The world got so used to Jacques Chirac s 12-year reign over France s Middle East policy that Nicolas Sarkozy s entry en scene inevitably caused a stir. Even before taking office, in May 2007, Sarkozy was announcing new arrangements for the Mediterranean. By shaking new life into the European Union s 10-year old Barcelona process, these raised as many questions as they sought to answer. Reaffirming France s opposition to Turkey s entry into the EU in almost the same breath, Sarkozy s attempts to put some flesh on the bones of this Euro-Mediterranean Union were all but swamped by the flurry of Turkish denunciations of the plan and EU-wide skepticism over its feasibility. In a pattern that looks set to repeat itself, the details of this plan still remain to be fully spelled out.
Over the summer, Sarkozy s attention – and that of his wife Cecilia – turned to Libya and a widely publicized French coup that upstaged collective EU efforts to secure the release of the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor detained for a decade on unsubstantiated charges of infecting hundreds of local children with the HIV virus. Sweeping aside the question of exactly how financial compensation to the families would be handled – since to call any financial assistance recompense would be tantamount to an admission of guilt – Sarkozy stole the headlines with a series of bilateral accords with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, ranging from arms sales to French bilateral assistance in developing a civilian-use nuclear program in Libya.
Meanwhile, the entry of Sarkozy s new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, into Middle Eastern affairs has ruffled feathers beyond France s natural hunting ground of North Africa. In July, the outspoken Kouchner let slip the view that Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki would soon have to be replaced. On September 16, he followed this faux pas by saying that if nuclear diplomacy failed the world would have to prepare for the possibility of war with Iran. On both occasions, swift retractions – or precisions, as French officialdom would say – followed on: to Maliki, direct apologies were offered; over Iran, it was French Prime Minister Francois Fillon who made it clear that France would not be joining those eager to bomb Tehran into submission.
On Syria, Lebanon and virtually all the sacred cows of the Chirac era – above all the immutable backing of France for the Palestinians – Sarkozy and his new government have been ploughing new furrows and making new waves. Building on Sarkozy s own pro-Israel credentials, Kouchner was in Jerusalem in mid-September to volunteer French help to re-launch peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. Even the French daily Le Figaro read this as an undisguised attempt to secure French participation in the US-sponsored Middle East peace conference planned for November. On this occasion, the French foreign minister was at pains to reassure Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Palestinians who refuse to recognize the state of Israel (namely Hamas) would not be welcomed by France. In Syria, no less, Sarkozy s team has made conciliatory inroads with the Asad regime that were unthinkable in the days of Chirac s unconditional support for Rafiq Hariri and his successors in Lebanon.
What underlies this flurry of activity? On one level, the Sarkozy establishment is trying to do for the regional image of France what the Brown establishment has been doing for the regional and international image of Britain: namely, to reposition themselves collectively in a new relationship with the US over the Middle East. The difference is that where Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been cautiously inserting cigarette papers between the overly US-dependent British position in Iraq and his predecessor s unstinting support for the global war on terror, Sarkozy has been bulldozing his way out of the stereotype that saw France in opposition to everything the US has done and is yet planning to do in the Middle East.
For better, and potentially for a great deal worse, the Bush administration will remain in place for over a year to come. Sarkozy s self-proclaimed volontarist approach has the merit of accepting that he has to do business with Bush, while he also seeks to position himself as the kind of mainstream leader who can produce results for the Middle East once Bush has gone.
Will it work? Not if Sarkozy s team continues to neglect the details and impact of what it is proposing to do in a region replete with skin-deep sensitivities and long memories. Not if the European partners the French will ultimately have to rely on are cast aside in the effort to move things forward. The Germans, for example, will be quick to react to any substantive change of direction over Iran, just as the British will bluntly refuse to allow the European Commission to have anything to do with a Mediterranean plan that explicitly excludes northern and eastern Europe.
At the same time, the Sarkozy approach is definitely a breath of fresh air. Unlike others, he noted and drew lessons from the all-but-complete absence of Arab leaders at the tenth anniversary summit of the EU s Barcelona process in 2005. What he proposes instead may well appear as a thin disguise for the promotion of France and French business interests in North Africa and the Middle East, but he has also challenged other Europeans to sit up and take note of what needs fixing in the EU s current laissez-faire approach. If Sarkozy succeeds in convincing the US that the days of French opposition based on principle are gone, then there could indeed be room for more constructive EU engagement in a more pluralistic Middle East than is possible under US hegemony alone. If others in Europe don t like his prescriptions, then they can come up with something better.
The downside, however, is the perennial French problem: often right in principle and substance (as over Iraq), the French establishment is frequently and equally wrong in its style of engagement with others. If the new Sarkozy approach means ditching a principled stand in support of Palestinians the better to curry favor with the US, then its lynchpin will scarcely be credible. Far better to balance good relations with the right kind of Israelis, the better to include rather than exclude the wrong kind of Palestinians, and convince the rest of the EU that only when all parties to the Arab-Israel conflict are accommodated can any of the core issues of the Mediterranean and Middle East be addressed.
Dr. Claire Spencerheads the Middle East Programme at Chatham House in London. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org
