BY ANITA KIRPALANI<\/p>\n
Nicolas Sarkozy has struck again with his politics of reform. But this time, by deciding to bring France back into NATO\u2019s military command, he swiped at the mythology of his own political family. It is too bad that, for once, the Gaullist narrative of independence from the United States is, in France, actually shared by both the left and the right. The fearless President is trying to bring down what appears to be a national monument, creating havoc at a particularly dreary time of strikes and plummeting public support, and not so long after a French NATO soldier was killed in Afghanistan. At least, one must grant Sarkozy that he finally managed to bring consensus amongst the French political elite \u2013 against him.<\/p>\n
But if Charles de Gaulle would probably turn in his grave in protestation, US President Barack Obama might start expecting more from the Old Continent.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Will France finally become tame and docile and pull the curtain on its dissident period of the opposition to the war in Iraq? Will she take important positions in NATO in exchange for sending more troops to Afghanistan, answering Obama\u2019s call? Will she nip in the bud the nascent attempts to create a European defense she actually advocated for? Is this the long anticipated reconciliation between French fries and Freedom Fries? Did somebody actually win?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Farewell hypocrisy.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n In 1949, France participated in the founding of NATO but in 1966 President de Gaulle decided to lead a different path, and to depart from what she saw as US domination on the West in the context of the Cold war. NATO became the symbol of allegiance and alignment to the American Way and a threat to France\u2019s sovereignty and independence, de Gaulle argued.\u00a0<\/span>France thus remained a member of NATO but left its integrated command, evicted American bases from its soil and NATO headquarters from Paris. The trend was set for the long-lived \u201cGaullist-Mitterandist-Chiraquist\u201d consensus. Until now.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But for Sarkozy, this is not another episode in the grand narrative of Sarkozy the tradition-breaker. For him, the reintegration of France actually marks the end of French hypocrisy. \u201cThe more we said we weren\u2019t in it [NATO], the more we were\u201d, he said at the Munich Conference on security on January 7th<\/sup>. France had always contributed troops to NATO\u2019s missions \u2013 Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan \u2013 and in 1995, she resumed her participation in NATO\u2019s military committee. In 2004, she sent officers to the integrated command posts of Mons and Norfolk.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Uncle Sam needs you.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n US Vice-President Joseph Biden, at the Munich Conference, expressed America\u2019s eagerness to see France\u2019s comeback: \u201cAmerica will do more, but America will ask for more from our partners\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n This is exactly what some French politicians fear: that France will become yet another puppet of the USA after so many years of resistance. \u201cYou can be independent when you are an ally, but you can\u2019t be independent when you are integrated\u201d, said Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou the leader of the Modem, a centrist opposition political party. He is concerned that a dissenting political stance \u2013 like opposing the war in Iraq \u2013 would no longer be possible.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe should not be fighting wars that are not ours\u201d, said Paul Quiles, a former socialist secretary of defense, in a column for the newspaper\u00a0Lib\u00e9ration<\/em>. He warned against the dangerous signal that it would give to foreign countries, especially in the muddle of the Middle East: that of the assimilation between France and the USA .<\/span><\/p>\n Sarkozy\u2019s project is not new and had already given rise to much opposition. But even with the new American administration, suspicion remains especially concerning a supposed deal on Afghanistan. The French journalist J-D. Merchet revealed that France might get the Norfolk Command which focuses on the reforms of NATO and the regional command of Lisbon. But would that mean sending more troops to Afghanistan in compensation?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0For now, the French administration completely rules it out: \u201cFrance has already made a considerable effort [\u2026] it\u2019s out of the question to be sending more troops\u201d, said Herv\u00e9 Morin, the French Secretary of Defense to\u00a0France Inter<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n However, the reintegration of France in the military structures of NATO could have concrete consequences on Afghanistan, as France would finally have an official say on the design of the overall strategies of NATO\u2019s missions. This might mean the reconciliation of the French global approach which refuses a sole military solution for Afghanistan and of the American one which considers security as the top priority. Biden at Munich acknowledged the necessity of both. But the decision to send 30\u00a0000 troops reveals a different set of mind and casts doubt on the ability of France and the USA to surmount their differences.<\/span><\/p>\n The end of Europe?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Another fear regards the European Security and Defense Policy which was Sarkozy\u2019s hobby-horse during the French presidency of the EU. Who would need a common European defense initiative if European countries already are in NATO and if there is no one left to make it work?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEverybody would benefit from Europe of Defense. Including the USA\u201d, reassured Sarkozy in Munich, followed by Biden.<\/span><\/p>\n The schizophrenia of Sarkozy\u2019s politics is actually not that evident. For him, Europe and NATO are complementary and the acceptance of a European defense by the USA is the condition\u00a0sine qua none<\/em>\u00a0to France\u2019s commitment to NATO.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span>Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO\u2019s secretary general, even argued to the French Parliament that \u201cFrance is a key actor because she is the only one who has the capacity to symbolize the complementarity between NATO and a European defense\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n More than that, France actually wants to Europeanize NATO. Again, the necessity of a European defense which is already so hard to build is questioned.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Europe might have to choose between integration and alliance on the military level.<\/span>\u00a0But most of all will there be consensus on what Europeanization means to all? An important unknown remains in the equation: what will Great Britain have to say, and which side will she choose this time?<\/span><\/p>\n The seismic consequence of Sarkozy\u2019s proposal is highly symbolic for France and he plans to launch a national debate before France hosts the next NATO summit in April. The Socialist Party calls for a Parliamentary debate, while the Modem demands a referendum. But as Morin put it \u201cde Gaulle left NATO with a simple letter [to Johnson]\u201d. Why would Sarkozy need to do more than that? The debate might fall through and the recent meetings of high political figures from NATO, the US, France and Germany actually seem to foretell that the decision has already been taken.<\/span><\/p>\n