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The Twilight Zone
In what will almost certainly be their last official face-to-face meeting, the leaders of France and Britain held a summit in Paris. In contrast to their previous meetings, Friday's tete-a-tete was (apparently) a good-natured affair, where they shared their "passion for Africa."
According to the BBC, French president Jacques Chirac and British prime minister Tony Blair, say they will set up a 'joint nuclear forum'. What this means in plain language is that two key European nations will share nuclear expertise, bringing together, one hopes, ministers, businesses and industry players.
In a joint statement following talks, the two semi-friends said: "We have agreed to explore in the short term and further develop the opportunities of working together in the civil nuclear field." More precisely, it could mean that French companies build the nuclear power stations that Blair is planning to replace its creaky old reactors - though any final decision may need to wait until both men are enjoying their retirement.
The mood in Paris could not have been more different than last June, when the two nearly has-beens disagreed over the EU budget, especially farming subsidies and the Britishs rebate. Tony Blair, at that point, was left holding a news conference on his own. 2005's bust-up in Luxembourg was said to be the most serious in the couple's explosive relationship to date.
EURSOC has followed the ups and downs of Chirac and Blair's partnership with delight. Who could forget Blair's delight when he was invited to join Chirac and his "Gruesome Twosome" sidekick Gerhard Schröder to a "Big Three" meeting in Berlin, only to have Chirac announce to newspapers that of course, the big European decisions would continue to be taken by France and Germany?
In recent years, Chirac fumed when Blair's decision to call a referendum on the EU constitution forced France to promise one too - which Chirac promptly lost. Before the Iraq War, Chirac warned Blair that he might find it difficult to "look his son Leo in the face" if he "unleashed war" in Iraq. A year before that, Chirac stormed out of a meeting on Common Agricultural Policy funding complaining that Blair had been "badly brought up" and that "no-one had ever spoken to (him) like that before."
Even times when the men haven't shared a stage, sparks have flown. Blair's "Big Speech" to the European Parliament called for more liberalisation. In the UK and amongst pro-reform nations, protectionism, subsidy, reactionary and nationalistic approaches to economics and resistance to change all come under the banner "France" - so his speech was, in part, an attack on French values.
Chirac described liberalism as a threat equal to that posed by communism. Weeks later, the French president joked that Britain's terrible food reflected the untrustworthiness of the nation's people. Some commentators reckoned that the president's remarks were instrumental in swinging the vote of the Olympic panel against Paris, and London was promptly awarded the Olympic Games for 2012 the following day.
Worse for Chirac, the French media has continually contrasted British economic success with France's stagnation. Even the fact that France's overwhelmingly left-leaning media would refuse to countenance British-style economic reform (and the additional fact that Britain's performance recently hasn't been as marvellous as Blair would like us to believe) hasn't stopped French hacks from using the Brits as a stick to beat their president. One newspaper even published a cartoon of Blair as a leather-clad madam walking a gimp-masked Chirac on a leash.
Such er, difficulties in the past are over, they tell us. A British official whispers that Blair has an "S&M" relationship with Chirac (funny, that): Despite Chirac's often abominable behaviour, Blair keeps coming back to him. Perhaps Blair believes Chirac's antics make him look good in comparison. Chirac, for his part, is said to be "genuinely fond" of Blair.
Both men have much in common, at least for now. They're both seen as lame ducks. Chirac's retirement is fixed for April 2007 - unless, by some miracle, he finds a way to run for the presidency again, though apparently only 3 percent of French citizens would support him. Blair is due to go before the next general election, and while he would dearly love to outlast his old rival, his party would like him to exit in September.
They're plagued by difficulties too: Blair on Iraq, of course, but also falling ratings for his Labour Party, a troublesome and impatient heir, a refusal on the part of his backbenchers to support the PM's liberal proposals for health and education. As for Chirac, well, have you been paying attention?
While one couldn't exactly say the men are "enjoying" the twilight of their careers, their shared sense of fin-de-siecle brought them closer. "All political careers end in failure," remarked British MP Enoch Powell. No doubt the two will have plenty of time to reflect ruefully on that maxim.
