There’s a lot of French bashing going on these days. Roy Blunt made jokes about France at the Missouri GOP convention. Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys is a common description. Well, count me out on the French bashing, for a couple of reasons. On the military side, let me say just one word – Verdun. The joke about French rifle — never fired and dropped only once — not funny. Yes, the French capitulated in WWII – after the Brits were driven from the field (without their weapons, BTW) and the Germans thoroughly whupped them with the blitzkrieg. In some ways, its not clear that the French have ever recovered from WWI with its devastating loss of people or WWII with its humbling blow to their pride. And on the personal side, I have to say my own limited experience with the French runs counter to the stereotype of the aloof snob. I found them as warm and friendly as any other group. So while I think their political classes these days are deplorable, I don’t think that warrants a general attack on the people themselves.
Jacques Chirac, however, has slimed himself:
“These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position. It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet. I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others,” Chirac said.
Chirac called the letters “infantile” and “dangerous,” adding: “They missed a great opportunity to shut up. Romania and Bulgaria were particularly irresponsible. If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way,” Chirac said.
When asked why he wasn’t similarly critical of the EU nations that signed the letter, Chirac said: “When you are in the family … you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door.”
After that temper tantrum, Chirac has shown himself to be far worse than Bush. He clearly told the “junior” members to shut up and do as they are told by the senior, ie France and Germany, members. And it isn’t just Chirac, European Commission President Romano Prodi said he was saddened rather than angry with the candidates because their pro-Americanism was a signal they had failed to understand that the EU is more than a mere economic union.
“I would be lying it I said I was happy,” he told reporters. “I have been very, very sad, but I am also patient by nature, so I hope they will understand that sharing the future means sharing the future.”
When all the new members join European Union, the influence of France and Germany within it is going to be diluted. And for now, anyway, all the Central and Eastern European countries that are joining still look to the US for leadership and don’t feel the need to be a counterweight to US power and influence, which seems to be the overriding foreign policy principle of France and Germany these days. Given their much different recent political history, that attitude may last awhile.
