President Chirac: bad for Europe, good for the US

A trick of the light in a photograph in a French newspaper the other day made President Chirac appear to have a comically large nose. The presidential hooter is substantial but it does not have truly De Gaulle-like dimensions. For many years it has seemed inevitable that this would also be history's judgement on Mr Chirac's interminable career (He will be 70 next month).

Will that judgement now have to be revised? A year ago Mr Chirac was written off as an amiable and ageing rogue, a man beset by financial scandals and his own frequent changes of direction. Since his triumph in the presidential elections in the spring, he seems to have been born again, at least as a diplomatic strategist.

He has held the line against the US hawks' determination to blow up simultaneously Iraq and the UN. He has halted talk of early EU farm policy reform by holding up a hand grenade labelled "Mrs Thatcher's money back" and threatening to take the pin out. On a recent swing through the Middle East, he was hailed, in the Arab world, as a great statesman and a man of peace. The view of US right-wingers, and their faithful echoes in Britain, is less flattering. There is no new Chirac, they say, just the same old unprincipled opportunist.

France is protecting Iraq, they say, because it hopes to have the first commercial pickings when sanctions are lifted. In any case, there is a history of collusion between Mr Chirac and Saddam that goes back to the 1970s. On EU financing, the British and other governments complain that Mr Chirac cynically risked deadlock in negotiations last week on enlargement to protect France's unjustifiably rich gains from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

On this, at least, the critics are right. There was nothing statesmanlike about President Chirac's position on Europe last week . He defended a sectional and short-sighted position which is against the long-term interests of Europe, France and even the majority of French farmers. But there was nothing statesmanlike about the position of Tony Blair and other EU leaders either. The Brussels summit failed to tackle any of the real problems of how to finance the EU's enlargement to 25 nations. Britain was preoccupied by its rebate; Germany by its large net payments to the EU; and Mr Chirac by the demands of French farmers. Or rather some French farmers.

It would have been to France's benefit, and to the benefit of most French farmers, if Mr Chirac had allowed an orderly and creative discussion of farm policy reform. The deal made in Brussels seems to guarantee generous CAP spending up to 2013, but French farmers are still going to have to give up a large part of their present subsidies to farmers from the east. The way forward must be the targeted subsidies proposed by Brussels for smaller, less intensive farms. Mr Chirac has, however, always walked in the furrow of the largest, wealthiest and most intensive French farmers.

In his long career, Mr Chirac has been pro-Europe and anti-Europe but he has never been an instinctive, or thinking, European. The committee or "convention" studying the future institutional shape of the EU has considered 200 written proposals from governments and individuals. How many have come from Mr Chirac or the French government? Not one.

On America, Iraq and the UN, President Chirac has adopted a subtler position, which he has defended with intelligence and courage. The gap between the French and British positions, and even between the French and the "moderate" wing of the Bush administration, has been narrower than it has suited everyone (especially the French) to pretend.

The terms originally demanded by Washington – a Security Council resolution publicly humiliating Iraq and giving the US carte blanche to declare war without further discussion – could never have been agreed by the Russians and Chinese and a majority of Security Council members. The alternative offered by France – tough conditions for the return of weapons inspectors and a second Security Council resolution on armed action if Iraq breaks the new rules – has now been accepted, in theory, by Washington.

But the French complain that the US is trying to make the language of the first resolution so warlike that a second resolution will not, in fact, be needed. A deal is still possible this week. The US would have to shift its position considerably. France has already done so.

Mr Chirac has said that France would take part in any armed action against Iraq sanctioned by the UN. This would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago, Mr Chirac's principal obsession since the start of the Iraqi crisis has not been to save Saddam but to save the UN. If the UN is reduced to a meaningless sideshow, France's place as a permanent member of the Security Council, becomes worthless. Mr Chirac has no instinctive feel for Europe, but he does care greatly about France's position and prestige in the world. On Iraq and the UN, the old man has played his cards, constructively and well.

Chirac's self-appointed role as America's plain-speaking friend and critic has served not only France but also the world. His strategic blindness on the future of the EU has served neither France nor Europe.

IndyParis@compuserve.com