The recent presidential election in France resulted in France announcing its return to the world stage as a player.
The French are a proud people, as Mr. Eugenides correctly states. Under Chirac, however, France studiously sat out the last decade, repeating “non” to every meaningful (i.e., non-UNO) Western initiative challenging terror around the world, except, of course, in France.
France was truly irrelevant on the world stage during that time. And, most importantly, every Frenchman knew that.
Letting the Anglosphere get the world credit while doing the heavy international lifting didn’t bother them, as long as the English-speakers did the bleeding.
The French knowledge-base in electricity generation using nuclear, is profound. Middle-Eastern states see their dwindling petroleum supplies in the years ahead; that energy source must be replaced with something. Nuclear could safely be that something.
France has the know-how to provide nuclear science and technology, providing that Middle-Eastern behavior – at home and abroad – becomes rational.
