You are in:
- Archives » 2007 » June 2007
Sarkozy And Israel
In a speech to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Armand Laferrere said that Nicolas Sarkozy's Presidency will represent a strong change for the better for French foreign policy, particularly where Israel is concerned.
EURSOC has the full text: Click more to read this fascinating insight into the Sarkozy team's thinking on the Middle East and France's place in the world.
Thank you for your kind introduction. It is a privilege for me to speak here today. I hope my Neo-Conservative accent won’t be too much of a strain.
You were kind enough to mention my current position in the energy industry. Of course, I do not speak here as a representative of any company or industry.
I speak as a Frenchman who was always convinced that a strong alliance with the United States and support for Israel are not only geo-political necessities, but moral imperatives as well. I also speak as a former advisor to the current President, and a personal friend of several members of the new ruling team. Because I know these people, not just because of the of the election result, I am more optimistic about my country than I ever was.
However, this election does change one very important thing: I can’t even begin to tell you how good it feels to know today that I speak for a majority of the French people. A considerable majority – in a traditionally 50/50 country – elected President Sarkozy on May 6, with a historically high turnout of 86%. If polls are to be believed, an even greater majority is about to give him an even stronger mandate in next week’s general election. The Presidential party is now leading by up to 15 points – which could translate into gaining up to three quarters of the seats in Parliament.
Some of my friends are standing in these elections. The sentence they hear most often from voters is, “finally things are going to change”. Voters are not about to vote for the President’s party out of loyalty – loyalty to leaders is not exactly the French way anyway. They will vote because they want change.
The President campaigned as a radical reformer of the main weaknesses in the French social compact. The French economy is handicapped by insufficient productive activity and the high price of labor. Therefore, he promised both to put people back to work – by exonerating from taxation hours worked above the theoretical limit of 35 hours – and to make recruitment simpler by replacing the jungle of French labor laws with a single kind of work contract. Public-sector unions have blocked reforms before; therefore, he promised to make it mandatory to keep a minimum level of public services even in the case of a strike. France has a two-tier higher education system, where first-rate specialized schools coexist with impoverished universities, crumbling under student applications and prevented by law from taking bold management decisions to improve their lot: therefore, the President promised to finally give universities the power to run themselves and apply for external funds on top of their taxpayer-funded base.
Although this program was more radical than that of any other elected president, the French people may not entirely believe yet that it will be implemented. President Chirac, five years ago, had already promised some parts of it – especially the minimum level of public services – only to back away after he was elected. This is why next week’s huge majority, if it materializes, may not be caused by an excess of trust but rather by lingering doubt. The message will be: do not look for any excuses not to do what you promised. We are giving you huge powers and the largest popular mandate ever. Now, deliver.
I have talked about domestic issues – for will be the largest driver of the Sarkozy presidency. In foreign policy, I also believe that this election will create significant change; but the impact may be felt more gradually, and in a much more subtle way than that of domestic reforms.
This is not, after all, a field where major revolutions tend to happen from one day to the next. Foreign policy is, and will remain, about the defense of national interests, and there is no way that the national interests of France will suddenly become different.
On the one hand, things were never quite as bas as they seemed between our two countries. Since your organization is dedicated to national security, I do not need to remind you that even at the worst times of the French-US dispute in 2003, France was sharing intelligence with the US on a daily basis in the fight against terrorism. US movies and music never ceased to be popular with the French public. All French parents dream that their children go study in the US for a few years.
On the other hand, there are fields where we will still disagree after this election. Although both countries are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we do not agree on how to get there. There are places in the world where we are competing for influence, and where our industries – armament and oil industries for instance – legitimately fight for turf.
It is also true that changing the leader does not mean changing the bureaucracy. Although there are many respectable exceptions, it is an open secret that a large part of the French Foreign Affairs bureaucracy does not have a pro-American, or a pro-Israeli culture. These people will remain in place – and as disciplined and obedient as they may be, they are only human and cannot change their culture suddenly.
And yet, I do believe that a slow, groundswell change in foreign policy could take place following Nicolas Sarkozy’s election.
The first reason for this is that the French institutions give almost absolute power to the President in foreign policy. Therefore, one man’s instincts and inclinations have a huge impact on the Nation’s policy. And Sarkozy’s instincts and inclinations make him the best friend that the US and Israel have had in a French leader since the 1950s.
This is a man whose Hungarian father came to France fleeing communism – and who therefore knows in his own flesh the value of freedom and the need for a free Europe. This is a Catholic Frenchman who was, by his own account, deeply attached as a child to his maternal grandfather, a Jew from Thessaloniki.
Even more important, this truly is a man of courage. He has physical courage: he proved it 14 years ago when a madman with a suicide belt, demanding money, made hostages of kindergarten children in Sarkozy’s town near Paris. Sarkozy – then a 38-year old budget minister – went repeatedly to the school, risking his own life against the advice of the interior minister, negotiating the freedom of one child or two each time he left the site. Even more significant than this act of courage was the fact that he has never referred to it in public since then, in spite of the political advantages that he could have gained.
But Sarkozy also has moral courage, of the kind that allows him to ignore the pressure of political correctness and the smirks of the self-anointed elites. As it happens, a large part of France’s vocal elites – certainly a majority of the national press – is instinctively hostile to the United States and Israel. Their constant sniping has intimidated many politicians – and I could quote some of them whose thinking is sound in private, but who never dared to come out.
Not Sarkozy. In 2004, as a press campaign was trying to undermine him by describing him as an American stooge, he reacted by speaking in front of the American Jewish Committee and saying how proud he was to have been dubbed “Sarkozy the American”. During the last campaign, he was not afraid of revealing that his visit to Yad Vashem had changed him forever.
The other reason why I believe that we will see a strong change for the better in France’s foreign policy is Sarkozy’s insistence on rebuilding French pride. There is now a government minister – who also happens to be the President’s oldest and closest personal friend – in charge of immigration and national identity. Oh, how the anointed squeaked. I believe, however, that this move can turn out to be one of the most positive factors in re-building a positive relationship between France, the United States and Israel.
This is because history shows that irrational hatreds tend to develop as a pathological consequence of low group self-esteem. Anti-Semitism, the oldest, vilest and most irrational hatred of them all, definitely seems linked with self-hatred and group-suicidal tendencies. Bismarck’s Germany, proud and successful and finally united, opened up opportunities for Jews; a defeated and humiliated Germany then turned against the Jewish people, compulsively destroying itself in morbid dreams come true while it was exterminating Europe’s Jews. Similarly, brilliant Arabic civilizations of the past engaged with Jews, while a large part of the Arab world today seems to have turned against the Jews as part of a massive program of rabid cultural self-destruction.
In Europe in the last few years, there was a real rise of Anti-Semitism – although not, by any standard, comparable to the two tragedies that I just mentioned. It is my belief that this rise was correlated with a loss of national pride in European countries. It is striking, for instance, that the United Kingdom – which after all, cannot be accused of having had an anti-American foreign policy recently – has recently experienced an unexpected, and historically unprecedented increase in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feelings. In foreign affairs and in war, Tony Blair was a great American ally. But his obvious discomfort with traditional British identity may have had unexpected consequences, and I believe – although I cannot prove it – that the recent rise in anti-Semitism in Britain is one of them.
This is why I am comforted by the fact that the new French President wants to bring back French history, French identity and French pride in schools and in political discourse. This is in stark contrast with the past few years, where a large part of the French elites seemed to have abandoned all dreams of greatness for the future and were feverishly looking for opportunities to apologize for the past. A country that takes pride in herself – a country that hopes to achieve great things and has trust in her leaders – does not turn against her natural friends.
Now, some of you may doubt that I talk for all of France. It is true that I may not be a perfectly typical Frenchman: gratitude for the United States was imprinted in my bones a quarter of a century before I was born, when in June 1944, my grandfather escaped from a train en route to Dachau thanks to US Air Force bombardment of the tracks. As a result, he will soon reach the grand old age of 90 instead of being butchered in his youth like so many of his comrades-in-arms. As another result, I am here today, and I want to take this opportunity to personally thank the members of the United States military in this audience. Do not believe that your good works will ever be forgotten – be it in France, in Afghanistan or in Iraq.
Not all Frenchmen, all course, are privileged to have such a family background, but I am not alone either. During the painful recent years of strident anti-Americanism, I always found company and understanding, sometimes from unexpected quarters. Therefore, be not too quick in despairing of the nations. As long as people have sufficient access to information, however far in their folly the elites may go, there will always be a remnant that sees the truth and roots for justice. And in the words of the prophet Isaiah – Asher Iashuv – this remnant will come back. In France, it is coming back now.
Whatever a malicious minority tries to do – for these people never tire, do they? – they know now that they do not speak for France. And – although I am still pinching myself from disbelief and fearing that I may wake up – recent election results allow me to say that my own cultural bias in favor of America and Israel will be more reflected in French foreign policy than it has been for half a century.
