Angry France

[Mike_Edward]

Chirac's Words Widen a Divide Within Europe
By CRAIG S. SMITH
New York Times

RUSSELS, Feb. 18 — "New Europe" barked back at "old Europe" today, deepening the continental rift over Iraq after President Jacques Chirac of France told Central and Eastern European countries to keep their views on Iraq to themselves or risk losing their chance to join the European Union.

"We thought we were preparing for war with Saddam Hussein and not Jacques Chirac," said Alexandr Vondra, deputy foreign minister of the Czech Republic, one of the European Union applicants that have drawn French ire by openly supporting the United States and Britain in the Iraqi crisis. Mr. Vondra said his country and its immediate neighbors "definitely cannot remain silent," as Mr. Chirac advised on Monday.

The French president, in an unusually emotional outburst in Brussels after the European Union meeting on Monday about Iraq, derided the Central and Eastern European countries that have signed letters expressing their support for the American policy on Iraq for being "badly brought up," and having missed "an opportunity to keep quiet."

All 13 candidates today endorsed the joint declaration on Iraq issued on Monday by the 15 European leaders, warning Saddam Hussein that he had "one last chance" to disarm and vowing to "avoid new lines of division" over European policy on Iraq.

But divisions exist. The war of words highlighted not only disagreement over Iraq, but also France's struggle for dominance in European affairs in the face of an enlarging European Union whose incoming members are historically beholden to the United States.

France has long been concerned that the former Communist countries, indebted to the United States for liberation from Soviet domination in the cold war, would turn out to be a sort of Trojan horse bringing America's influence into the union.

"For France, the European Union is a way for it to remain a big power in the world because it can use Europe to act and to have a certain influence in world affairs that it can't have anymore on its own," said Gilles Lepesant, a French expert on European identity and Eastern Europe. France fears that expanding the European Union membership will erode its influence and weaken Europe's position as a potential counterweight to American power.

The broader European Union membership is also more likely to produce a decentralized organization that leaves much power with national governments, rather than the more centralized, cohesive union favored by France and Germany.

The tension across Europe has grown steadily as Central and Eastern European countries have sided with the United States over how to resolve the Iraq crisis. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last month chastised France and Germany for opposing the United States, calling them "old Europe," out of step with the "new Europe" made up of former Soviet bloc countries.

While France this month recalled its gratitude to the United States for liberation from Germany more than half a century ago, the gratitude of former Communist states toward Washington seems far more immediate and, for now, binding. Even once rock-solid bonds like that between Germany and the United States have been undermined in recent months.

Andrzej Kapiszewski, professor of sociology and political science at Krakow University in Poland, recalled that even under communism, America remained a benevolent presence. "I'm from Krakow, and practically every single person had some relative in the United States," Mr. Kapiszewski said.

There is little sense of obligation to Western Europe, though, and some irritation at the long, difficult negotiations insisted on by Western Europe for membership of the European Union.

The East-West European divide broke into the open when eight European leaders, including the European Union candidates Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, signed a letter of support for Washington's position in January. That letter was followed by another signed by 10 more countries, including seven candidates for the European Union.The letters reinforced widespread suspicion in France that the poorer European countries are primarily attracted to European Union membership for economic reasons while their political allegiance will remain with Washington.

"Europe is not a cash register," warned Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, on Sunday.

In his comments on Monday, Mr. Chirac went on to suggest that opposing France and Germany could hurt candidates for European Union membership. He warned, in particular, that Romania and Bulgaria, the poorest of the thirteen candidates and the two that are still negotiating to enter the bloc in 2007, "could hardly find a better way" of reducing their chances for membership by speaking up against France.

The French defense minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, echoed Mr. Chirac in Warsaw today, telling her hosts that "it was better to keep silent when you don't know what's going on."

The comments were rejected across Central and Eastern Europe on Tuesday, suggesting that France will face serious challenges in exerting its influence over an expanded European Union.

"France has a right to its opinion, and Poland has the right to decide what is good for it," said Adam Rotfeld, deputy foreign minister of Poland, the largest of the candidates for the union. "France should respect that."

Poland recently angered many European Union members by choosing Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets over French and Anglo-Swedish rivals.

The tensions between Poland and France are particularly notable because the two countries have traditionally been close. But President Bush is clearly regarded, at least for now, as a better friend to the Poles than President Chirac.

Charles Gati, a professor in European Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said nationalist sentiment in countries that are candidates for the European Union could now rise.

"This will strengthen nationalist arguments," Mr. Gati said. "They will say the West is not only selfish but divided, and we can't count on it."

Sorin Ionita, director of the Romanian Academic Society, a leading think tank in Bucharest, said: "If France wants to lose all the sympathy it has in the East, this is the way to do it, to say you little guys will have to listen to us forever. You don't hear this kind of language from the United States."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who initiated one of the controversial letters supporting Washington, insisted today that the candidate countries should not be silenced.

"They have as much right to speak up as Great Britain or France or any other member of the European Union today," Mr. Blair said.

 

[Strelnikov]

The Axis of Weasels

The French: Why do they hate us?
By Chris Suellentrop
SLATE: Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 4:27 PM PT

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Americans rushed to bookstores and libraries in search of the answer to the question that had been thrust upon them: Why do they hate us? But who knew that we should have been boning up on the history of France, not Islam?

A funny thing happened on the way to the war: Our old allies the French, rather than our new Muslim foes, have become the caricatured foreigners of the war on terrorism. The French are tarred in the New York Post, among others, as the leaders of the "Axis of Weasel." National Review's Jonah Goldberg has made "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"-a Groundskeeper Willie line from an episode of The Simpsons-the rallying cry of Francophobes everywhere. After France's ambush of Colin Powell at last week's U.N. Security Council meeting, where the French foreign minister declared that military intervention in Iraq "would be the worst possible solution," it can't be long before someone declares the need for regime change in Paris.

The debate over French anti-Americanism centers on the same question as the debate over Islamic radicalism: Do they hate us because of who we are, or what we do? As with the Middle East, the right takes the former tack, arguing that the French can be cowed into submission only by shows of strength. (The president also makes a point of claiming not to care why anyone hates us-least of all the French.) The left, on the other hand, tends to argue that we need to be more solicitous of France's needs. Their argument, in a nutshell: "It's our foreign policy, stupid."

Most recently, Eric Alterman laid out the liberal case in this week's cover story for The Nation. Alterman's explanation: The Bush administration's unilateral policies, both before and after 9/11, explain the French distaste for the United States. In fact, the French don't even dislike the United States, Alterman argues. Rather, they dislike its leader. President Bush's religiosity, self-righteousness, and indifference to allies justify France's low opinion. Alterman is essentially saying to Americans what Bush told Iraqis in the State of the Union address: "Your enemy is not surrounding your country-your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation." If President Clinton-or even Ronald Reagan-were in charge instead of Busharoo Banzai, the French would embrace America with open arms.

It sounds convincing-after all, lots of Europeans have been complaining about Bush of late. But it's not true. The French never really liked the Clinton administration, either. In June 2000, during President Clinton's last year in office, France was the only one (talk about unilateralism) of 107 countries to refuse to sign a U.S. initiative aimed at encouraging democracy around the world. A year earlier, State Department spokesman James Rubin complained, "We do find it puzzling and passing strange that France would spend so much energy and focus so much attention on the danger to them of a strong United States rather than the dangers that we and France together face from countries like Iraq." The French oppose the United States, quite simply, for what it is-the most powerful country on earth.

If Britain's "special relationship" with the United States is to pal around with it and work to influence its policies from within, France thinks it has an equally special relationship with the U.S.: Its sacred duty is to check American power by publicly and ostentatiously objecting to it from without. The French are so concerned by the dominance of American power-militarily, economically, culturally, and technologically-that a former French foreign minister felt the need to coin a new word to describe it: hyperpuissance, or "hyperpower." Think of it this way: France thinks the United States has so much power that the French language didn't have a word for it.

Much of the French opposition to American power arose after the fall of the Soviet Union made the United States the only power in a unipolar world: According to one poll, the percentage of the French who viewed the United States "with sympathy" dropped from 54 to 35 percent between 1988 and 1996. But French grumbling over U.S. power predates the end of the Cold War, too. As Philip H. Gordon outlined in the National Interest in 2000 (during the Clinton administration), "resentment and frustration" have marked French-American relations since the end of World War II. When Charles de Gaulle became president of the Fifth Republic, he was still resentful that FDR had refused to recognize his Free French resistance over the Vichy regime during the war. De Gaulle decided never to depend on the Americans again, and though he was an ally of the United States, he was an exceptionally cranky one, pursuing detente with the Soviet Union, withdrawing militarily from NATO, and establishing an independent French nuclear force.

Perhaps the most astonishing description of the rocky French-American relationship comes from the French diplomat who, in 1983, told the Atlantic that a particular change in U.S. policy "makes us wonder whether we can count on American administrations-just as we've been wondering since Congress refused to endorse the Treaty of Versailles." Americans don't have this sort of historical consciousness - at least, not for anything that happened abroad before World War II. It's as if an American diplomat said, "Well, we had to beat the frogs in the French and Indian War (1757-63)* to lay the groundwork for national unity and manifest destiny, and well, we've been beating them ever since." Or, "You know, we've known ever since the XYZ Affair that you couldn't trust the French. That's why we've been sparring with them since the Quasi-War." (1797)*

But history is at the core of the tensions between France and America. Donald Rumsfeld's comment last week about "old Europe" was telling: Americans see France as akin to Portugal, a once-great power now in decline. But as part of its own "special relationship" with the United States, France refuses to cede the world stage to the Americans. French identity is similar to American identity-France sees itself as a great nation worthy of power, the birthplace of democracy, and a culture and system of government that the world would be wise to emulate.

Which is why, in the end, France will go along with the Bush administration on Iraq. If France vetoes a Security Council resolution, and the Bush administration goes to war anyway, France will have been proved powerless. But if it accedes to the war after demanding more evidence, it will be able to claim that it influenced American policy-whether it's true or not. Germany will likely stand on principle and oppose the war. But France would never do such a thing. As a U.N. diplomat said last week, "It matters to matter for France."


Chris Suellentrop is Slate's deputy Washington bureau chief. You can e-mail him at [email protected]


*Dates added for the benefit of the historically impaired.

Strelnikov

 

[Dave2112]

You know, I've put off posting anything regarding this issue due to its inflammatory nature when people start pushing thier strong beliefs forward. However, I'm really pissed at this whole EU thing.

I simply cannot believe that France is using this as an excuse to play more typically French bad politics. How many times does this nation need to be reminded that they are not the "US of Europe"? Hey, if they want to avoid war, fine. If they want to speak thier peace, fine. But to hold other nations hostage, bluntly and openly no less, to do nothing more than challenge the US. For the sheer sake of doing it. Sometimes I swear that if we came up with a cure for cancer, France would bitch and moan and find a way to keep it out of Europe, simply because it was us who created it.

Now, France is a nation that deserves its own opinion and seat on the United Nations. But I feel that it is way past time to revoke thier veto power and lessen thier importance. They've shown time and time again that they are concerned with one thing and one thing only: France.

What tipped my piss-o-meter over the redline was a news program I was watching about Saddam Hussien's sons. The eldest, Ude, is a monster that makes the old man look like Winston Churchill. Long story short, two young French students on a college trip to Iraq (why there? I guess that's another question...) were tricked into a hotel room for a "reception" by Ude Hussien and summarily forced to engage in lurid sex acts while being videotaped. Do you know what they and thier parents were told by the French government? "What can we do? It's Saddam Hussien's son!" End of story.

They fear Iraq, like they fear everyone else. If that's your stand, fine...but don't hang up the rest of the world with power obviously beyond your capability to appreciate fully. To threaten other nations with political backlash just to prove a point is beyond reprehensible.

And before I get a ton of posts slamming my view of the French, let me make one thing clear. I'm not opening a PC Pandora's box here. I'm not talking about the french people, just the government. Which, by the way, is something I wish others would do for us Americans. We are on a Forum which discourages racist talk, but it seems that Americans are fair game. We can't say stupid shit like "The French are all rude" or "The Germans are all boors"...and rightly so. However, it seems to be very easy to say "all Americans are war-mongers" or things of this nature. Don't judge our people by the actions of our government. I'm not doing that here.

In closing, France has always been like that annoying little kid on the block that pokes sticks at dogs and calls the big kids names and then gets beat up every day...running home to his big brothers to solve the problem for him. But one of these days, the brothers are going to tell the kid to handle his own mess. I have just one question for Mr. Chirac...if planes had flown into the Eiffel Tower instead of the World Trade Center, what would your position be then? And what if we disagreed with you...threatening Canada and Mexico with removal from NAFTA or some such thing if they backed you?

Food for thought...

 

[Haltickling]

I'm not very happy at this undiplomatic outburst from President Chirac and Minister Alliot-Marie either. These things may be said in closed conference, but never in the open. To bring it out into the public like this puts them on the same stage with Mr Rumsfeld, and it will bear similar reactions of defiance. Most counterproductive!

Two more remarks on that: According to some Polish diplomats, Poland (and most probably other East Block states as well) was coerced into signing the ominous US-support-motion by the United States, and they signed without consulting their biggest supporters for joining the EU, France and Germany. So the coercion didn't happen only on the French side.

Second: If you want to join a company as a junior partner, you are expected to be loyal to the senior managers. They sided with the managers' opponents. How do you think the managers will decide when the partners cast a vote over new partners? Normal business procedures, in America and Europe.

 

[dodger]

France is a weird weird place. Strange people. Strange society. Opinion ended.

 

[Deleted member 2452]

why join the E.U.?

from talking to germans imagrants i know here in america, and from talking to brits, both online, and in person, all say the e.u. is a mess, and wish the old home land hadn't joined! so why should the new republics in eastern europe?
ok, something hal said got me thinking... he said france, and germany were the senior managers of the E.U.. since when? i thought all were suposed to be equal in this organization. am i incorrect in this belief? are some countries actually the bosses?
steve

 

[Haltickling]

In fact, France and Germany are the biggest motors and the two largest countries in the EU. They are equal in number of votes in EU COuncil, but of course their economic and political influence is substantial as they have more votes in the EU Parliament (according to population numbers).

Additionally, Germany is the biggest net-payer, and all the new countries will receive more money from the EU than they'll pay. Still, eastern Europe is a growing market, while the markets in most of the other countries are fairly saturated. So France and Germany ARE senior members whose votes are important.

 

[qjakal]

European Union.

A great concept, as discussed in another current thread re American and European relations in the current world order! An abbreviated summary gathered from docs:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Advantages – the main advantages of the EU are seen as...

A huge market of nearly 400 million people in which companies are able to sell their goods and services without restrictions.

Freedom for citizens of the member states to move freely within the EU and to get jobs in other member countries. A terrific econmic incentive and method for labor redistribution for productive member countries.

A wide choice of goods and services for EU citizens, which are often cheaper because of competitive market forces in action.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Disadvantages – against this, some people in member countries say:

EU institutions have too much power. They have taken away the right of individual countries to make their own decisions about economic and political matters.

The EU is undemocratic, because decisions are taken a long way from the people; people who are affected by decisions have little chance to make their voices heard.

There are too many rules in general and it stifles new ideas and business models.

-----------------------------------------
Those are admittedly pretty simplistic outlines and statements, but I think the rise of a strong EU can only hasten balancing the current one sided power structure that exists at present. Any one nation, even one as apparently benign as the USA, SHOULD have some checks and balances upon it to force a better decision making process into existence. A cohesive EU could actually be the next "hyperpower" that could drive social evolution down the path towards a more global perspective....not sure if the EU is ready for the obligations and stress that this would entail though. Q

 

[Dave2112]

Hal, although I tend to share your views on a lot of topics, this isn't one of them. You raise a good point, but fail to see one important aspect. This isn't a business venture with senior and junior partners. This is world politics. This is war. People die, people lose thier homes, thier way of life.

I also fail to see any coersion on the US's part toward Poland and other Bloc nations. Not saying it's not there, but I haven't come across it. Even so, at least it was along the usual lines of "diplomacy", not out in the open with a remark like "they missed an opportunity to keep quiet." That alone should cause more more questions about the need for EU than anything our government could have done. These nations now know exacly how they will be treated by France as it tries once again to position itself into a seat they fall far short of deserving.

Again, this is a political difference of opinions, not a personal attack. One great thing about the civilised world is that we can do that! 😎