national interest, and the interests of
Jacques Chirac, can be conveniently draped with the European flag.

· Jacques Amalric is editor of the French daily paper Libération