France stands up againt Bush

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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French President Jacques Chirac will not allow foreign policy to be dictated by the Bush administration, which is trying to force UN Security Council members to accept its Draft resolution, which will almost certainly mean a military attack against Iraq. Vive La France!

Al-Haram Weekly Cairo](http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/607/inter2.htm) 10 - 16 October 2002

As American pressure mounts, France has announced a “European front” against the use of force against Iraq, writes David Tresilian in Paris

Against a background of growing public opposition in Europe to an American-led war on Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac last week announced a joint Franco-German position designed to resist American pressure to “force” the issue at the United Nations in New York.

**Following a meeting between the French president and the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Paris, the two leaders announced the formation of a “European front” and a common approach to American and British attempts to secure a UN Security Council resolution approving the use of force against Iraq. **

“Above all, we want to see Iraq disarmed of weapons of mass destruction and the unconditional return of UN weapons inspectors to the country.** [However], we are totally opposed to a resolution allowing the automatic use of force,” Chirac said. **Schroeder, re-elected in September to a second term as Germany’s chancellor on a platform of opposition to German involvement in any military action against Iraq, said that he was happy with the “understanding shown by Jacques Chirac on Iraq” and at French policy on the issue, which was “very close to that of Germany”.

**“Bearing in mind France’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council,” Schroeder said, “the country needs some margin for manoeuvre. On this issue, I have the greatest respect for the role played by France.” **

France, the only European country aside from Britain having a seat among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and therefore the right to veto any Council resolution, has repeatedly expressed its reluctance to support an Anglo- American resolution authorising the use of force.

Instead, the country favours a two- step approach, presented by President Chirac. Under this plan there would first be a resolution re-authorising the return of the UN weapons inspectors, followed by a second resolution authorising force at some future date should the Iraqi regime impede the inspectors’ efforts at investigating Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction programme. Writing in this newspaper last week, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin described this two-step approach as making it possible “to maintain the international community’s unity, strengthen the legitimacy of the action and satisfy our demand for efficacy”. France would not “give a blank cheque for military action”, he wrote, refusing “the risk of an intervention which would not take all the demands of collective security fully into account”.

The French and German leaders’ announcement of their countries’ common platform came against a background of large demonstrations in London and Rome against an American-led war on Iraq and in favour of a UN-brokered solution to the crisis. Comments in the French press have been almost uniformly hostile to the American approach to the issue, with broad cross-party support going to Chirac’s two-resolution approach and stressing the possible regional and international consequences of any American action against Iraq.

Le Monde, the most influential French newspaper, has consistently supported the role played by France in the issue, stressing the “common sense” of the French and now joint Franco-German approach, while ridiculing as so much “hot air” statements made by US President George W Bush that in seeking to get the Anglo- American resolution through the Security Council the US is acting with the best interests of the UN in mind, together with those of the international community as a whole.

**Referring to remarks the US president made in his address to the UN General Assembly on 12 September, the paper commented last week that “the US president has never shown himself so concerned by the future of the UN. In other words, the fact that the United States has never lifted its little finger to ensure the implementation of other Security Council resolutions, which today are dead letters, is not of the smallest importance. The only thing that matters in judging the UN is the application of the resolutions on Iraq.” **

President Bush had told delegates at the UN that the organisation faced “a difficult and defining moment” over Iraq, asking whether Security Council resolutions would be “honoured and enforced, or cast aside without consequence. Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?” “The Palestinian representative at the UN has reminded us that for the 16 resolutions on Iraq that have not been implemented, or that have not been fully implemented, there are 28 that are being violated daily in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, from those denouncing the occupation of the Palestinian territories to those forbidding their colonisation,” Le Monde said.

**Earlier, the paper had warned of the possible consequences of any American action against Iraq. Military action against Iraq, Le Monde said in an editorial on 10 September, would lead to the kind of hostility between Europe and the Arab World not seen since the Suez Crisis in 1956. Any “preventive” war against Iraq with the aim of overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein would be “to call into question everything that has been built up in terms of international law since 1945 and since the end of the Cold War,” the paper said. **

If Iraq is an aggressor, “as it was in 1990-1991, the international community has the right to act”. If Iraq is a threat, then “the international community has the right to contain the threat, but it may not use military force to overthrow a regime that one member of that community does not like.” French policy towards the Iraqi regime, like that of other Western countries, has reversed over the past 20 years, going from support to war and condemnation following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. France participated in the international coalition formed to force Iraqi forces from Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

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The froggies wil be in line right behind soon. Just need to ensure that their access to cheap oil is guaranteed. Remember this is the same country that spread wide open for Hitler.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Chaltahai: *
The froggies wil be in line right behind soon. Just need to ensure that their access to cheap oil is guaranteed. Remember this is the same country that spread wide open for Hitler.
[/QUOTE]

I'm afraid but I think sooner or later they'll have to swallow the bait.

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The French will NOT accept the US Draft resolutions.. they have reached agreement with Russia and China to bring two alternative resolutions on Iraq, not surprisingly these are rejected by the Bush Administration simply because they go against the Bush Doctrine which advocates War regardless of world opinion or International Law.

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Vive la France!

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Vive la France!

France signals wish to fall in with America over Iraq

FRANCE may be in the doghouse in Europe for breaking the eurozone “Stability Pact”, and saying that it didn’t much care, into the bargain. But its relationship with the United States is not doing too badly at all.
You might have thought otherwise, of course. Of all the transatlantic relationships between European countries and the United States, that one has brought more public friction in the past few years than any, including Russia.

It is a role that each side has almost appeared to enjoy playing.

Yet there is more in common than it has generally suited each side to let on, not least France’s own exceptionalism, as displayed in its attitude to the eurozone budget rules, which some might call American in its stubborn unilateralism.

This week, in fact, the French Government has moved considerably closer to Washington’s position on Iraq, even if that is not quite how President Bush and his team might put it.

(more)

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*Following lengthy conversations on the telephone between Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State, and Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, the United States has moved slightly closer to the demand by the French for a “two-step” process of authorisation. *

Finally the American's are finally accepting what others have advising them for weeks...

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Utd, dont count the chickens before they hatch.. :stuck_out_tongue: … VIVE LA FRANCE !!!

France Re-Affirms its Independence in Stance Toward Iraq
Lisa Bryant Paris 10 Oct 2002 20:53 UTC

As U.S. President George Bush continues his campaign to persuade members of the United Nations Security Council to adopt a tough new resolution on Iraq, he is finding strong resistance from France. Many French are skeptical about a possible military campaign against Baghdad.

These days, the Iraqi Interests Section in France is located inside the Embassy of Morocco, on a quiet and elegant street in northern Paris. It’s here where French insurance saleswoman, Annie Dutertre, paused one recent afternoon, to talk with a reporter about the possibility of war against Iraq.

Mrs. Dutertre said she believes America’s campaign against Baghdad is more about controlling that country’s extensive oil reserves, than about fears Iraq is acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Mrs. Dutertre added she is sick of America’s clout in the world, and most French feel the same way.

Mrs. Dutertre’s blunt comments hardly reflect the official position of France, one of Washington’s two European allies holding a veto-bearing seat on the United Nations Security Council. The other ally is Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair supports the Bush administration’s demands that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein comply with speedy and intrusive weapons inspections. But a volley of American lobbying has failed to shake deep-seated French resistance to what it considers hasty or unilateral action against Baghdad.

Jacques Chirac
On Wednesday night, President George Bush telephoned French president Jacques Chirac to again try to reconcile the two countries’ positions.** But so far, Mr. Chirac still seems to support a gradual, two-resolution U.N. strategy toward Iraq, and rejects what he calls the automaticity of a military option, if arms inspections fail, a position favored by the United States. **

Mr. Chirac is not the only French politician questioning the Bush administration’s stance toward Iraq. This week, both the French Senate and National Assembly held debates on Iraq. Leftist deputies have called on France to wield its veto power at the U.N., a possibility Mr. Chirac’s ruling Union for the Presidential Majority Party appears to reject. And, in a Tuesday address to the National Assembly, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin assailed the U.S. efforts to remove Saddam Hussein as simplistic.

But in an interview with France’s RTL radio station this week, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stressed he remained optimistic that Paris and Washington would eventually reach an agreement. Mr. de Villepin said it was essential for the international community to maintain a united position on Iraq. At the same time, he also expressed dismay at Washington’s determination to oust Mr. Hussein at all costs.

Philippe Moreau Defarges, an analyst at the French Institute for International Relations, does not believe France will ultimately use its veto power against a U.N. resolution it doesn’t like. “I think France would do everything it can not to use the veto,” he said. “Of course, France knows that Britain, the United States and itself belong to the same camp. And a French veto at the U.N. Security Council against the United States would be a severe blow to the Atlantic cohesion.”

Shaping France’s stance on Iraq, experts say, is a complicated mix of considerations, including long-standing business and diplomatic ties with Baghdad, and strong relations with moderate Arab countries. And as Paul Godt, a French politics professor at the American University of Paris points out, Paris has a long tradition of forging an independent-minded foreign policy.

“Ever since the Gaullist era, France has always tried to set itself apart,” he said. “That’s the Gaullist doctrine, which has become part of French foreign policy. There’s been no change on that, no matter who has been in power, from Giscard d’Estaing to Pompidou to Mitterrand. France has to find its own line, and it has to be done almost in opposition to the United States.”

In the 1970s, France became one of Iraq’s top military suppliers. In 1975, Mr. Chirac, then French prime minister, welcomed Mr. Hussein to his home. The two countries reestablished ties after the Gulf War, and France emerged as a leading exporter of goods under a U.N.-sponsored humanitarian program. Paris now has a booth at Baghdad’s annual trade fair. And two years ago, France followed Russia in defying a U.N. air ban against Iraq by allowing an activist group to fly a private plane to Baghdad.

Today, opposition to a possible war on Baghdad spans the French political spectrum, from the far-left to the far-right. Even President Chirac’s new Environment Minister, Rosalyne Bachelot, once presided over an Iraqi friendship group, as a National Assembly lawmaker.

Gilles Munier, the secretary-general of another private association called the French-Iraqi Friendship Group, said, "…French interests in Iraq and the Middle East stretch back centuries. He condemns the U.S. campaign as being motivated by Baghdad’s oil wealth. He said Washington is determined to reshape the Middle East to suit its own interests.

Anti-war sentiment runs high among ordinary French as well. A September poll, published by France’s Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, found 65 percent of French opposed a U.N.-backed military intervention in Iraq. Still, the figure was down from 75 percent opposition in August.

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*But so far, Mr. Chirac still seems to support a gradual, two-resolution U.N. strategy toward Iraq, and rejects what he calls the automaticity of a military option, if arms inspections fail, a position favored by the United States. *

Now the American's see to be slowly coming round to that idea, it may seem?

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French politicians have rejected Bush’s plan to attack Iraq.

Financial Times - French PM wins cross-party backing for stance on Iraq](http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1033848815457)

French politicians yesterday gave broad cross-party support to the centre-right government’s insistence on exhausting all diplomatic initiatives over Iraq before any use of force. In the first big parliamentary debate on the Iraqi crisis, the government also won backing for its demand that all action, including military, had to be in the framework of unified international approach at the UN Security Council.

Both government and opposition spokesmen were hostile to policies specifically directed at regime change in Iraq. Even Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the prime minister, criticised the US administration for its “simplist” view of the Iraqi situation and warned against undermining Iraq’s territorial integrity and fragile ethnic and religious balance.

The law does not exclude the resort to force but the international order codified in San Francisco 60 years ago in the UN charter excludes its unilateral use, Mr Raffarin said.

In a direct reference to Mr Bush’s categorising Iraq - along with Iran and North Korea - as an “empire of evil”, the prime minister observed: “For those who have a simplistic view of a war of good against evil, I would remind them of the words of René Char - evil is invariably more deeply rooted in the past than one thinks and does not necessarily die on the barricades one chooses.”

The leftwing opposition was more hesitant than the government about the ultimate resort to force against Saddam Hussein. . But the debate revealed a strong bi-partisan approach with everyone aware of the limited margin for manoeuvre. Iraqi policy is being handled jointly by President Jacques Chirac and foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, who, as the president’s former chief of staff, has his full confidence.

The basis of policy towards Iraq has changed little from the previous leftwing coalition government. But diplomatic colleagues find Mr de Villepin both more pragmatic and imaginative than Hubert Védrine, his predecessor. Having been posted to Washington as a diplomat, Mr de Villepin has a better feel for US sensitivities. This has led him to adopt a less confrontational tone, accompanied by a drive to reduce the anti-French sentiment that built up in Washington under the last government.

The approach has enabled France to strike an independent voice on Iraq, which may not be to the Bush administration’s liking, but which it has found difficult to completely ignore. France has best articulated the concerns of continental Europe; and, since the German elections at the end of September, has sought to bridge the gap with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s outright rejection of US military action.

Mr de Villepin has insisted on two essential aspects of action against Iraq - it must be channelled through the UN security council and be conducted on the basis of seeking a unified stand among the five permanent members. Only in this way, French diplomats believe, can international law be upheld and any eventual force be justified.

This insistence on unity at the Security Council has led to a certain rapprochement with Moscow. But the cold war days, when Paris could play off Moscow against Washington, are gone.

The French emphasis on exhausting diplomatic channels, coupled with the Bush administration’s apparent shift this week away from “regime change”, has reinforced Paris’s belief in the value of its two-stage approach to UN resolutions.

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France's role as world leader has been over for 300 years now. If the world followed their guidance in foreign policy matters, we could have a replay of the 2-week victory march of the Nazis into Paris of 1940. Their greatest contribution to peace in the past 100 years has been their land being used as the battlefield while the rest of the Western world has bailed them out.

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Its so easy for some people to compare the current sitation to the second world war.. seminole, its a whole new ball game now compared to the early part of the 20 th century. Today, France is a global power house and commands International respect just as China does.

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Saddam is no Hitler and everybody knows it. France is independent but not for long. I wonder when the plans to invade france for weapons of mass destruction will be implemented.

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France makes strongest statement yet against war](http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021017/UFRANN/International/international/internationalAmericasHeadline_temp/7/7/10/) Excerpt

From The Globe And Mail Thursday, October 17, 2002

Military strike on Iraq ‘the worst solution,’ Chirac says ahead of francophone summit

BEIRUT – **French President Jacques Chirac made his strongest statement yet against a military strike on Iraq, saying yesterday that “war is the worst solution” and that “everything must be done to avoid it.” **Mr. Chirac spoke in Alexandria, Egypt, as he made his way to a summit of francophone countries in Beirut. The francophone summit is usually a mainly cultural event, but it has taken on a political coloration this year because of its Middle Eastern venue and the presence of Mr. Chirac.

France has been resisting U.S. efforts to have the United Nations Security Council permit an attack on Iraq if Baghdad does not comply fully with UN weapons inspections. “Our American friends would like this same resolution to authorize the international community, if one believes the Iraqi authorities are not doing what is necessary, to intervene militarily,” Mr. Chirac said after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“I have always thought that war is the worst solution. Everything must be done to avoid it,” he added. France is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and can therefore exercise a veto on any proposed resolution, and U.S. officials have been growing increasingly frustrated with French unwillingness to authorize force. Yesterday, Mr. Chirac hinted strongly that France would veto any resolution that seemed likely to lead to war.

“The region does not need another war if we can avoid it,” he said. Although cultural issues still dominate the official agenda of the francophone summit, bilateral discussions among the more than 50 leaders attending the summit will be dominated by the situation in the Middle East. Earlier this week, Mr. Chirac also disputed the American position that there is a link between the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Iraqi regime. In an interview with a Beirut newspaper in advance of the summit, the French leader said “no proof had been found” of a connection.

Officials from Canada, the Francophonie’s second major sponsor, said Prime Minister Jean Chrétien agrees with that view. In the past, Mr. Chrétien’s position on a military strike against Iraq has been more ambivalent than that of Mr. Chirac. But at this week’s summit, he may be inclined to distance himself from the United States. Canada’s ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Duval, told the English-language Daily Star newspaper that Ottawa “believes force can achieve very little,” and that it does not regard a military strike as a “solution to the current crisis.” …

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Dil he Pakistani: *
**Officials from Canada, the Francophonie's second major sponsor, said Prime Minister Jean Chrétien agrees with that view. In the past, Mr. Chrétien's position on a military strike against Iraq has been more ambivalent than that of Mr. Chirac. But at this week's summit, he may be inclined to distance himself from the United States. Canada's ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Duval, told the English-language Daily Star newspaper that Ottawa "believes force can achieve very little," and that it does not regard a military strike as a "solution to the current crisis."* .....
[/QUOTE]

It seems the French seem to have got their way after all, now that we hear that the US may be about to back down on its insistence for a resolution backing force.

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Mexico has decided to OPPOSE the US draft resolution and join France, Russia and China in the anti-war camp.

Mexico set to back France in UN](http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1035389376831&p=1031119383196) October 29 2002 0:41 (Excerpt)

Mexico, a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council whose economy is dependent on the US, is preparing to assert its independence by voting with France rather than the US on the crucial UN motion on disarming Iraq.

The move is in line with traditional Mexican foreign policy, but appeared to disconcert some US officials, who had hoped that Mexico would be a reliable ally on the issue. However, since the September 11 terrorist attacks, ** the US has disappointed Mexicans by failing to make progress on the issue of the status of more than 3m illegal immigrants currently working in the US, which has been a priority for Mexico’s president Vicente Fox since taking office.**

Mexican diplomats suggested the decision followed Mexico’s long-held tradition of opposing foreign intervention in any other country’s politics. However, the loud publicity given to the vote over the weekend at the Asia-Pacific summit in Los Cabos, startled some observers. "In Washington, you’re either perceived as with us or against us,"said George Grayson, an expert in Mexican politics at the College of William & Mary Virginia. “Mexico could have been true to its traditions by voting with France, but they didn’t need to trumpet their position. It’s just that they would have been advised to have their UN ambassador talk it over with the US one and not aired it through public debate.”

Mexican officials said their position was “completely in line with what France is saying”, taking the pressure on Iraq into two stages. The use of force could not be contemplated in the same resolution which mandated an immediate return of weapons inspectors, they said.

They added that there was no "trade-off " with respect to migration, and that it would never trade off its principles in international forums in exchange for favours from the US. “Mexico’s greatest priority in international affairs is to conclude a migratory accord with the US,” said one official.

However, the decision followed a weekend in which the Mexican media was dominated by reports of Mr Bush’s refusal to continue with substantive talks on an immigration accord while the war on terrorism remained a US priority. Jose Manuel Suarez Mier, a former diplomat who now works as a foreign policy analyst at the Mexico City think tank CIDAC, said that in practice it was “impossible” to decouple the two issues, and that a vote against the US in the Security Council would “cancel any remnants of a possibility of doing anything useful bilaterally with the US in the near future”.

He added that Mexico’s decision to join the Security Council earlier this year had been a mistake. "It’s an absolute folly to be on the Security Council and that’s why we avoided it for so many years. It’s a no-win situation. Either you go against the Americans, in which case you harm your bilateral agenda, or you become their convenient little carpet, which reduces your strength in Mexico where we have a very strong and vocal anti-American community."

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One-stage or two-stage, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that a resolution is passed, then it's up to Iraq to follow the guidelines. God-willing they do, then the sanctions can be removed and the whole situation de-escalates.

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Bush and his administration is hellbent on starting way with Iraq. The only tactic they have in sight is to bully the UN into giving them the go-ahead to attack Saddam. Let's see how this one plays out...

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North Carolina town supports French stance against US](Ananova News) Ananova 14 Mar 03

A town in North Carolina has declared April “French Trade Month” in support of France’s stand against any US war on Iraq. Carrboro, the self-proclaimed “Paris of the Piedmont,” has passed a resolution asking its 17,240 residents to buy and consume French products during April. “Even though it was kind of tongue-in-cheek, it’s kind of in response to these very hostile, angry acts toward France,” said Alderman Jacquelyn Gist.

It will be sent to France’s ambassador to Washington, President George W. Bush and the state’s congressional delegation. “I thought that we could make a stand in the other direction and say that 'I think France is right in trying to avoid war,” Gist added. The town’s aldermen have already sent a resolution opposing a war in Iraq to the nation’s leaders.

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Good for France.

Know what shocks me? The way some editorials read that the U.N. is useless...the U.S. should/may exit the U.N. The U.N. isn't working. Should france really be considered an ally?

Shocking! (I meant to write about this a few days ago..)

Preposterous even!

Point I'm making is that...What law says that the U.N. countries have to agree with each other?

The U.N. is doing...IMHO.. what I think it was created to do.

Debate on international issues and allow countries a voice to be heard..

Internationally! Majority of Americans do not approve of War with Iraq without U.N. approval. France may just be saving all of us from a war.

And the U.S. from a mistake. I say this because I have not yet seen convincing evidence that warrants attacking Iraq. Though some media and government wish to tie 9/11 to this issue...The fact is there hasn't been evidence to support this.

There hasn't been real evidence to support that Iraq is an immediate threat to the U.S.

So..if Iraq is a threat to the future? We should war with them now? What of the next country...what of N.K.? Seems to me that if war is declared on Iraq...it would set a predecent for pre-emptive war.

And it seems to me..this would create more wars rather than curb.

Its a difficult and dangerous place to dwell.