Barnier Sugar-Coating France's Position

Roger Cohen had two interviews in the International Herald Tribune on Monday.

The first was an interview with France's foreign minister:

Michel Barnier … is calling for a "new relationship" with the United States and says its first test will be the capacity of President George W. Bush and his European allies to advance a Middle East peace within the next six months.

"For me, President Bush has a historic responsibility," Barnier said in an interview on Friday.

Notice how the bulk of the responsability is put on others, with little (if any) guilt for bad U.S.-French relations admitted on the French side. If/when a failure arises, the French can say, "see, we told you, we knew it all along…"

This sugar-coating of the French position is also how Barnier characterizes what some call France's betrayal of Uncle Sam:

The EU should be recognized as a steadfast "ally of the Americans," he said, adding: "An alliance does not mean allegiance. It should mean partnership."

He was asked if an alliance meant allegiance at moments of crisis like the Iraq war. "It is never allegiance," Barnier said, his pale blue eyes assuming a steely hue. "An alliance is a partnership based on mutual respect."

All fine words and sentiments worthy of respect. The only problem, as I have said before, is that they are used arbitrarily or, rather, in an entirely self-serving way.

Thus, the French never make these "allegiance" comments (or those concerning "what should only be interpreted as friendly constructive criticism") regarding countries such as China, Vietnam, Russia, (Saddam Hussein's) Iraq, etc. Conversely, they do not regard with a respectful eye other nations' breaking of their "allegiance" to (or alliance with) with France. In those cases, they lose their "mutual respect" for the UK ("the poodle"), Spain ("Bush's small messenger"), and the Eastern countries (who "are not very polite and would have done better to keep quiet")…

Update: Following the historic Iraq election, President Ghazi al-Yawer derides one of the central tenets of French foreign policy as "complete nonsense"…