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France puts up a fight

By Vaiju Naravane

Jacques Chirac would dearly like to see a unified Europe that would act as a true counterweight to the overwhelming clout and influence of the U.S.

FRANCE IS seen as being obdurate, selfish and intransigent by the pro-war coalition led by America and Britain and their supporters including Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and others. They feel the French have broken the unwritten rules that govern NATO, placing their own narrow national interests before those of the Atlantic Alliance that has been the bedrock of western European security for the past half a century.

The French obviously do not see it that way. Public support for the President, Jacques Chirac, is so high it is akin to adulation, an emotion the French usually regard with disdain, while an ecstatic press has taken to calling Mr. Chirac, and his closest adviser and Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, the "warriors of peace". The French have reiterated their opposition to a second U.N. Resolution on Iraq, describing the move as "an error". Instead, Paris, with the support of Germany and Russia has sent a "memorandum" for discussion in the Security Council. Restating that the complete disarmament of Iraq remains the common objective of the international community, the document suggests another way but war for bringing this about. The three nations have called for "a clear action programme for the inspectors" with a prioritised list of targets and a fixed calendar for achieving those goals.

In the framework of UNSC Resolutions 1284 and 1441, the trio calls for a report by the inspectors 120 days after a clear and targeted inspections programme is adopted. The inspectors, the memorandum underlines, can always call the attention of the Security Council to any lapse or failure to comply on the part of Iraq. "The combination of a precise action programme with reinforced inspections, a firm calendar and military preparations offer the possibility of reuniting the Security Council while continuing to exert maximum pressure on Iraq," it concludes.

"What's new in the proposals is the hierarchical listing of key unresolved disarmament questions in the context of defining the inspectors' programme of work. The inspections cannot be ended, Iraq's disarmament cannot be terminated if we don't know what still has to be done. We've also put forward a proposal about tightening the timeframe of UNMOVIC and IAEA work; we're speaking, for example, of a timeframe of four months from the time the proposals are put into effect. You can see how we're proposing a tighter schedule," a French foreign office spokesman said.

The strategy is clear. The three countries, of whom France and Russia are veto-wielding permanent members of the UNSC, are putting forward arguments that would prove as difficult to counter as the Anglo-American text that urges the UNSC to decide under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter that "Iraq has failed to seize the last chance offered to it in Resolution 1441". The French are convinced they can persuade several UNSC members, especially those from Africa and the Non-Aligned Movement, to go with the Franco-Russo-German position. The U.S. and Britain are equally convinced they can get a qualified majority of nine, and defy France, Russia and China to veto their text. They are equally convinced they will be able to prevail upon Russia and China to abstain. They are no longer so sure of France.

Whatever the outcome of the UNSC Resolution, France faces grave consequences for the stand it has taken. It has been vilified in the Anglo-American press and the U.S. has already begun a boycott of French products that will hit the French economy hard at a time when economic forecasts have already been revised downwards at least three times this past year. So, the question is why has France taken the stance it has? And what are the likely consequences that could flow from it? In the past France has always been a prickly and uncomfortable but ultimately reliable ally of the U.S. At the beginning of the present crisis, cynics believed that once promised its fair share of Iraqi oil reserves, France would go along with the U.S. after having made its usual proclamations of independence.

This time around there is a new determination. As a senior diplomat told this correspondent: "This is not playacting, not posturing to show our independence. We really believe that rushing into war is going to have disastrous consequences on the region. We do not want a break-up of Iraq, we do not want further instability in an already unstable area of this world. We do not share the U.S. analysis that a new democratic order can be imposed on the Middle East. The disarmament of Iraq can be achieved peacefully without plunging the entire region into chaos. Thousands of innocent lives will be lost in the bombing. That, for us, is unthinkable."

Mr. Chirac would dearly like to see a unified Europe that would act as a true counterweight to the overwhelming clout and influence of the U.S. For over a decade, France has been insisting upon the need for a multi-polar world. The crisis over Iraq has given him the chance to prove that countries cutting across ideological, geographical, political and economic boundaries are able to join hands in order to resist the U.S. juggernaut; that the way to counter U.S. hegemony is through respect of international law and the strengthening of international institutions such as the U.N. Which is why the French leader objected so strongly to new E.U. members — Hungary, Poland, The Czech Republic and the Baltic states — signing a letter supporting the U.S. President, George W. Bush.

The new members look upon the E.U. as yet another Comecon, an economic marketplace rather than a political and economic entity. Mr. Chirac's outburst against these states was not prompted by a fit of pique but by genuine anger at what he saw as a betrayal of some of the defining principles of the E.U. as a possible future federation of states with a Constitution, an Executive, a Parliament and a President elected by universal suffrage. But of course Mr. Chirac must wake up to the reality that despite the introduction of a common currency, the E.U. is today more deeply divided than it was five years ago and that much of the blame for that can be laid at the door of the Franco-German combine and its lack of finesse and diplomacy in dealing with states such as Spain, Portugal, Italy or The Netherlands.

France has given every indication that if a second resolution on Iraq gets the requisite qualified majority of nine, it would consider exercising its veto. A veto by France would almost certainly be the end of the Atlantic Alliance in its present form. American hardliners have leapt on every opportunity to vilify France and have used the French attitude to question multilateral treaties and organisations. Without a doubt France has kept in mind the fact that it harbours four million Muslims on its soil with Islam being the country's second most-practiced religion. Nor are its interests in the Middle East far from its mind. The desire to form a multilateral coalition to challenge the world's sole superpower is on the verge of becoming a reality. Mr. Chirac would have dearly wished a united Europe to be part of that coalition.

So was it hubris that led Mr. Chirac to adopt such an uncompromising attitude? There has been a marked change in the French president since his election with 82 per cent of the vote in the elections last May. He has been comporting himself as a wise elder statesman, someone who has placed himself above narrow political interests to speak of greater solidarity humaneness and generosity in public life. The self-serving, dishonest politician of yore, who used every trick in the book from betraying political friends to alleged financial malpractice has apparently decided to turn over a new leaf in the twilight of his personal and political career. It is doubtful if any other French President today would have gone so far in open defiance of the U.S.

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