French Election

Just recently, France elected its new president to succeed Jacques Chirac, who had served for about ten years. The contest was billed over here in the U.S. as a referendum about whether the new government would be pro-U.S. or anti-U.S., which completely misses the point. France has always been pro-U.S. (except for the Vichy period during World War II), and that goes for whichever party has been in power, be it the Socialists under Mitterrand or the Gaullists and their successors under D’Estaing or Chirac. What some people over here (like Bill O’Reilly with his boycott of France or others with their “freedom” fries) fail to ever understand is that France is a large, strong, and independent democracy with its own electorate to be accountable to and its own national interests to take care of. Their behavior is not anything less than we would expect from our own leaders. Regarding the Iraq War, polls across Western Europe have consistently shown about 80-90% of the population opposing a military invasion. Since these countries are all democracies, one would think that their leaders would have been especially attentive to this overwhelming consensus and have sought alternative solutions with the Bush administration when the Iraqi crisis escalated in late 2002/early 2003. Some countries, like Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, went against their people’s sentiments and signed on with Bush on the basis of their alliance. But an alliance is supposed to be in the interests of all participants, with everyone being able to play an active role in it. But the U.S. was the only country pushing for an invasion. Countries like France and Germany, both of which supported us (in accordance with their people's wishes) in the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, listened to and followed their people’s concerns about Iraq. They presented the alternative of allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to do their work, while the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein would have the pressure of American forces poised across the border to ensure cooperation. We all know what happened, though: France and Germany were vilified by U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfield as part of the “old Europe” and the “shock and awe” campaign to bring Iraq to its knees abruptly ended a reasonable effort to keep peace in that area. Chirac, the “conservative” president of France, was seen as betraying America in its time of need. But if he had followed the Bush agenda, he would have been betraying his own people!

In the recent election for French president, “conservative, pro-U.S.” candidate Nicolas Sarkozy defeated Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal by about a 53-46% nationwide vote. But don’t expect Mr. Sarkozy to be another Tony Blair: none of his predecessors towed the U.S. foreign policy line verbatim, either. And one of the U.S.’s best friends in the international arena was a Socialist, François Mitterrand, who was president from 1981 to 1995. Although he didn’t allow Reagan to fly American planes over France to bomb Gaddafi’s Libya in 1986 in retaliation for a West Berlin terrorist bombing, he did support us in the First Gulf War in 1991. Also, when, in 1989 under President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. invaded Panama, toppled the government, arrested the former leader Manuel Noriega, and charged him with violating U.S. law (explain that one to me), France joined with the United Kingdom in the U.N. Security Council in vetoing a resolution condemning the American action, an invasion which was an act roundly condemned all over the world and even by Augustus Pinochet, the pro-U.S. right-wing dictator of Chile. France is currently helping in the Mideast by stationing, along with Britain, peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon following last year’s brief conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

No, the French presidential election was not about the United States. It was about the French economy and its problems in assimilating into French society its large Arab population. The French voters believed the more conservative candidate would be able to more effectively handle the nation’s domestic problems. I believe that regardless who would have won the election, the winner would have continued France’s friendship with America while maintaining its own national interests. So lighten up, Mr. O’Reilly and friends, and have some French fries to go!