Former Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin,
after warning the Bush
White House France would veto a U.N. Security Council resolution
authorizing
war against Iraq. Since then, though, columnist Renaud
Girard argues France
has retreated from its historic and beneficial independence of U.S.
demands.
As Shown Again in Iraq, France Must Reject 'Subjection' to the United States (Le Figaro, France)
"This
beneficial and necessary alliance should not be transformed into subjection to
America - in a systematic alignment of our diplomacy with hers. That is
something de Gaulle understood very well when he demanded that France
invariably be treated as an equal by her oldest ally. … Nixon and Kissinger had
understood it before many French: France as an ally yet non-aligned was much
more useful to the West and the world than a France playing silent second
fiddle to the U.S. … This spirit of independence was found again in the
courageous February 2003 speech by Dominique de Villepin
at the United Nations, imploring America not to invade Iraq - and again,
history proved him a hundred times correct. Since then, though, as if she had
been frightened of having gone too far, France has toed the line with her
systematic alignment with Washington."
France is the oldest ally of the United States in the world
and there is no reason for that to change. Our two nations share a common
destiny and values unique in the history of mankind. In the eighteenth century,
France carried the young American republic to the baptismal font. In 1917, the
United States generously came to the aid of France when it was under external
aggression. When asked to help us combat Nazism in 1936 and 1940, America
refused. But after the Japanese attacked and Hitler declared war on her, she
came out of her isolationism, entered the war on two fronts and liberated our
territory. Once peace came, she financed our reconstruction, protected us from
Stalinist communism and encouraged the integration of Europe, which remains a
period of the most brilliant post-war political success.
When it comes to values, the two nations share the same
Judeo-Christian bedrock modified by the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th
centuries. They couldn't conceive of any kind of government other than of the
people, by the people, for the people. They submit themselves to the rule of
law. They protect a secular state, respecting all religious beliefs. They
worship civil liberties.
It is nothing surprising in the fact that France and
America, so close together to one another in history and values, are very
strong allies at the heart of the Atlantic Pact. If one were to be attacked,
the other would immediately consider itself attacked. At the time of the Cuban
missile crisis of October 1962 or after the Islamist attacks of September 11
2001 on New York and Washington, France immediately offered America its
assistance. And all French know that if their country were to be the
unfortunate victim of foreign aggression, Americans would immediately come to
their aid.
General Charles de Gualle: French independence personified.
But this beneficial and necessary alliance should not be
transformed into subjection to America - in a systematic alignment of our
diplomacy with hers. That is something de Gaulle understood
very well when he demanded that France invariably be treated as an equal by her
oldest ally. In the conduct of France’s foreign policy, General de Gaulle took
a certain number of initiatives that were, at the time, judged unfriendly
toward America. How many times was he criticized for his independent [nuclear]
"strike force" (which Kennedy opposed in vain); for his recognition of
the People’s Republic of China (January 1964); his speech on Phnom Penh
(September 1966) explaining that America found itself in a stalemate in
Vietnam; for his withdrawal from the military structure of NATO; for his
challenge to the hegemony of the dollar; for his speech on “Free Quebec”; for
his press conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflict! [videos,
right]. History has shown that he was right every time. Charles de Gaulle was
neither anti-American nor pro-American. He was respected by the Americans. It
was moreover to de Gaulle that Richard Nixon rushed on his first official trip
as president of the United States. And it was Paris that was chosen by America
to host negotiations with the Vietnamese communists. Nixon and Kissinger had
understood it before many French: France as an ally yet non-aligned was much
more useful to the West and the world in general than a France playing silent
second fiddle to the United States.
This spirit of independence was found again in the
courageous February 2003 speech by Dominique de Villepin at the United Nations, imploring America not
to invade Iraq - and again, history proved him a hundred times correct. Since
then, though, as if she had been frightened of having gone too far, France has
toed the line with her systematic alignment with Washington. On Iran, for
example, France was a follower to the point of being incapable of mounting a
negotiation with America - a historic role that fell to the modest Sultan of
Oman.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
In the two great diplomatic crises this summer, France
played no role, because of this tendency to follow the herd. On Gaza, France is
obliged to go through Switzerland to talk to the Hamas Islamists! On the Ukrainian
crisis, France, which has had a Russia policy since President Sadi Carnot (in office from 1887 to 1894), should have
been an “honest broker.” That fell through at the time of the Kiev Agreement
of February 21, 2014, but the brilliant Laurent Fabius
(French Socialist Foreign Minister since May 2012), through dandyism, let the
cat out of the bag too soon: there followed a civil war that has yet to end,
and sanctions have been imposed that penalize us as much as Russia.
A France that is aligned is of no use to peace in Europe or
the Middle East. Let her diplomacy again become independent, and she will be much
more listened to around the world!
*Renaud
Girard is Le Figaro's senior international reporter. He has covered the major
conflicts of the last thirty years. as covered every
major conflict of the last 30 years. He is author of a work on the Iraq War: PourquoiIls
se battent (Why are They Fighting, Flammarion, 2006)
and his latest work: Le Monde en Marche (The World on the Move, published by ÉditionsCNRS, [the publishing
arm of the French government's National Centre for Scientific Research].
