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France Left Attacks NATO
The government of Nicolas Sarkozy, led by Prime Minister François Fillon, brushed aside a Socialist-Green-Far Left attempt to pass a vote of censure in protest against plans to deploy 700 French troops to Afghanistan and potentially rejoin NATO next year.
That the vote was defeated was inevitable; what is interesting, however, is the stance taken on the issue by France's supposedly moderate "opposition", François Hollande and Ségolène Royal's Socialist Party.
Fillon responded well to what he described as the left's "gut anti-Americanism", noting that it was a left wing PM, Lionel Jospin, who sent French troops to Afghanistan in the first place. "Should we tell the Afghan people that we will leave now the going gets tough?" he asked.
It is not really a surprise to see the centre left join forces with the Greens and assorted Communists; after all, the PS has been criticised as the last unreformed socialist party in Europe. The language, however, is a throwback to another era. Socialists warned of an "Atlanticist drift" which risked France becoming "Washington's poodle."
This is all very 2003. And besides, don't the French believe that they won the Iraq argument?
Here's the Guardian:
"François Hollande, the Socialist leader, said Sarkozy decided to send military reinforcements to Afghanistan "under pressure from the Americans" and that France risked losing its independence on the world stage. Other opposition politicians have warned that France's ability to stand apart, as demonstrated by its opposition to the Iraq war in 2003, would be lost for ever."
And the Independent:
"The Socialist Party's first secretary, François Hollande, leading the charge in a two-hour debate, said the "whole of Europe will find itself aligned with the United States" if France "abandoned its right to make autonomous decisions".
"He added: "This turning towards Nato is not only against [France's] interests but operates against the stability of the world.""
France's ability to stand apart "lost forever?" "The whole of Europe... aligned with the US?" What nonsense: But it does shed some light on what France's military policy might be if the Socialists ever returned to power. Sarkozy has already pushed for a the development of an EU army - the Socialists are unlikely to reverse this policy, but will be eager to distance it further from NATO than the current President hopes. The Socialist position is not only anti-US, but anti-NATO, which Hollande claims threatens the stability of the world? It's also contradictory. After all, France's PS, as a member of the Socialist bloc in the European Parliament, supports greater EU integration as a means of amplifying the influence of individual states. Yet the PS leader proclaims that France must have its "independence on the world stage?"
There is soon to be a different President in the US - well before any changes in Paris. Whoever wins, he or she is likely to be friendlier towards France than the current incumbent of the White House. Throughout the 2003 Iraq hysteria, European leftists argued that they were not anti-American, just anti-Bush. A new President will test that, but Hollande's antics - and remember, he's on the moderate fringes of his party - don't look promising.
