French reporters in the
Oval Office waste no time getting to the business
of taking pictures of themselves,
as presidents Hollande and Obama go
temporarily ignored in
the background.
Hollande in America: Multinational Lobbyist Tool (Mediapart, France)
"Globalization and its accompanying multilateral free-trade
agreements gnaw away, a little more every day, at the democratic foundations of
societies. Elected institutions are bypassed when they aren't outright violated
by ad hoc agreements that establish their own rules of operation. ... We must
resign ourselves to admit that, ultimately, Hollande likes the U.S. for
everything that makes it so unpopular among alter-globalists. Hollande has sided
with Uncle Sam, that caricature of American imperialism and big business,
wearing his top hat and with a cigar in his mouth."
French President François Hollande with President and Mrs. Obama before the start of a state dinner in Hollande's honor - the seventh such event of the Obama Administration, Feb. 11.
"To our French friends, I propose that we
do even more for the security of our fellow citizens, for the prosperity to
which they aspire and for the dignity of people around the world, who want what
we promised two centuries ago, namely the inalienable rights, the sacred rights
of man." Last Tuesday, during the White House welcoming ceremony for
President Hollande, Barack Obama fanned without restraint the collective pride
of France and the United States.
When politicians speak out on such a high-profile
media stage, lyricism is always an element, but behind all the beautiful
rhetoric and grand declarations of affection, obsessions and commercial
priorities leave little room for ideals. Common goals are in fact much more
prosaic.
The United States and France were already
"allies in the times of Jefferson and Lafayette," but it has been a
long time since the spirit of Lafayette and Jefferson inspired the encounters
between America and the Old World. As usual, especially for this particular visit
to the United States, the presidential plane was not full of philosophers,
idealists or even defenders of human rights. Instead, it was crowded with
business people and so-called "pigeons" - who feel strangled by
taxation and public spending. Their reason for participating, as is the case
with any trip they take abroad, is hardly open to doubt. In this case, by
meeting politicians and U.S. business leaders, their goal was not to secure additional
rights to peoples and citizens, but to work on and influence the achievement of
more freedom to entrepreneurs. More often than not, on both sides of the
Atlantic and beyond, means fewer protection and guarantees for all that
constitutes the common good.
How can they do yet more to achieve the
additional prosperity to which their transnational corporations aspire through
limiting the chances for people to live with dignity in public spaces without
being subjected to the power of money? How can they ensure that
"friendship" between France and the United States leads to additional
opportunities for development, markets, growth, and profits?
In this area, our president is not
unimaginative. The Transatlantic Free Trade Area [TAFTA] currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United
States, according to him, should be signed as soon as possible. Regardless of the
controversy surrounding such a treaty, fraught with threats to our social
rights and environment, and being negotiated with a alarming opacity - it's
good for trade, assert the multinationals and the MEDEF,
(France's largest union of employers). Therefore, it "represents a real opportunity."
According
to Hollande, "going fast is not a problem, it is a solution. We have
everything to gain by going fast. Otherwise we know that fears, threats and
tensions will grow. ... If we act in good faith, if we are respectful of each
other's positions, if we commit ... to growth, we can go fast."
Globalization and its accompanying multilateral
free-trade agreements gnaw away, a little more every day, at the democratic
foundations of societies. Elected institutions are bypassed when they aren't
outright violated by ad hoc agreements that establish their own rules of
operation. The president of "the homeland of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen," a liberal fundamentalist, sees nothing wrong with this,
considering instead that the process of divestiture and disintegration
cannot go fast enough.
We must resign ourselves to admit that,
ultimately, Hollande likes the U.S. for everything that makes it so unpopular
among alter-globalists. Hollande has sided with Uncle Sam, that caricature of
American imperialism and big business, wearing his top hat and with a cigar in his
mouth. But hasn't Hollande himself become a caricature - the caricature of a
career politician, cynical and without genuine conviction, and now the
instrument and toy of the dominant lobbies?
