Resurgent France has to get its house in order

THEY used to be dismissed in right-wing American circles as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", a limp-wristed nation seemingly incapable of using force even when this was in defence of its own interests.

But no such accusations are now levelled at France from any quarters. For this year alone, the French have single-handedly dispatched troops to Africa in hot pursuit of international terrorists.

They have also been in the forefront of demands for a military intervention in Syria. And they held up a nuclear deal with Iran until yesterday, because the initial draft agreement did not provide enough guarantees that the Iranians will not resume their quest to become a nuclear power at a later stage.

There is no question that France has regained its historic role as a major player on the international scene. The snag is that, just like those wonderful, fragrant Camembert French cheeses, the outer skin of France's policies may be impressively hard and crusty, but the internal contents remain soft and runny.

Unless France fixes its domestic problems and particularly the parlous condition of its economy, it will not be able to sustain its current activist foreign policy for too long. And that may be a pity for global security.

Despite their huge historic and cultural differences, the French and British have always been quite similar in their foreign and security aspirations. Both cherish old links with their former colonies, and see their colonial past as a positive experience. Both are nuclear powers and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

And among all Europeans, only the French and the British have both the global political vision and the military capabilities required for deployments around the world. The idea that Britain remained a martial nation while the French turned into some shrinking violets unwilling to intervene around the world was always nonsense: For decades, the French had more troops permanently deployed overseas than the British.

Nor is it true that ordinary Frenchmen are instinctively anti- American. For, notwithstanding the superiority and sophistication of French cuisine, the reality is that France also represents the most profitable European market for McDonald's: burgers are eaten by Frenchmen more frequently than foie gras.

French way: going it alone

THE main distinction between Europe's top military powers is that, while the British hitched their fate to the United States in order to compensate for their declining global importance, the French tried to go it alone. That meant that, almost by definition, France opposed any US-led action. But it also meant that the French often ended up being ignored.

Successive French presidents since the end of the Cold War have tried to claw their way back from this dead-end approach, but it ultimately fell to Mr Francois Hollande, the current French head of state, to make the final rupture with the past and launch France on a path of a more interventionist policy, often alongside the US.

This represents an ironic twist of history, since Mr Hollande's Socialists are the chief proponents of anti-Americanism in France, and have long been against the use of French military power overseas. But to all intents and purposes, the shift was forced upon Mr Hollande not so much because France is regaining strength, but precisely because it feels weak.

Why the shift?

FRANCE'S historic preference was to create a European defence force together with Germany and Britain, an entity which would act as a distinct player on the international scene. But Britain would not hear of it, while Germany will not pay for it. And Europe's current financial crisis means even the pretence of such a European force now has to be abandoned.

The choice facing decision-makers in Paris was, therefore, between relegation to the margins of the global security debate, or a repositioning of France as an ally of other international players, and especially the US. Given France's own image of itself and its "historic mission", the answer was a no-brainer.

The electoral calculations of France's leaders also played a part. It's not a coincidence that the decision to lead the military operations in Libya in 2011 was largely dictated by the need to counteract the low popularity of then French President Nicolas Sarkozy after his diplomats failed to anticipate the Arab Spring rebellions which started in Tunisia, a former French colony.

And it's equally clear that Mr Hollande ordered the dispatch of troops to the African state of Mali earlier this year when his own electoral popularity nosedived at home. France is Europe's last elected dictatorship, a country where the head of state is truly the commander-in-chief, in both law and practice, with little need for the consent of others.

But it would be wrong to ascribe France's current activist international profile to cynical calculations alone. For the French acted in Mali because they had clear information that Al-Qaeda- linked militants are taking hold in Africa, and evidence that no other nation was prepared to do anything about it.

And, as most Western leaders now grudgingly accept, France was also correct in scuppering the draft nuclear deal negotiated with Iran earlier this month. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was probably the only negotiator who actually read the finer print of the pact, and the only one to have noticed that the safeguards which Iran was offering to the international community about its good faith in freezing its nuclear programme were insufficient.

The French had good reasons to be sceptical on Iran. For France presided over a previous agreement which was meant to halt Iran's nuclear programme a decade ago. The man who negotiated that deal was none other than Mr Hassan Rouhani, the current Iranian President, who subsequently recalled the French-led negotiations as a classic example of how Iran hoodwinked the West and still went ahead with its nuclear quest.

The French were, therefore determined not to go for a "suckers' deal" again, as Foreign Minister Fabius put it. And, far from acting as a hindrance, French intransigence has actually helped US negotiators in extracting more concessions from Iran, and will assist President Barack Obama in persuading the US Congress that the nuclear deal now reached with Iran is the best possible one.

Shrinking US presence

BUT the biggest reason that the French are now assuming a greater international role is that they are beginning to fear America's isolationist tendencies.

In a little-noticed speech to his diplomats last week, Mr Fabius lamented a US which "seems no longer to wish to be absorbed by crises that don't conform to Washington's vision of its national interest", and suggested that this trend will be "durable" well after the end of Mr Obama's current presidency.

The implication was clear: France needs to shoulder a bigger burden of crises around Europe, because the US won't.

The problem, however, is that the same "malaise" which France ascribes to the US - a myriad of domestic economic and political problems - is also exactly the problem afflicting France. The economy, the second-biggest in the euro zone after Germany - is in deep trouble and France's ratio of public spending to gross domestic product is now the highest in the euro area.

But instead of slashing expenditure and contemplating measures to boost employment, the government of President Hollande has simply ignored market forces, introducing self-defeating tax rises and protecting unionised labour from any reform. The result is that investors and wealthy individuals are fleeing - mostly to neighbouring London - while unemployment stands at 11 per cent of the labour force.

After registering a slight growth in the second quarter of this year, the French economy is shrinking again. The government's debt has been downgraded again, for the second time in as many years. And President Hollande's latest popularity ratings stand at an abysmal 15 per cent of the electorate.

Conservative politicians in Iran may be furious at France's re-emergence on the global stage: "a gun-slinging French frog" is how they now refer to President Hollande. But for most other governments, the return of France on the global stage amounts to a positive development, one which brings another actor in a world which can no longer rely on just the American "pole".

Yet that can be durable only if President Hollande, who cherishes his current act as a lighting rod abroad, stops being a Camembert at home. It could happen; the best cheeses are those which mature. But they take time, and no little effort.

Jonathan.eyal@gmail.com

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