written by Giulia Torresin printable version send your friend

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Paul Sarkozy, Nicolass father, once said to his ambitious son that with his stature and his surname, he had no chances to become the French president. He was manifestly wrong.
Despite being of mixed national and ethnic ancestry, Nicolas shows some typically French features: he is not a giant (to use an euphemism), he is a good orator, he speaks with idiosyncratic gestures, and he is overwhelmed by an incessant stream of ambitious ideas. Without any doubt, Nicolas changed the style of French politics. His frenzy clashes with the marble faces of his predecessors. Nicolas Sarkozy wants to be present, and present everywhere. But his hyperactivity is not always followed by facts. Indeed, after three years of presidential mandate, the result of his hyperactivity is that no one is able to understand where France is going and what the goals to reach are. Foreign policy analysts have begun to question Sarkozys coherence and to wonder whether his way of handling French foreign issues is a strong point or a weakness.

During his electoral campaign, one of the most popular slogans was the protection of human rights. He once proclaimed: I dont want to deal with any dictatorship in the world, and I dont believe in the realpolitik, because it is something that makes you renounce to your values. To prove his honesty, when he took office, he named Bernard Kouchner, a socialist and the co-founder of the humanitarian group Mdecins Sans Frontires, also known as Doctors without Borders, as his first foreign minister, even though he had supported Sarkozys socialist rival, Sgolne Royal during the campaign. But as time passed by, Sarkozy adopted a more pragmatic policy. On July 2007 for example, he announced that he had obtained the release of the six Bulgarian nurses charged for infecting over 400 children with the HIV virus in Libya. This diplomatic victory was accompanied by a controversy concerning the terms of the release, which included a 230$ million arms trade with Libyas leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Sarkozys foreign policy really reflects his personal features, when it comes to the Middle East: frantic, confused and paradoxical. Qualified as pro-Arab by some and pro-Israeli by others, French attitude towards the Middle East now lacks logic.

Since they share geographic proximity, colonial history, economic and strategic interests, the Middle East remains an area of immense importance for France. But while the whole structure of French-Middle Eastern social, cultural and political relations in the past were based on the premise that France would be reliably pro-Arab in international forums (or at least more than any other European country), Chiracs legacy (who strenuously opposed the American-led war in Iraq) seems now to slowly fade away, giving space to a more atlantistic perception. As an Israeli high bureaucrat pointed out: This has been the first time since decades, that a French president is both pro-American and pro-Israeli. Is he?

During a phone conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, Sarkozy is reported to have said: I am a friend of Israel, and Israel can always count on my friendship. Given this, and the fact that Sarkozys maternal grandfather was a Greek Jew from Salonika who migrated to France before the Second World War, Israels neighbors were concerned that the new right-wing President might shift his Middle Eastern policy away from its traditional support for the Arab countries. Indeed, right after the electoral results Sarkozys views inspired a flurry of contacts between Paris and the Arab capitals, seeking reassurances of continuity.
The new friendship brought France and Israel closer, and Sarkozy must have thought that he had gained more credibility as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead this had not even the slightest effect on Israel, which kept and still keeps ignoring France advice.
When he travelled to Israel in January 2009 to urge Ehud Olmert to halt the war in Gaza, the Israeli Prime Minister simply rebuffed any idea of truce or ceasefire. Although the situation evolved during the following days, Sarkozy was completely unable to prove his ability to temper Israeli actions. Moreover, despite his expectations, his diplomatic rapprochement with Syria proved to be ineffective, since he realized that he had no effective power over one of the Syrian allies, the Palestinian Hamas.

Sarkozys pro-American views prompted worried reactions as well. The editor of Egypts Al-Ahram Weekly, Mohamed Salmawy, said: It is vital for the peace of the planet that France remains a counter to the American hegemony. Too late. He was nicknamed Sarko lAmericain.

Thanks to one single sentence pronounced in front of the Congress (I want to be your friend), Sarkozy completely erased all the doubts and prejudices that had contaminated the American attitude towards France for years.

The Americanized rhetoric was somehow new, yet Sarkozy insisted that France would remain an allied but not necessarily aligned with the United States. It was indeed hard to tell whether Sarkozys warmer attitude toward the White House was profound since it was not easy to identify his core beliefs. However the conciliatory tone adopted towards the United States regional and international policy made France lose its originality.

Middle Eastern countries (such as Syria or Iran) simply have begun to think that if they need to negotiate, its better to do it straight with Washington.

French rhetoric does not convert itself into real actions on the ground. Critics say that Sarkozy is all style and no substance. This might seem unfair if we take into account that Sarkozy did do genuine efforts to facilitate dialogues during crisis. But missing from all these initiatives is coherence. French foreign policy seems driven primarily by a quest for national identity, a pursue of paradoxical aims and an instrumentalisation of the French exception.