France’s role in the world as a middleweight power

Press, 21 July 1989, Page 8

France’s role in the world as a middleweight power

, i Eroiri/ffie “Economist”

IT IS not easy being a 1 middleweight. An eminent American Secretary of State,. Dean Acheson, said famously of postwar Britain that it had lost an empire and not yet found a-

role. Britain subsequently found Europe, and has been wrestling with it since. West Germany's and Japan’s partners are forever encouraging them to take foreign responsibilities in keeping with their economic power — and wincing when either of them show signs of doing so. The French are more sure of themselves, at least outwardly. ■ They pride themselves on “lucidity”: looking facts in the face. French power, in the relative sense, peaked with Louis XIV in the seventeenth century. Napoleon’s empire stretched from the Atlantic almost to the Urals. But his “common house” lasted less than a decade. French ceased to be the main language' of diplomacy at the Versailles peace congress in 1919.

France is a middle-sized power, and has been for a long time. To talk of decline is to miss the point.

Yet the French also know that much of being important depends on acting as if you are. De Gaulle used this prestige principle to help France recover its

self-cofffidence after defeat' in the SeoondJ World: War and the upheaval of '/decolonisation in Indochina and 'Algeria. * the Gaullist tradition', in some ways;- Uves/dn. It Involves the French assuming they „ have 3 a 1 ; part on the »world? stage. Riecent examples: a ;; peace 1 Effort; in Lebanon and a *: hastily / Ailed conTerence (failures); receiving Mr , Yasser \ Jrafat, helping £ along Kampuchea’s peace talks /and a conference against chemical war. (successes). ? ? . J . This taste - for involvement is reinforced,by the fact that Under the Fifth? Republic foreign policy has become 4 theT: "special domain” of;?thej President; This year Mr Mitterrand has travelled to so ipany foreign countries people joke about his- visiting Paris. Making France visible confers prestige and .presumably votes. T ->■

By artfully juggling dates, Mr Mitterrand has gathered iff Paris for the week of the bicentenary of the French revolution foreign leaders (if one includes Russia’s Mr Mikhail Gorbachev," t who dropped by for 48 hours'before the party proper) representing a fifth of the membership of the

United Nations,, around three-

quarters of global GNP, and over 98 per cent of the world’s known V nuclear arsenal. s What lies behind the activity ’ and the show? Can France continue to spread itself in this way? Suspecting perhaps that some of his guests might wonder, President Mitterrand raised the question of France’s role in a regal press conference at the Elysee in mid May. His answer, connoisseurs noted, was pinched unattributed from de Gaulle. “The role of France,” he said, “is to keep its rank.” Talking of rank can be a sign one is not sure about it. Yet for a country of 55 million people, France’s rank is impressive: the world’s fourth largest exporter and fourth biggest capitalist economy with 7 per cent of total GDP of the rich Western countries and Japan. France sold the third most weapons last year and its nuclear arsenal is the third biggest. It is the world’s second largest producer of nuclear energy. Keeping this place — Britain and Italy are already close on some counts, before long Spain and Asian challengers could also come near — implies concentrating on the main field of action. For France, this means Europe. ' France long ago abandoned, if it was ever serious about, the idea of acting as a broker be-

tween the superpowers. France T was too small to play such a part, fBesides, both the Russians and/;; the Americans knew that, when ' it mattered, France would al-''.’ ways side with the West. 1 Today Soviet interest in Western Europe forcuses on West; Germany, as does America’s. Mr' Mitterrand has built up with the Americans perhaps . the - most solid ties of any recent French.' 7; President. Yet these are more ' friendly than functional. In French-speaking Africa,. France is quietly doing less. In 1987 it gave more development aid than anyone else to subSaharan Africa — 18 per cent of the total. Yet some Francophone 'T African leaders, six of whom are in Paris this week, worry that the link is weakening. In the 1960 s . French troops intervened in six African countries; in the 1980 s in only one. In 1986, for the first time, more money flowed from sub-Saharan African to France than the other way. France has far-flung territories in the Indian Ocean, South Pacific and the Caribbean. New Caledonia, the biggest territory, could be virtually independent

within ten years. France has already bowed to pressure from New Zealand and others in the area and said it will cut the number of its nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Most French politicians like the idea of France being able to “project” force across the world. Yet budget-cutters ask if France can any longer afford a proposed nuclear aircraft-carrier battle group that would continue to make this possible. And what of France’s influence within Europe? French

politicans talk a lot of building a . European defence pillar. Because France’s Parliament rejected the idea of a European ’ Defence Force in;1954 and de Gaulle pulled French soldiers out of N.A.T.O.’s uhified command in 1966, France’s partners do not take all France says about European defence at face value. French people tend to say it makes Tittle odds .to Western Europe’s; \ defences ' whether : France is fully in NXT.O. or not. France’s partners disagree. Certainly, France’s influence on events — particularly on resisting the “denuclearisation” of Europe, an interest it shares with Britain — would be greater inside. •- Asked at the recent European Community summit in Madrid if he had the impression two different views of the Community were evident in the debate, Mr Mitterrand said coldly, “It’s more than an impression” To simplify, the French champion the principles of a mixed economy against the economic liberalism of Britain. West Germany, whose monetary policy France is obliged to follow, holds the balance.

The Germans side with the French on a social charter for Europe. But on monetary union, which France favours and Britain questions, different Germans are saying different things. Germany is at the heart of a deeper French disagreement with Britain about the Community. For France, the European Community is not just a common market, but a system for taming German ambition and anchoring Germany firmly in Western Europe. France wants the system to work all the better now that Central Europe is in a period of change. History, for France, does not bear repeating. When France and Germany have fought — in 1870, in 1914 and in 1940 — France either lost or had to be rescued from defeat. Though the French economy has never been outdistanced, it has lagged behind Germany’s since the two industrialised. Open conflict is not the issue. Yet economic competition is live and the seeds of political misunderstanding are there: West Germany is notably more Green, anti-nuclear and openminded about Russia than France is. All this explains why France so often looks across the Channel at its British rival, not for an argument but for help. Copyright — The Economist