Sarko l'Américain?

While the French left continues to wallow in anti-American criticism of the current Sarkozy government, the latter leads anything but a pro-U.S. foreign policy. When Socialist MP Arnaud Montebourg writes in an open letter to Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that what ties Sarkozy and Kouchner is “an Atlantiste cement” (Atlantiste being the common insult thrown at anyone suspected of liberal bias), he entirely misses the point.

There is a large gap between the presidential foreign policy of France, conducted under the de facto tradition inaugurated by the megalomaniac de Gaulle of one-man rule over this area (the “domaine r√©serv√©“), and that of its foreign minister. Sarkozy has used the international scene for two purposes: one innovative and one pitifully archaic.

Faithful to his description as a “hyperpresident” and an initiator of a “pipolisation” of politics (turning it into a celebrity contest), Sarkozy has attempted to enhance his image as a superhero saving schoolchildren from a hostage taker by purportedly freeing the Bulgarian nurses from Gaddafi’s jails. Never mind the long negotiating work of the European Union before the made-for-tabloid rescue effort coordinated with his ex-wife, a former model.

Simultaneously, Sarkozy has demonstrated a profound fidelity to France’s “politique arabe,” including first and foremost the sale of weapons and nuclear technology to countries whose human rights records at best match that of the French prisons, themselves comparable to Moldavian jails, according to the European Council’s Alvaro Gil-Robles.

Indeed, if Sarkozy’s double play was obvious in his dealings with Gaddafi (one week a hostage taker, the next a supposed connoisseur of all things French and a guest of honor of the Republic), the divergence of his foreign policy from that of his head of diplomacy is more apparent in the president’s underreported offers of nuclear technological assistance to Egypt. Mubarak’s plans to build three power plants are of course attractive to France, whose own nuclear expertise has led to producing close to 80% of its domestic energy this way. Sarkozy’s holiday in Egypt culminated in his declaration that “any country should be able to develop civilian nuclear technology within the framework of international treaties,” as France tries to beat Russian and Chinese nuclear commercial competition.

My uncle Bernard Kouchner was recruited by Sarkozy quite simply because he is, and has been for years, the most popular politician around. In this sense, Montebourg is right to point out that Kouchner is used largely to cover up, by his charisma, political decisions that he neither agrees with nor was involved in. However, Montebourg fails to realize that the very same thing was true when the founder of Médécins Sans Frontières was a member of Socialist governments.

The image of a “politique de la rupture” that Sarkozy desired to convey was doubly served by the inclusion of Kouchner in the government: on the one hand, by showing a change from the strict left-right alternating governance; on the other hand, by placing a known maverick in the most conventional job. Kouchner’s disagreements and initiatives do not therefore impede Sarko’s plans, as those who predict an unlikely removal of the current foreign minister from the government in an impending restructuring would have us believe. On the contrary, the possibility afforded by the unwritten tradition of a presidential monopoly on foreign affairs makes Sarkozy’s use of Kouchner far more efficient than previously achieved: if his initiatives get him anywhere, the fame will be shared by the president; if there are any blunders, they are the work of someone who only vaguely stands for France and, in any case, does not stand for its president.

This was the case with France’s breaking of diplomatic ties with Syria. Under the cover of a glorious operation led by Bernard Kouchner to resolve the Lebanese conflict – a mission in the lineage of France’s defense of the rights of the people to self-determination – Sarkozy is free to block an ally of his main commercial competitor. Indeed, Iran’s proposal to help Egypt develop a nuclear program, combined with both Syria’s close ties with the Islamic Republic and its own Korean-associated nuclear ventures, poses a problem to a France that sees itself – since Osirak, no doubt – as the sole purveyor of nuclear technology to unsavory countries.

The question is whether the latest French efforts are part of a continuing erroneous vision of the “Arab world,” masquerading as pragmatism, when in fact, as Amir Taheri outlined it:

The latest eruption of PAF [the French African Policy] may prove costly for France. A debate on PAF may become unavoidable.

Such a debate would have to start with a critical assessment of the assumption that there is a single, monolithic Arab entity with which France could maintain and develop relations. A closer examination of realities would prove that “grand design” of PAF is based on a chimera.

The diversity of the countries grouped together under the label of “the Arab world” renders PAF, or any similar attempt at dealing with them on the basis of a “grand design,” inoperative.

Perhaps the apparent opposition to Syria/Iran shows a willingness to negotiate with more moderate and potentially reasonable partners in the future. Unfortunately, Sarkozy’s firm opposition to the entry of Turkey into the E.U. – here again in contrast to Kouchner’s view – seems to indicate that political or religious moderation is not a criterion for the selection of France’s partners, unlike their lack of nuclear know-how and/or fast trains which could be magnanimously undersold to “the poor.”

Considering the historical failures of France to make any serious headway on the gigantic contracts it planned to reap through its ignorance of human rights issues in client countries, it is to be feared that the continued influence of this Western power in the dissemination of arms and technology to the bad guys might just be attributable to the French desire to play “a certain role in the world.”