French Fried
“Sarkozy may be young, modern, vibrant and new, but in the end he is still French; and the American president, whoever it turns out to be, frankly won’t give a damn. That is the special relationship between these two countries.”
Stratfor* on the fundamentals of the U.S.-France relationship, how that relationship might be affected by France’s new Sarkoziness, and why it doesn’t matter:
French President Nicholas Sarkozy and U.S. President George W. Bush met in Kennebunkport, Maine, over the weekend amid media speculation as to the whereabouts of Sarkozy’s wife, Cecilia, who had missed a lunch with first lady Laura Bush. Though a fascinating subject in its own right, the real issue is what the relationship between the United States and France will be under the new president, who is widely said to be more pro-American than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.
… Since World War II, France has viewed the United States as challenging its sovereignty. The tension between Charles de Gaulle and Franklin Roosevelt had little to do with personality; it had everything to do with the fact that de Gaulle feared that the outcome of World War II would be not only a diminished France, but a France that was merely a vassal state in the American sphere of influence. Every step that de Gaulle took during the war was designed to assert French sovereignty. The Americans, viewing themselves as France’s benefactors and liberators, saw this as monumental ingratitude. De Gaulle was much less concerned with the niceties of allied relationships and his role representing an occupied country than he was with asserting the claim that the French state continued to exist in spite of that occupation. However presumptuous and preposterous it might appear … de Gaulle was resisting the absolute U.S. domination of France.
When De Gaulle resumed his presidency in the 1950s, he resumed his singular focus on maintaining France as not only a sovereign power, but as a significant player in the international system. He took France out of the military committee of NATO not because he was not prepared to resist a Soviet invasion as an ally, but because he saw the committee as dominated by the United States and its rules as relieving France of its sovereign right to choose when to go to war. Similarly, de Gaulle insisted on a French nuclear force so that if the Soviets invaded, the question of the use of nuclear weapons would not simply rest in the hands of the United States — the Soviets would have to take France into account as well.
… The hostility to the Iraq war followed logically from the traditional Gaullist position on the United States. Chirac used the war as an opportunity to try to create a common European foreign policy to counter American power. He failed because of the fact that, among other reasons, much of Europe is more cautious about France than it is about the United States. For that is the problem of French foreign policy. In order to counterbalance the United States, France needs a united Europe. But other European powers see a united Europe as a French vehicle to dominate them.
Chirac’s foreign policy turned into a shambles, as did Bush’s. The question is whether the fundamentals of Franco-American relations have changed in the wake of these shambles. Sarkozy certainly appears to be less interested in European integration than Chirac, which inevitably reduces the chance that France will have the weight to counterweigh the United States. At the same time, Sarkozy is a French president and he is committed to French sovereignty and freedom of action. The next U.S. president — be it Hillary Clinton, John McCain or anyone else — will be pursuing American prerogatives as the world’s leading power.
The French need for sovereignty and maneuverability is hardwired into a country that lost them a little more than a half-century before … France’s relationship to the United States is an urgent matter for France. There are too many French interests that can be blocked by the United States. On the other hand, France is not an important issue to the United States. France is at most an irritant and at the least irrelevant.
… Bush and Sarkozy may or may not like each other, but they represent two countries that have difficulty even fathoming the other’s concern. Sarkozy may be young, modern, vibrant and new, but in the end he is still French; and the American president, whoever it turns out to be, frankly won’t give a damn. That is the special relationship between these two countries.
I wouldn’t bet on that latter point. We’re two and a half years past an election in which the Democratic candidate’s foreign policy platform was based largely on sucking up to France as a magical resolution to all foreign entanglements.
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Topics: France
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:10 am on Wednesday, August 15, 2007
2 Responses to “French Fried”
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August 15th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Sarkozy’s election has given France’s self -proclaimed intellectual élite apoplexy.
Sarkozy ran on ideas like France becoming more competitive, a longer (less “socialistic”) work week, better control in the (still) potentially volatile regions, (particularly suburbs of large cities) & better relations with the United States.
Harper in Canada and Merkel in Germany are also more US friendly than their predecessors.
The Left in France cannot be happy over Nicolas schmoozing with the anti-Christ, Boosh, in Maine last weekend.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I’m not overly thrilled with Stratfor’s analysis. In the first place I don’t think that Bush’s policy is a failure. As a member of the military during Vietnam and having had a father who was in the Marine Corps during WWII and Korea I’m aware that nothing goes as planned, especially when you have an enemy who is not stupid and trying to do the same thing that you are. As has been said, the winner is the leader who makes the fewest mistakes. It always has been that way.
Reading Stratfor is like “Damning with faint praise.”