|
Commentary: French Should Remember Their Own Military Conquests
Weekend Edition Saturday: March 1, 2003
 Scott Simon Essay: France's Iraq Stance
SCOTT SIMON, host:
My wife and I flew to Paris on some family business early this week, just in time to see French TV pictures of Americans in a bar beating their chests and pouring French wine down the drain. Alors! All to demonstrate their distaste for the French rallying in opposition in the United Nations to a US-led invasion of Iraq. My wife and I made our own principled demonstration by buying a bottle of French wine and pouring it out slowly, into a couple of glasses, and draining it, down our throats.
Nations, like people, tend to act in their own self-interest. From the French point of view, opposition to toppling Saddam Hussein by force can seem utterly obvious. France is Iraq's largest trading partner. France is miles closer to that part of the world in which the war would take place, and has a sizeable Muslim population of its own. Perhaps for those reasons and more, France is that much more anxious about inflaming public opinion in many Arab states.
Opinion polls show that 80 percent of the French public support President Chirac's campaign to avoid war. In a democracy, it's hard to argue that any policy supported by 80 percent of the people isn't what the government has to do.
But the view in France can also be more complicated. Half of President Chirac's own majority in the National Assembly are urging him to abstain, but not actually cast a veto, against the US and Britain in the Security Council. Some of that view is emotional, an instinct to support those nations who bore the brunt of freeing France during World War II. One deputy says, `We should not tear apart this friendship to save a tyrant.'
But the feeling is also practical. Despite recent jokes about the French being white-flag-waving pantywaists, France is actually among the most pugnacious nations in the world. It often sends off soldiers to change regimes in smaller states, especially former colonial possessions in Africa. French soldiers are on just such a mission today in the Ivory Coast. Now the French don't ask permission from the UN Security Council before they fly off to rearrange the furniture in some foreign capital. Some French politicians fear that holding out for a UN vote on pre-emptive action in Iraq could establish a precedent that would interfere with France's own campaigns abroad.
US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has been widely chided in France for referring to the country as part of Old Europe, but President Chirac may have committed his own gaffe when he called Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic `infantile' for opposing the French position on Iraq. `If they want to diminish their chances of joining the European Union,' he said, `they could not have found a better way.'
Does that kind of crusty self-possession sound familiar to Americans? The US and Britain didn't sacrifice to free France in 1944 just to make it a dumb, silent client state, but to make it once again France: magnificent, impertinent, irritating and free.
SOUNDBITE OF SONG
Ms. EDITH PIAF: (Singing in French)
SIMON: The Tiny Sparrow, as Piaf was known, at 18 minutes past the hour.
Copyright ©2003 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR's Permissions Coordinator at (202) 513-2000.
This transcript was created by a contractor for NPR, and NPR has not verified its accuracy. For all NPR programs, the broadcast audio should be considered the authoritative
version.
|
