Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking the most radical shift in French foreign policy since the founding of the Fifth Republic, writes Hassan Nafaa* French foreign policy has been relatively stable since de Gaulle laid down its general precepts at the beginning of the Fifth Republic. Continuity has prevailed over change even when non-Gaullists were in power, regardless of whether they were from the right (Giscard d'Estaing) or from the socialist left (François Mitterrand). But today, just over 100 days into the term of Nicolas Sarkozy, French foreign policy has struck out on an entirely new and unfamiliar course. The irony is that this president, who was elected on 15 May, was born and bred in Gaullist ranks. The foreign policy departure suggests that France is undergoing an anti-Gaullist coup spearheaded from within the Gaullist camp. As for the causes, they are many. Some are connected with Sarkozy's personality and beliefs, others with more concrete factors related to developments in France, Europe and the world. Sarkozy appears to be a man whose ambitions know no bounds. Since coming to power, the short, thin, haughtily confident president who talks endlessly of the need for change has behaved as though he were a latter day Bonaparte, divinely ordained to restore France to a former glory. He has emerged as France is facing a range of new and disturbing challenges. Within the last two years political and social unrest has reached such tumultuous levels that the army has had to be called out and a state of emergency imposed. Regionally, the project for a united Europe has floundered on the failed ratification of a single European constitution, at the same time as the French, like others around the world, have been infected by mounting fears of the fallout from the so-called war on terrorism which threatens to erupt into a fully-fledged clash of civilisations. Sarkozy took stock of two important considerations: the French people's need for change and the readiness of others to accept this change if there was someone dynamic enough to lead it. Seeing himself as just the man for the job, he pounded at the door of the Elysée, intoning the magic word "change" until it opened before him. Then he took his comfortable majority of 53 per cent of the vote as a mandate to forge ahead with the transformation with himself at the command. From his electoral platform, his statements during and after the campaign, and his actions since becoming president, Sarkozy is set on implementing an ambitious vision. He wants to thoroughly overhaul economic policies and structures to make them more efficient and effective. His vision in this regard is inspired by the model of Anglo Saxon economic liberalism. He is also determined to bolt the doors to illegal migrants, allowing only those who meet France's economic and technological needs into the country. Immigrant communities in France are to be rehabilitated and indoctrinated so as to conform with the prevailing value systems in French society, the general motto being love it or leave it. At a regional level, Sarkozy is bent on introducing sweeping structural and policy changes into the EU. He believes that the EU must halt its expansion in order to preserve its character and identity as a Christian club. He has called for a restructured Euro-Med partnership, primarily in order to absorb and contain Turkish ambitions for EU membership. He also plans to push for an overhaul of the sluggish EU bureaucracy so as to erect a strong and powerful Europe, led by a single president and prime minister. Towards this end he envisions a simplified treaty requiring the ratification of the EU parliament without having to pass through a referendum. Predictably, he sees France as best qualified to lead a refurbished Europe politically and militarily, and intends to equip his country for this role, by seeking to breathe new life in the long moribund Franco-German engine. Internationally, Sarkozy aspires to a world order in which France occupies a unique position. Towards this end he is working to eliminate the accumulated residue of ill-feeling between France and the US with an eye towards building a permanent strategic alliance between the two countries. He plans to rehabilitate France's place and stature in NATO's military structures and, simultaneously, to promote Europe's autonomous defence capability. He hopes to promote dynamic and effective inter-European and European-American coordination in combating terrorism, illegal immigration, environmental pollution and transcontinental epidemics. Sarkozy wants to build a strong France, a strong Europe and a strong global order. He believes France can't be strong until it dispatches with the ills of illegal immigration and socialist thought; Europe can't be strong until it sheds its cumbersome red tape, shakes off Turkey and is led by France in coordination with Germany; and the world order can't be strong without Franco-American harmony and a powerful NATO. It is difficult to fully comprehend the significance of this vision without taking a look at Sarkozy's personal background. He is the scion of a family that hailed from Hungary, where it ranked among the nobility. In the 17th century Emperor Ferdinand II knighted one of his forefathers in reward for his services in the war against Ottoman Turkey. After the Red Army liberated Hungary from the Nazis in 1944, established a communist government and confiscated his property, Sarkozy père fled and finally settled in France where he married the daughter of a Jewish surgeon who had converted to Catholicism. Sarkozy junior, baptised as a Catholic, was raised and educated in Paris, obtaining his licentiate in business law from Nanterre University. After a period of practicing law he was drawn into politics where his star quickly soared. Sarkozy kept his eye on the presidency despite President Chirac's lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy. With the former French president favouring de Villepin, Sarkozy realised that his only chance for winning would be to rally behind him the segment of the French right that has long backed the ultraconservative and ultra-xenophobic le Pen, and to secure the support of French Jews and Jewish opinion abroad. He believed the fastest route towards these ends would be to display an open contempt for Arabs and Muslims and to flatter the US and Israel. He certainly went about this with unrestrained zeal. He lashed out at the leaders of the uprisings in the poorer urban areas as "racaille", fully aware that the majority of the population of these quarters comprised Arab and African Muslims. As interior minister he approved measures that gravely offended against Arab and Muslim employees at Charles de Gaulle airport on the entirely fictitious grounds that they were members of Al-Qaeda. During a visit to the US less than a year after Washington launched its attack against Iraq he voiced his admiration for the American way of getting business done. He also met Bush, who was the first to congratulate him following his election as president. He campaigned ardently for harsh penalties against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and branded Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist organisations. For these and other stances he was lauded by Zionist organisations in France and abroad. Netanyahu hailed his election victory as a "gift from God to the Jewish people". But Sarkozy's stances are not merely campaign postures; they are fully consistent with his family and class background. They reflect his beliefs and designs. In view of the foregoing, and in light of the French foreign minister's recent statements on Iran's nuclear programme which express a position more extreme than even that of the US and Israel, the Arab and Islamic worlds can only prepare for the worst. And they must now come to terms with the fact that the gap that had always separated US and French foreign policy towards the region and that had given them a margin of manoeuvrability has dwindled to the point of invisibility. To be fair, the change taking place in French policy towards the Middle East did not arise overnight. It had its origins in the Chirac era: since the American occupation of IraqFrance has bent over backwards to appease Washington and make up for wielding its veto in the Security Council in order to block a resolution that would have legitimised America's unprovoked aggression. Washington, for its part, was determined to exact the most it could. The French-American courtship played itself out in Lebanon and led to Security Council Resolution 1559, which was used as an instrument to force Syria to withdraw from Lebanon preparatory to a campaign to disarm Hizbullah and the Palestinian factions. This Franco-American engineering paved the way to the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri and the whole chain of assassinations and other crimes that propelled Lebanon to the brink of another civil war. One could not help but be struck by the curious fact that Chirac had to meet with his good friend Saad Al-Hariri before leaving office when Sarkozy, the new master of Elysée, was on hand. Yet it is difficult to perceive Sarkozy's foreign policy as an extension of Chirac's. Indeed, Lebanon is likely to prove the exception, perhaps because of Chirac's adamant opposition to President Bashar Al-Assad's stance over the renewal of the term of current Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and/or because of the personal friendship between Chirac and the late Al-Hariri. Apart from the question of Lebanon, France and the US stood apart on most other Middle East issues, notably the Palestinian cause and the Iranian nuclear programme. The Sarkozy government's stances on Iran not only indicate that this is no longer the case but that France is readying itself for a more active and tougher role, perhaps one reminiscent of the part it played in the 1956 Suez crisis. There remain two important points. The first is that the Franco-American alliance, at this particular phase in the development of the global order, is unlikely to work for international peace and stability and very likely to hasten the clash of civilizations. The second is that France had, and continued, to benefit from the Middle East policy set in motion by de Gaulle. But the Arabs' current weakness has lured everyone with the inclination to offend and abuse them to do so, confident that the Arabs will not dare to respond. This is the real tragedy. * The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.
