French Diplomacy: A Two-Headed Sphinx

Abstract

FRENCH DIPLOMACY: _ A TWO-HEADED SPHINX Franz-Olivier Giesbert Oince de Gaulle, America has had a problem with France. Recent French presidents have not been easy partners for Washington. First, they have sought to maintain a special relationship with Moscow; in the Gaullist conception , after all, Europe extends "from the Atlantic to the Urals." The second reason is that these presidents have all been unpredictable and elusive —a question of ambition. Henry Kissinger hits the nail on the head when he writes in the second volume of his memoirs that "the traditional goal of French diplomacy during the Gaullist Fifth Republic" was to "give at least the impression that France had shaped events, whatever they were." Things can go well only if the United States allows Paris to play the leading role. If François Mitterrand's accession to power signaled a break on the economic front, it has changed practically nothing in the diplomatic arena. The chief of state has slipped easily into the robes of presidents de Gaulle, Pompidou, and Giscard d'Estaing. Americans who had tagged Mitterrand as the apostle of union on the Left and who feared a turn toward the Soviet Union were wrong. But those who foresaw a very pro-American turn were also wrong. After practically a year of Mitterrand's diplomacy, a number ofbroad lines are emerging, which enable us to understand better what Raymond Aron has called "the Socialist Sphinx." The socialist party (PS) has spoken with two voices for quite some time. On the one hand, in a 380-page long-range plan adopted by party Franz-Olivier Giesbert is Political Editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly. His biography of François Mitterrand won the Prix Aujourd'hui for the best political book of 1977. This article was translated by Steven B. Kennedy, who received his M.A. in International Relations from Yale University that same year. 93 94 SAIS REVIEW leaders in 1980, the party played its anti-American card. Simultaneously defending the principle of France's membership in the Atlantic Alliance, the plan exalts French-Soviet friendship, asserting that "our security and European peace hinge on Moscow." In this view, the United States, and not the U.S.S.R., is imperialist. On the other hand, during the 1981 presidential campaign Mitterrand reproached Valéry Giscard d'Estaing for his concessions to the Soviet Union, and particularly for his Warsaw meeting with Leonid Brezhnev following the Red Army's invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover , several months after his election Mitterrand took a clear stand in favor of the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe—a decision adopted by nato in 1979—whereas his predecessor had been consistently evasive on this question. Need one speak further of a split personality? Like Jimmy Carter, Mitterrand has never been troubled by the confrontations amongst his advisors. Cohabiting the Elysée are economist Jacques Attali, an ardent supporter of Israel, and the pro-Palestinian, Régis Debray (who was with Ché Guevara in Bolivia). Around the Council of Ministers' table each Wednesday one finds all sorts: Atlanticists like André Chandernagor , minister of European affairs; neutralists like Jean-Pierre Chevènement , minister of research and technology; Third Worlders likeJean-Pierre Cot, minister of cooperation and development; and Soviet-leaning Communists like Charles Fiterman, minister of transportation. They talk . . . and Mitterrand decides. To date this has produced diplomacy that is often flamboyant , sometimes windy, and imbued with several contradictions. It is a mixture of audacity and realpolitik that is not so far from Giscardism. Why this continuity? Because France does not enjoy a great deal of room to maneuver. Economically, these are serious times, if not yet desperate. There are more than two million unemployed in the country. The trade deficit has tripled in eight years. This calls for a certain prudence, and President Mitterrand has shown that. Following a period ofgrand statements in defense of human rights and in condemnation of arms merchants, Mitterrand has returned to the stock-in-trade of "Giscard, Inc.," in which France may sell arms to Ethiopia for use in crushing the Eritrean national liberation movement, which is still supported by the ps in its official...