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While I do enjoy the French bashing I have witnessed (what German or former German national does not?), here is a little rational perspective on events.
Got this from them WSJ dated 3/4/03. Interesting observation.
Chirac's Errant Course
Raises Fears in His Party
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was playing coy with George Stephanopoulos in an interview broadcast on ABC Sunday morning. He dodged the direct question: Will France veto a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq? The minister responded with non sequiturs, such as, "Our position is exactly the same as Russia's."
No wonder his discomfiture at being asked a simple question. Giving clear answers to direct questions is just not French. The foreign minister also is trying to defend a policy totally devoid of logic -- even French logic -- calling as it does for U.N. inspectors to keep pestering Saddam Hussein until he throws up his hands in surrender. Most importantly, Mr. de Villepin may not be sure what his instructions will be if he is forced to vote on a new U.S. resolution in the days ahead.
His putative boss, President Jacques Chirac, is out of town on a mission to Algeria, trying to rally reluctant North African support for his anti-American stand. The Algerians, who shucked off French rule 40 years ago, see the Americans as a stronger bidder than the French for their support. They also have no love for Arab extremists, having fought a bloody 10-year war against Islamic fundamentalists.
More to the point, Mr. Chirac is losing support from his own political party, which holds a majority of seats in the French National Assembly. One of the most important stories to have come out of Europe in months was hard to find in some major organs of the U.S. press last week. It described a rebellion against President Chirac within his Union for the Parliamentary Majority, or UMP. The French newspaper Le Monde reported that party leader Alain Juppe and other leading members had warned their president against a veto of any American resolution.
Said Pierre Lellouche, one of the party's leading Atlanticists, "You don't fool around with your veto right in the knowledge that there can be a war tomorrow that the Americans, our allies, are involved in. We're not going to shoot them in the back." Mr. Lellouche said the majority of the UMP parliamentary delegation agrees with him.
Mr. Chirac is in an uncomfortable position. His own party is repudiating his anti-American stance. Ardent support comes from the Communists and Socialists, who were roundly defeated by the UMP in the last parliamentary elections. The power of the left is in decline in France and throughout Europe, so Mr. Chirac, for all his political cleverness, has put himself on the wrong side of history. The left hates America because they see American ideas, particularly free-market democracy, as the source of their decline.
One place where the left still has clout is in the European press, and it is from this sector that the word has come down that Europeans, and Frenchmen especially, are violently anti-American and anti-George W. Bush. Perhaps that explains why the story of the UMP rebellion against Mr. Chirac was so lightly covered in the U.S. It contradicted the conventional wisdom that Mr. Bush's tough line toward Saddam Hussein has earned him widespread hatred in Europe.
Mr. de Villepin goes so far as to claim that "90% of the world community" opposes U.S. policy. But where does he get that insight into the global mind? Has someone surveyed the 6 billion inhabitants of this planet?
In fact, France is supported only by two other governments in Europe, Germany and Belgium. Possibly, Russia could be added to the list, but Russia's position, as with those of some other countries on the U.N. Security Council, is most likely for sale to the best bidder.
What the UMP leaders in the French National Assembly have clearly realized is that the war in Iraq has already begun. U.S. and British aircraft are attacking Iraqi mobile ground-to-ground missile sites that have been moved south to threaten U.S. troops in Kuwait. U.S. forces are showering Iraqis with leaflets telling them how to surrender when they come under attack. The Shiite tribes in the south are seeking assurance from the Americans that, if they come over the U.S. side, they won't be deserted again to Saddam's tender mercies as they were in 1991. The Kurds in the north already are functioning as an autonomous state and will most likely provide a staging area for U.S. troops if Turkey's parliament persists in denying the U.S. use of Turkish soil.
When Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld famously referred to the "old Europe" he had Germany and France in mind. Germany fits the bill in that it is governed by socialists intent on preserving an expensive welfare state, even at the cost of neglecting obligations to NATO and the security needs of Europe. Even if it wished to, it couldn't offer much help in Iraq because it is too strapped for cash.
But France is representative of "old Europe" in a different sense. Mr. Chirac still thinks he is governing the France of Charles de Gaulle, who unified the country and gave it a stable government partly by appealing to nationalist pride. France does indeed have many things to be proud of, which is why it attracted so many American tourists before it developed its anti-American reputation. But this is not the age of a General de Gaulle, who asserted French "independence" to a fault.
Intelligent Frenchmen know that the world has moved on. As Mr. Lellouche pointed out, shooting America in the back as it enters into a war to protect the world from an Iraqi tyrant is not something that will be easily forgotten or forgiven. The UMP leaders in the National Assembly are quite right in their fears that a deeper split between France and the U.S. might well destroy both the U.N. and the European Union, two institutions important to French national interests.
When Mr. Chirac returns from Algeria, he might do well to sit down with his party leaders and listen to their advice. Then it might be a good idea to send his errand boy, Mr. de Villepin, back to New York with instructions to be more cooperative with France's longtime allies.
Got this from them WSJ dated 3/4/03. Interesting observation.
Chirac's Errant Course
Raises Fears in His Party
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was playing coy with George Stephanopoulos in an interview broadcast on ABC Sunday morning. He dodged the direct question: Will France veto a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq? The minister responded with non sequiturs, such as, "Our position is exactly the same as Russia's."
No wonder his discomfiture at being asked a simple question. Giving clear answers to direct questions is just not French. The foreign minister also is trying to defend a policy totally devoid of logic -- even French logic -- calling as it does for U.N. inspectors to keep pestering Saddam Hussein until he throws up his hands in surrender. Most importantly, Mr. de Villepin may not be sure what his instructions will be if he is forced to vote on a new U.S. resolution in the days ahead.
His putative boss, President Jacques Chirac, is out of town on a mission to Algeria, trying to rally reluctant North African support for his anti-American stand. The Algerians, who shucked off French rule 40 years ago, see the Americans as a stronger bidder than the French for their support. They also have no love for Arab extremists, having fought a bloody 10-year war against Islamic fundamentalists.
More to the point, Mr. Chirac is losing support from his own political party, which holds a majority of seats in the French National Assembly. One of the most important stories to have come out of Europe in months was hard to find in some major organs of the U.S. press last week. It described a rebellion against President Chirac within his Union for the Parliamentary Majority, or UMP. The French newspaper Le Monde reported that party leader Alain Juppe and other leading members had warned their president against a veto of any American resolution.
Said Pierre Lellouche, one of the party's leading Atlanticists, "You don't fool around with your veto right in the knowledge that there can be a war tomorrow that the Americans, our allies, are involved in. We're not going to shoot them in the back." Mr. Lellouche said the majority of the UMP parliamentary delegation agrees with him.
Mr. Chirac is in an uncomfortable position. His own party is repudiating his anti-American stance. Ardent support comes from the Communists and Socialists, who were roundly defeated by the UMP in the last parliamentary elections. The power of the left is in decline in France and throughout Europe, so Mr. Chirac, for all his political cleverness, has put himself on the wrong side of history. The left hates America because they see American ideas, particularly free-market democracy, as the source of their decline.
One place where the left still has clout is in the European press, and it is from this sector that the word has come down that Europeans, and Frenchmen especially, are violently anti-American and anti-George W. Bush. Perhaps that explains why the story of the UMP rebellion against Mr. Chirac was so lightly covered in the U.S. It contradicted the conventional wisdom that Mr. Bush's tough line toward Saddam Hussein has earned him widespread hatred in Europe.
Mr. de Villepin goes so far as to claim that "90% of the world community" opposes U.S. policy. But where does he get that insight into the global mind? Has someone surveyed the 6 billion inhabitants of this planet?
In fact, France is supported only by two other governments in Europe, Germany and Belgium. Possibly, Russia could be added to the list, but Russia's position, as with those of some other countries on the U.N. Security Council, is most likely for sale to the best bidder.
What the UMP leaders in the French National Assembly have clearly realized is that the war in Iraq has already begun. U.S. and British aircraft are attacking Iraqi mobile ground-to-ground missile sites that have been moved south to threaten U.S. troops in Kuwait. U.S. forces are showering Iraqis with leaflets telling them how to surrender when they come under attack. The Shiite tribes in the south are seeking assurance from the Americans that, if they come over the U.S. side, they won't be deserted again to Saddam's tender mercies as they were in 1991. The Kurds in the north already are functioning as an autonomous state and will most likely provide a staging area for U.S. troops if Turkey's parliament persists in denying the U.S. use of Turkish soil.
When Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld famously referred to the "old Europe" he had Germany and France in mind. Germany fits the bill in that it is governed by socialists intent on preserving an expensive welfare state, even at the cost of neglecting obligations to NATO and the security needs of Europe. Even if it wished to, it couldn't offer much help in Iraq because it is too strapped for cash.
But France is representative of "old Europe" in a different sense. Mr. Chirac still thinks he is governing the France of Charles de Gaulle, who unified the country and gave it a stable government partly by appealing to nationalist pride. France does indeed have many things to be proud of, which is why it attracted so many American tourists before it developed its anti-American reputation. But this is not the age of a General de Gaulle, who asserted French "independence" to a fault.
Intelligent Frenchmen know that the world has moved on. As Mr. Lellouche pointed out, shooting America in the back as it enters into a war to protect the world from an Iraqi tyrant is not something that will be easily forgotten or forgiven. The UMP leaders in the National Assembly are quite right in their fears that a deeper split between France and the U.S. might well destroy both the U.N. and the European Union, two institutions important to French national interests.
When Mr. Chirac returns from Algeria, he might do well to sit down with his party leaders and listen to their advice. Then it might be a good idea to send his errand boy, Mr. de Villepin, back to New York with instructions to be more cooperative with France's longtime allies.