THE RADICAL

2004-02-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

I have decided to team up with two great bloggers in order to cover and analyze French-related news. This will provide more diverse and frequent insights into French culture and politics. While I will keep this site up for the purpose of maintaining its archives, my news posts can be found at www.no-pasaran.blogspot.com. The new site may be slow to start up, but I hope to see you all there.

2004-02-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

NOTE: Postings will resume shortly with some news regarding this site.

2004-02-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

Terrorism:

The international nature of terrorism is evident in the following incident: The Pakistani terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba (which might have links to Al-Qaida), sent the Frenchman, Willie Brigitte, to Australia in order to attack military bases. While in Sydney, Brigitte was scheduled to meet with a Chechen arms expert.

2004-02-06T04:23:00.000-08:00

Minorities:

On January 16, several people attacked a homosexual in the region of Pas-de-Calais, pouring gasoline on him before setting him afire in the garden outside of his house. The victim, whose first name is Sébastian, suffered third-degree burns on one-third of his upper body. The 35-year old man had been living with his partner and had been the subject of repeated aggressions with, for example, knives and screwdivers. The door of the couple's house was also burned last year, causing the two men to move. Yet in August of 2003, individuals broke into Sébastian's house and attempted to strangle him.

2004-02-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

Pakistan:

Musharraf has refused the intervention of the International Atomic Energy Agency in investigating Pakistani nuclear leaks. However this seems to be the best chance of uncovering the extent of the damage, given the likelihood of embarrassing revelations around the globe and the desire of different governments to cover up their involvement (although the IAEA states that "the emerging picture so far has not indicated governments are involved, but rather points to individuals engaged in illicit trafficking of material and equipment"). The press is referring to German suspects and "2 other European countries," without specifying the latter.

Wilson John in The Pioneer notes long-standing US and European involvement in Pakistan's nuclear program. He writes that in the 1970's:

"A Belgian firm, Belgonucleaire, and a French corporation, Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles, designed a pilot reprocessing facility called the New Labs at PINSTECH. In 1976, under a highly secretive project codenamed 706, Pakistan bought components for centrifuges from the Netherlands; orders for 6500 tubes of specially hardened steel were placed with Van Doome Transmissie...Other support components and subsystems were bought from Vakuum Apparat Technik (high vacuum valves) of Haag, Switzerland and Leybold Heraeus (gas purification equipment), Hanan, Germany. A year later, the British subsidiary of Emerson Electric sold 30 high frequency inverters to Pakistan for controlling centrifuge speeds. In 1987, West Germany sells a tritium purification and production facility with a capacity to produce 10g of tritium daily."

Moreover, Greenpeace wrote about a German black market in plutonium back in the 1990's.

2004-02-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Pakistan:

One question concerning Dr. Khan's sale of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea is what Western companies and governments were involved. In an interview with the BBC, Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy claims that German and Swiss companies were likely involved, and Henderson found it hard to imagine that those countries' governments were not aware of Pakistan's nuclear commerce. Pakistan's nuclear trade is likely much larger than Dr. Khan, extending not only throughout Pakistan's army but also well into the West. One way of determining how complicit Western countries were is to watch their reaction to Dr. Khan's revelations. In particular, which Western countries will push for the truth and which will be content with Musharraf's canned explanation?

The Kansas City Star reports: "Suspects in Germany and two other European countries are also being investigated in the growing probe of the clandestine black market apparently headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan of Pakistan..."

Meanwhile, the CIA director is placing credit for the revelations on US and British intelligence agents.

The French government has offered the following blanket condemnation:

"France, which has been faithful to all of its international engagements with respect to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, believes that the dissemination of secret material, equipment, and technologies constitutes a threat to peace and international stability...France hopes that Pakistan will strengthen its controls over secret materials, equipment, and technology--notably the exportation of such items. France believes that the Pakistan government's recent actions are moving in the right direction, and France is ready to lend its aid in this area."

Now we'll see whether there is any follow-through.

2004-02-04T04:13:00.000-08:00

United States:

Here is some more info on Kerry and his French cousin, Brice Lalonde (see also Jan. 29 posting). Lalonde is quoted: "Kerry and I saw each other six months ago, and I hoped that he would be in the running and become President." The exact relation between the two is that their mothers were sisters. According to Lalonde, the Kerry family was dispersed from France after WWII. Lalonde is planning on attending the July Democratic Convention in Boston if Kerry is nominated.

2004-02-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

Politics:

I have been trying to come up with an American analogy for the scandal sweeping over Alain Juppé. The closest I can come is this:

Imagine that, while Bush was governor of Texas, his lieutenant governor also happened to be the chairman of the Republican Party. Now imagine that the lieutenant governor misappropriated approximately $1.8 million from public funds and placed it in the coffers of the Republican Party. Over a decade later, the lieutenant governor is brought before a judge and banned from public office for 10 years in addition to being given 18 months in prison. Now imagine that Bush--who has since become President--calls a White House press conference and announces that he has nothing but "friendship, esteem and respect" for his old lieutenant governor. Cheney and Powell express similar support. To make matters worse, the judge before whom the lieutenant governor appeared claims that, during the case, her phone was tapped, her office was bugged, and that she received death threats. The President promises a thorough investigation--to be conducted by the Executive Branch!

Chirac could take lessons in political honesty from Nixon.

2004-02-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

Middle East & European Union:

The New York Times has translated a Der Speigel interview with Michèle Alliot-Marie. The whole thing is worth a read, but two quotations particularly struck me:

"From the very beginning, France has urged that Iraqi sovereignty be restored as quickly as possible - immediately, really - following the end of hostilities. Meanwhile, a lot of time and, unfortunately, a great deal of credibility has been lost. ..Power cannot be transferred to what is little more than a puppet administration. Nothing is gained without inner legitimacy, and without it the situation cannot improve."

What exactly does this mean? When did hostilities end? To what government should Coalition forces have transferred power after Saddam fell? There is a political vacuum in Iraq, and the idea that an Iraqi government would have spontaneously arisen if only the US and UK would have stepped aside is hopelessly naive or criticism made for the sake of criticizing.

The other quote concerns European defense forces:

"The development of a European defense has remained largely unaffected by these differences. It is progressing more quickly than the movement to establish a common currency did at its time. The European rapid intervention force reached its objective last year: It can mobilize 60,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 100 ships within 60 days. In addition, we even plan to develop a high-speed crisis and intervention force that would consist of 1500 troops and could be deployed within 48 hours. That would a global first....If the Americans are becoming suspicious, it means that they are taking us seriously."

2004-02-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

United Nations:

The efforts of the "international community" to combat Al-Qaida have run up against international dissonance. The 5-member UN monitoring group that was established in July of 2001 to shut off Al-Qaida's financing was dissolved earlier this week by an angry Security Council. A final act of the panel was to offer harsh criticism of the UN's failure to stop Al-Qaida financing. In the past, the organization had criticized many countries, including Liechtenstein, Italy and Switzerland, for lax financial regulations.

The panel has been replaced by the "Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team," which will, for the next 18 months, continue to track terrorist networks but will be under the direction of the Security Council. Its membership will mirror that of the 15 members in the Council. This will better allow Security Council members and their allies to censor the Team's reports.

Meanwhile, the Security Council' s Counter-terrorism Committee has noted that Resolution 1373, which was passed back in 2001 and called upon all states to "[p]revent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts" is "encountering serious problems, both at the States and at the Counter Terrorism Committee levels." Of the 191 UN member states, a full 100 have failed to submit reports on how they are implementing Resolution 1373. Although the names of the countries have not been released, the Security Council is threatening to publicize the names if the reports are not submitted by March 31.

The Committee also notes problems with its own structure, ranging from the lack of a clear budget to insufficient funds to pay international experts.

Note the contrast (as well as the flat-out contradictions) between reality and the following statement by the UK Foreign Office:

"The UN's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US was swift and decisive. The Security Council rapidly adopted Resolution 1373 imposing uniform obligations on all states to suppress and prevent financial and other support for terrorism. It established the Counter Terrorism Committee to monitor implementation of the resolution. All 191 UN member states have submitted at least one report and 148 two or more on measures taken to combat terrorism in their own countries. The UK is pressing for separate expert support and leadership for the CTC so that it can focus on specific areas and tackle those countries least committed to the fight against terrorism."

2004-02-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

Miscellaneous:

Although this point has nothing to do with France, I mention it only because of the picture on this site that was taken at a rally in Paris at Place d'Italie last spring. The sign read (in French): "North Korea has the Right to Possess Nuclear Weapons!"

Now The Guardian is reporting the following:

"Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes...Defectors have smuggled out documents that appear to reveal how methodical the chemical experiments were. One stamped 'top secret' and 'transfer letter' is dated February 2002. The name of the victim was Lin Hun-hwa. He was 39. The text reads: 'The above person is transferred from ... camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gas for chemical weapons.'...Most are imprisoned because their relatives are believed to be critical of the regime. Many are Christians, a religion believed by Kim Jong-il to be one of the greatest threats to his power. According to the dictator, not only is a suspected dissident arrested but also three generations of his family are imprisoned, to root out the bad blood and seed of dissent."

I don't know whether I find it harder to imagine that these events are happening in 2004 or that French protestors have advocated the nuclear empowerment of such a regime.

When I watched the millions of French filling the streets to denounce Bush's overthrow of a bloody dictator and when I now see the French government fawning over Hu Jintao (that pillar of international law and human rights) and the French public ignoring the atrocities in North Korea, I wonder if Americans and the French live on the same planet.

2004-02-01T16:55:00.000-08:00

China:

Did French police crack down on peaceful Falun Gong members in Paris in order to appease the visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao? The Australian calls Chirac's behavior towards Jintao "grovelling," and Taiwan has suspended senior officials' visits to France after Chirac lashed out at Taiwan for its "aggressive, dangerous and irresponsible" behavior. Chirac was referring to Taiwan's efforts to convince China to stop pointing 500 missiles at the island. Now why is Chirac calling Taiwain aggressive?

2004-02-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

United States:

Le Monde has an unintentionally hilarious article on Franck Moulet, the 27 year-old French art student who thought that it would be amusing to joke about having placed a bomb in an airplane's lavatory. Although his exact words are disputed, Moulet is alleged to have raised his fist in the air and exclaimed (while returning to his seat on the airplane after having used the bathroom): "Oh shit! The bomb that I placed in the toilet isn't working!"

Before being released from custody, Moulet was put on Rikers Island, where the other inmates called him "The Frenchy." Says Moulet, "They told me that it was the law of the jungle over there...When they told me that I was being transferred there...I said to myself, this is my last day." Moulet writes how Latinos ruled Rykers and how he was befriended by African-Americans who warned him against placing his hands on his hips (too feminine) and made him do 50 push-ups each day. The whole article makes Moulet out to be a character from the Great Escape.

Moulet has vowed never to set foot on American soil ever again. Good. Although Moulet's treatment seems to be provoking some outrage among the French (Le Monde dismisses Moulet's revolting conduct as mere "irony"), it's difficult to feel any sympathy for Moulet. How hard is it to understand that you don't make jokes about bombs on airplanes? Of course, Moulet (who chose to express his comments in English) did understand that some other passengers would be shocked by his comments. However Moulet's desire to express his disdain for American security measures overcame any scruples for his fellow passengers.

Some French papers are claiming, in a pique of paranoia, that Moulet is the victim of the American government's anti-French campaign. Perhaps Moulet did not get kid-glove treatment based on his French passport; however the charges leveled against him were New York state charges and, to the best of my knowledge, did not involve federal authorities.

Note: LoFIP has a partial translation of the Le Monde article.

2004-02-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

United States:

The following is a translation of a Le Figaro interview with André Kaspi, a professor at the Sorbonne in North American history:

Why does America provoke more passionate reactions than ever in France?

André Kaspi: Perhaps because of a certain historical proximity. Our two nations have promoted, for a long time, two universalisms that can rival one another. French hostility and sympathy towards the United States has existed since the creation of the U.S. For example, de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, was struck by American penitentiaries. They were better organized than French prisons. “Penitentiary” suggested that one could reform criminals by helping them to improve their ways. This was during a period when, in France, prison was not viewed as a place where people got better.

On the other hand, the US quickly appeared to the French like a primitive and savage world filled with bric-a-brac and lacking the hierarchies necessary for a true civilization. Chateaubriand began this critique without evening knowing the country, and it continued with Baudelaire and then Ernest Renan, for whom Americanism was simply “a vulgar way to imagine things.” America was viewed as pure and radical materialism. As for the word “antiaméricanisme,” it was invented in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

People often speak of “French anti-Americanism.” However we speak less of America’s Francophobe tendencies that have recently reached unprecedented heights. How do you explain this virulence?

André Kaspi: The US is a nation of immigrants, very few of whom came from France. Today, there are a million immigrants that enter the United States each year, and there are few French among them. There is a myth regarding France—linked to La Fayette and his integral role in the American Revolution—as well as an American ignorance regarding the French. This ignorance has fed stereotypes regarding the French, such as notions that the French are “dirty” or “depraved.” However, since the Iraq war, France has also become the “traitorous ally” whom Americans cannot trust. France is viewed as an arrogant country that, in gathering together America’s allies with its threat of a Security Council veto, gave priority to its commercial ties with Arab countries. The French criticize America for its mercantilism; but Americans reproach the French for exactly the same thing. Now, with the debate surrounding the Muslim veil, Americans have no idea what to think because they thought that the French were “pro-Arab.” Moreover, they criticize us for not giving enough freedom to our Muslim citizens.

What do you think of the pro-American positions taken during the Iraq war by intellectuals of the Left, such as André Glucksmann or Pascal Bruckner?

André Kaspi: They are like the neoconservatives in the United States. Neoconservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz, are often former Trotskyites, who detested Stalinist communists. Of the leftists that you mentioned, their current positions may be continuations of their anti-Stalinism. Of course, the enemy has changed: it is no longer Stalinism but Islamism, and the spirit of the Crusades remains. The United States today represents a center of resistance to Islamist terror, but it is always dangerous to reduce reality to a binary world.

At what point does criticism of America turn into anti-Americanism?

André Kaspi: That’s the problem. Anti-Americanism is the result of a radical and systematic critique of American society. Take, for example, the exaggerated role of money in the United States. Doesn’t money play the same role in French society? The same can be said of safety and security…In fact, we are witnessing, today, a strange phenomenon: on one hand, French society is undergoing a significant Americanization. On the other hand, French society is losing its certainties and a large part of its identity. American culture has destabilized French society. French men and women no longer know who they are, and this insecurity provokes a paradoxical rejection. The same people who say that they hate the United States consume American films and eat at McDonald’s. Moreover, we are drowning in a mass of information coming from the United States—information that we do not always know how to analyze.

For example?

André Kaspi: When protestors march at the Place de la Concorde in order to “tell the US President” that they are against the death penalty, this only shows that these French protestors know nothing about America’s constitutional structure, under which the states are sovereign in this field, not the federal government. Before judging the United States and in order to make valid comparisons, the French must learn about American history as well as about their country’s own institutions. How can we French judge a judicial system in which there are 11 different opportunities for appeal after a death penalty sentence when we French often are terribly ignorant about our own justice system? The issue of the death penalty, which is used to stigmatize the United States, is indicative of the stereotyping that is happening. In reality, the number of executions in the United States in 2003 (a total of 65) occurred principally in the southern United States and is lower than those committed in 2002. The percentage of Americans who support the death penalty has dropped from 70% in 2002 to 64% in 2003. Abolitionists are saying that the “death penalty is losing ground in the United States.” With respect to this issue as well as to so many others, the misunderstandings that exist between the United States and France are the result of our ignorance of each other’s countries.

2004-01-30T04:29:00.000-08:00

Update:

On January 19, I wrote about the car bombing against Aïssa Dermouche, the recently appointed Muslim prefect of the Jura region. There have since been two more attacks: a mail bomb sent to the Nantes high school attended by Dermouche's son and an explosion at the business school where Dermouche has taught. Although the police are not revealing any leads, an anti-North African, pro-monarchist group has claimed responsibility.

2004-01-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

Update:

The Middle East Research Institute has a translation of the Al-Mada article (hat tip to LoFIP).

ABC News notes:

"According to the document, France was the second-largest beneficiary, with tens of millions of barrels awarded to Patrick Maugein, a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac.

Maugein, individually and through companies connected to him, received contracts for some 36 million barrels. Chirac's office said it was unaware of Maugein's deals, which Maugein told ABCNEWS are perfectly legal.

The single biggest set of contracts were given to the Russian government and Russian political figures, more than 1.3 billion barrels in all — including 92 million barrels to individual officials in the office of President Vladimir Putin.

Another 1 million barrels were contracted to the Russian ambassador to Baghdad, 137 million barrels of oil were given to the Russian Communist Party, and 5 million barrels were contracted to the Russian Orthodox Church."

2004-01-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

Recommended Reading:

"Last year, France was indulging its illusion that it could galvanize all the antiwar, anti-U.S. sentiment to make itself the great global Uncola to America's Coca-Cola — the new balancer to America. It would be a win-win for President Jacques Chirac. He would enhance his political stature at home by opposing America and make France the supreme power in Europe, marginalizing Britain.

A year later, France was not only unable to stop the war, but it paid a big price in Europe. "It turned out to be lose-lose for France," remarked Peter Schwartz, head of the Global Business Network. By going to such lengths to oppose the U.S., and by denouncing those Europeans who sided with America, France drove pro-U.S. Europeans, like Poland and Spain, deeper into the U.S. camp, noted Mr. Schwartz. This, in turn, gave Poland and Spain more backbone to resist German and French demands for greater control over E.U. affairs.

France was not quite the elephant it thought it was, and the winds of anti-Americanism couldn't carry it any farther than its real economic and military weight. Thud."

--Thomas Friedman in The NY Times

2004-01-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

United States:

John Kerry's cousin is the French environmentalist, Brice Lalonde. Lalond was Minister of the Environment under Mitterand in the late 1980's and is the founder of Génération écologique.

2004-01-29T04:44:00.000-08:00

Immigration:

A recent study by the Institut national d’études démographiques uncovered the following details regarding immigration in France:

--Of all European countries, France's population growth depends the least on immigration (only one-fourth to one-fifth of French population growth being due to immigrants).

--In 1997-8, 130,000 immigrants asked to be naturalized in France (90,000 actually were). In comparison, as many as 500,000 immigrants have recently sought naturalization in each Spain, Italy, and Greece.

--The ferility rate in France is not heavily skewed by immigrant families. In 1991-1998, the number of children per woman in France was 1.72 in comparison to 1.65 children per French woman. Female immigrants represent only one-twelfth of child-bearing women in France.

More information (in French) on the study can be found here.

2004-01-29T04:17:00.000-08:00

European Union:

"France and Germany intend to establish a European think tank, based in Brussels, to advance European ideas on the World stage."

--via EU Observer

2004-01-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

As it becomes indisputable that WMD claims in Iraq were exaggerated, it is also becoming increasingly clear that many of the voices against the war had their own fair share of problems. The BBC, which has led the journalistic pack in accusing Bush and Blair of lying, has been harshly criticized for flawed journalism. Some of those who shouted "no blood for oil" have, it seems, accepted oil themselves from a bloody regime. And Howard Dean, who personifies the anti-war position that contented itself with its moral superiority and failed to propose practical alternative solutions, is being soundly rejected by voters who are turned off by his anger and lack of a positive vision. Deception and mixed motives were no stranger to either the "Axis of Peace" or the "Axis of War." One certainty that emerges from this morass is that, as the old adage says, truth is the first casualty of war.

2004-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

On Sunday, Al-Mada, an Iraqi newspaper, published the names of more than 270 people alleged to have received oil from Hussein in 1999 (after 1991, Iraq's oil transactions were limited by the United Nations to exchanges for food and medication). These are people who often had little to do with the oil industry. They were allegedly assigned barrels of oil that were then sold to companies and then took the commission. The list includes two prime ministers, two foreign ministers, and the sons and daughters of various heads of state. This list includes approximately one dozen French figures. Here are some of the French figures implicated:

--Bernard Mérimée, former French ambassador to Rome and to the UN and relative of the famous 19th century French writer Prosper Mérimée. Bernard Mérimée is alleged to have profited from 3 million barrels of oil from Saddam.
--Charles Pasqua, former French Minister of the Interior (1993-5). He is alleged to have received 12 million barrels of oil. Pasqua has already been investigated by French courts for possible arms sales to Angola in 1993-4. Incidentally, a French court has issued an international arrest warrant for Pasqua's son, Pierre-Philippe, for financial misdealings with respect to Sofremi, an export business linked to the French Ministry of the Interior. Pasqua fils is currently in Tunisia.
--Patrick Maugein, head of the oil and gas company, Soco International and friend of Chirac. Maugein is alleged to have profited from 25 million barrels of oil from Hussein.
--Michel Grimard of the French-Arab Partnership Organization
--Gilles Munier, secretary-general of the French-Iraq Friendship Association.

Other figures that appear on the list include:
--The UK's George Galloway, who is mentioned in six contracts and, according to Le Monde, was "particularly well treated."
--Khaled: the son of Egyptian President Nasser
--The son of the Syrian Defense Minister
--The son of the president of Lebanon
--The daughter of the former Indonesian President Megawati
--The Russian Orthodox Church
--The Russian Communist Party
--The Palestinian Liberation Organization

The information from the list comes from Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), and Iraq's Minister of Oil is requesting Interpol's assistance in tracking down any funds.

2004-01-26T16:51:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy has weighed in on the hijab debate.

2004-01-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

Politics:

Blogorrhée has posted an interesting diagram of French political parties.

2004-01-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

Back on January 16, I wrote about how a French court had attempted to release Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a member of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions, from prison on the condition that he be expelled from France. The French court's ruling was overruled by a superior court. However, Slate is reporting that the German government, in order to facilitate the recent swap between Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Israeli government, asked the French government to release Lebanese prisoners. I wonder if there was any connection between the lower court's ruling and the German government's pressure.

2004-01-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

United States:

"He is not guilty of anything. But you know how American justice works: they want to you plead guilty even if you are innocent."

--The lawyer of Franck Moulet, a 27-year old French student, who "joked" to a stewardess on an American Airlines flight to New York that he had placed a bomb in the plane's bathroom. After pleading guilty, Moulet was released with a fine.

2004-01-26T03:59:00.000-08:00

China:

--"The European Union is to consider lifting its arms embargo against China...But so far France is the only country to take such a strong public stance on revoking the ban, with many countries stressing the need to tread cautiously."

via IRIB news

--"...the People's Liberation Army was especially interested in buying French Mirage jets as well as French avionics and astronautical equipment."

via CNN

--"A Pentagon report in 2002 warned China was intent on developing a vastly more potent military, with its training focusing more on America as an enemy. For 13 consecutive years, China has made double-digit increases in the public budget for the 2.5-million strong People’s Liberation Army. Reported defence spending grew 17.6 percent to US$20 billion in 2002."

via Daily Times

2004-01-26T03:49:00.000-08:00

European Union:

--"The UK and France are jostling over who is to head up a new European armaments agency, a crucial element of the EU’s common foreign and security policy...'The UK vision is capabilities-driven, the French vision is arms-driven,' he [a UK diplomat] said, arguing that London wanted to build the specific defence armory needed for the task in hand. 'This may not mean buying new shiny equipment…we could lease it instead of buying it,' he said, adding that Paris was more focussed on 'propping up ailing defence industries.' "

via EUpolitix

--"Across the [French] country statistics show that Euroscepticism remains a powerful force, with 54 percent of the public opposed to enlargement and only 18 percent thinking the the EU can "function well" with 25 members, according to a Eurobarometer poll in November."

via EU Business

--"The European Commission has rejected French calls to increase the minimum excise duty on tobacco."

via EUpolitix

2004-01-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

All Americans Are __________:

" 'You buy my products,' says China. 'Yes, but you finance me,' replies the United States. It's the great alliance between the two empires of the 21st century. There is an agreement between the 1.3 billion individuals who are rushing to the factories on the Chinese coast in order to leave behind the agricultural misery and the 280 million richest people on the planet who want to continue to consume like madmen.

One day, things will be different. In twenty or thirty years, the first will despise the second for having once been their workers. But, for the moment, the ragged agricultural laborer is happy to flee the Mao-style rice fields, and the American consumer is ecstatic that he can change a shirt, television and, tomorrow, a car at bargain prices."

--Eric Le Boucher in Le Monde

2004-01-24T07:37:00.000-08:00

French "Journalism:"

I have avoided Radio France Internationale since the war in Iraq because of its obsession with facile critiques of American policy. This morning, I tuned in with the hope of hearing about French politics, events in Africa, problems in the Middle East, etc. Imagine my disappointment, therefore, when I tuned in to RFI and heard a "special" program on: America after 9/11. RFI has a particular style of reporting: finding Americans or other angolophones who think that Bush is a raving lunatic and asking them to speak French. There was one rambling monologue after another that took up about 20 minutes during which only one viewpoint was presented: America was wrong to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. There was a cartoonist who described why he drew Bush as a monkey. Another described how he was now considered to be "honest and courageous" for criticizing Bush given the jingoistic atmosphere in the United States. Then there was an American who, after mentioning that he "detested" Bush, described how CNN is the cheerleader of the American army. Most of this report could have been produced six months ago: there was nothing timely about it with the exception of a few references to the upcoming presidential election and the unanimous hope among those interviewed that Bush would be crushed.

Let me be clear. My objection is not that RFI would dedicate a program to criticizing American foreign policy. My objection is how mindless that criticism is. The program was little more than opinions that were never challenged and never supported with any details. BBC presenters have clear biases, but one normally has the impression that they have done some research and are familiar with the opposing arguments. In contrast, the RFI program simply presented a parade of trite and denigrating stereotypes that had as much social value as hate speech.

2004-01-22T17:29:00.000-08:00

Diplomacy:

The following is the final installment of a three-part translation of a speech by the French foreign minister (Dominique de Villepin) that was delivered on January 17 at UNESCO. Scroll down for parts I & II.

"The Clash of Civilizations Will Not Happen"

...Take, for example, the crises involving weapons proliferation: the approaches to Iran and North Korea must be different. The problem of Iran’s weapons program was resolved—or is on its way to being resolved—thanks to the determined action of France, Germany and the UK, who maintained pressure on Iran and have a direct interest in that region’s stability. The U.S., China and Russia, with the assistance of South Korea and Japan, are dealing with North Korea. All of these countries have ties to the North Korean problem, whether as a result of their geographic proximity or security arrangements. They have, therefore, a reason to implicate themselves more directly in the search for solutions in that region of the world, provided that these solutions respect the same rights and apply the same inspection guidelines as those sketched with respect to Iran. These are regional variations on a global, strategic theme.
*
This type of approach is particularly relevant to the Middle East—an unstable region where the stakes are immense and that risks exploding at any given moment. The crises that perpetuate themselves in that corner of the globe arise from very complex causes and risk creating feelings of permanent alienation. Without a political space in which it can express itself, this feeling of alienation finds an outlet in radical Islamism. Radical Islamism, in turn, seeks to channel this unhappiness against the West, which it accuses of denying cultural identities and of perpetuating injustices. Let us beware: if there is one single place where a clash of civilizations is to be feared—East vs. West, Islam vs. Christianity and Judaism—it is in the Middle East.

The international community must involve itself carefully, attentively and unselfishly in the transformation of the Middle East. We must act with a discriminating judgment in order to avoid contributing to political and religious extremism. This means taking into account each country’s uniqueness since the Middle East is neither homogenous nor undifferentiated. It also means returning dignity to people who are convinced that they have been, for decades, a pawn in others’ games. Finally, it means eliminating the belief that their exist double standards in international relations.

The Middle East needs a global strategy that is implemented gradually and with full awareness of that region’s different problems. The search for solutions to conflicts—in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—is a prerequisite to eliminating the atmospheres of instability and injustice that are intimately linked. We must put aside a “I won’t act until you act” negotiating style that gives control to the enemies of peace. We must risk making the first step. Everyone understands Israel’s security concerns. But the best guarantee of security is peace, and this is only attainable through a political solution that entails the creation of an independent, viable state in keeping with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. In contrast, a purely security-based approach will only lead to more violence.

Along similar lines, we must encourage the modernization of the Middle Eastern states towards democracy. We must work towards their economic development with a cooperative spirit. We must think about the creation of a Middle Eastern organization of collective security. And we must organize a dialogue between cultures that will dissipate the sentiment that identities are being ignored. This strategy’s elaboration and implementation must be a joint project. And based on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, the European Union has a wealth of experience in designing a framework of instruments and points of reference.

***
Ladies and gentleman, that which is true in the Middle East is equally valid elsewhere. In our global world, all situations that we once considered to be peripheral must be addressed in all of their diversity. Peace, security, and democracy form a virtuous circle that it is up to us to trace. But only the desire for justice and cooperation is capable of creating this circle.

It is up to us to win this battle that pits humanity against intolerance, dialogue against violence, and hope against confrontation, division and rupture. The forces of instability are on the march. But together and in a spirit of peace, we can construct a more just, more certain, and more unified world.

Thank you.

2004-01-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

Recommended Reading:

LoFIP has translated here a Le Monde editorial on anti-Jewish conduct by France's Islamists.

2004-01-21T18:03:00.000-08:00

Diplomacy:

The following is part II of a three-part translation of a speech by the French foreign minister (Dominique de Villepin) that was delivered on January 17 at UNESCO. Scroll down for Part I.

"The Clash of Civilizations Will Not Happen"

...Our planet needs structural guidelines and regulatory mechanisms. The significance of nation-states is diminishing as new actors arise on the international scene. All of the multilateral mechanisms face a crisis, from the WTO to the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, people feel that they have been abandoned to the uncontrolled forces of globalization. Traditional belief systems generally offer little support, and, as the traditional points of reference fade, a new moral system will be long in coming in this world dominated by technical systems and commerce. Assumptions regarding identity, religion and culture that are often based in fear are affirming themselves with unexpected strength in a world that risks becoming uniform.

And this is why we run the risk of significant confrontations. A world that seeks to deny cultural identities will only exacerbate them. A world that is perceived as unjust will only provoke allergic reactions. Now, terrorism seeks precisely to gather together all of this resentment into a bloc composed of modernity’s rejects. In furtherance of this goal, terrorism has acquired a strategic dimension, threatening us with an asymmetric conflict that pits the weak against the strong, the periphery against the center, and before which the traditional instruments of power seem to be futile.

The use of force is not an adequate defense against the glorification of sacrifice. Material power stumbles when faced with the intangible. Force cannot become a common problem-solving tool and must remain a last recourse. And this is why the terrorists want to drag us into confrontations, knowing that a war between cultural identities will likely destabilize the world. The clash of civilizations is a trap into which they seek to lure us.

***
In responding to this challenge, we have an advantage: the emergence of a global conscience that is opposed to disorder and instability. We also have principles and objectives to defend: the solidarity of people, the unity of the international community, the establishment of a world democracy.

Hopes increase with the retreat of national egoism, the beginning of shared sovereignty, the end to isolated corners of the globe that allowed dictators to thrive, the rapprochement of different people: there are many ideals that our countries ceaselessly defend against regimes that seeks to isolate their populations and to maintain them in the yoke of oppression and silence.

Never before have universal values so merited their name and never before has there been a better forecast for democracy. Synonymous with technological progress and modernity, globalization has created new centers of growth. People now understand that they belong to the same human community and that they face the same dangers. Across the globe, new nations are affirming their desires to take their place on the global stage: Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. A dynamic of regional regrouping has been unleashed, of which the European Union is the best example. This historical movement promises peace, security and prosperity.

*
This multipolar world is creating a new multilateral architecture. In a world in which the challenges are global, in which no state—no matter how powerful—can solve them alone, in which no state will accept solutions imposed upon them from the outside, it is essential to forge the unity of the international community around popular projects and demands for justice. These will lead to efficiency and legitimacy—two concepts that are inextricably linked. The new issues facing the world require collective responsibility. This, in turn, requires a true world democratic government that is able to efficiently handle the world’s problems, to deal with crises and formidable, strategic challenges, and to place concern for humanity at the center of globalization.

The European Union will play a unique role here. For half a century, the EU has endeavored to construct a coherent, efficient political system that is based on the diversity of its members and accepted by all of them. The EU does not presume to impose a democratic model but it merely offers the example of a geographical group that knew how to force open a way to unity in order to devise solutions to problems that were too overwhelming for individual states. Each of its members has willingly delegated some essential aspects of its sovereignty in order to create a space in which the fairest rules are imposed on all.

*
In a world susceptible to terrible ruptures, the world community must reflect the demands of the people: (1) the respect of cultural identities, because individuals, societies and beliefs want to be recognized in all of their uniqueness; and (2) sharing, because solidarity must be the corollary to power.

This is why we must abandon the status quo whenever it is a source of injustice and resentment. However we must not do so in a fashion that plays into the hands of those who would destabilize the world. The essence of the problem is: how do we eliminate a faceless enemy without creating new enemies, how can we lop off the hydra’s head so that it will never regenerate? The solution will require diverse approaches in response to the different, regional problems. Each one will demand a specific treatment, while, at the same time, requiring the recognition that crises are increasingly interlinked throughout the globe...

2004-01-21T04:31:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

"A van used as a schoolbus by a Jewish school in Strasbourg has been firebombed in what a community leader has called an apparent anti-Semitic attack, local police said on Tuesday."

--via Ha'aretz

2004-01-20T19:42:00.000-08:00

Diplomacy:

The following is part I of a three-part translation of a speech by the French foreign minister (Dominique de Villepin) that was delivered on January 17 at UNESCO.

"The Clash of Civilizations Will Not Happen"

At the beginning of the 1990’s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Communist regimes, some announced the end of history. Today, on the contrary, some fear a clash of civilizations. In the midst of multiplying, global fractures, the great cultural and religious spheres seem doomed to confront one another. Devoid of meaning and mourning progress, history seems to be pursuing a chaotic path in the shadow of fear and scorn.

I would like to express here my conviction: Far from forming homogenous and antagonistic blocks, civilizations can neither survive nor evolve without sharing, intermixing, and exchanging. History has taught us this: more than simply frozen realities, civilizations are living and constitute areas in which men, ideas and performances intermingle. These civilizations have always developed to the extent that they have been willing to borrow from others and to the extent of their metamorphoses through countless detours: the detour of Ancient Greek thought through the academic centers of Baghdad before reaching, via the Muslim Andalusia of Averroes, the heart of Christian Europe; or the sliding of the story of the Deluge from the cuneiform tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh into the Book of Genesis.

Today, all images and cultures are echoes of this “every-world” that Creole poets celebrated. Humanity should seize this opportunity and reconcile itself with this cultural diversity without renouncing the universal values of liberty, justice and tolerance. To understand another man’s position is to renounce the mysteries of nationality and ethnic purity that only divide people: We must find an equilibrium point where one identity—recognized and respected—can open itself to and welcome another.

***
If the notion of “civilization” first appeared in the 18th century in L’ami des Hommes by Mirabeau and in opposition to savagery and barbarism, people began in the 19th century to speak not of one civilization, but of several civilizations. In this shift from the singular to the plural was contained a new question: is this plurality of civilizations opposed to the civilization, recognized by Enlightenment philosophers in the modern West? Do not modernity and its corollaries—individual freedom, the shrinking and disillusionment of the world, the reign of technical skills—contradict the fundamentals of civilizations—national identities, religions and cultures? Thus an anxiety appeared—notably in Europe: If civilizations live and die, as Arnold Toynbee, Oswald Spengler and Paul Valery demonstrated, what is the future of the West?

With the advancement of globalization and its threat of uniformity, with identity crises and the revival of fundamentalism, we have reached a critical point in this analysis.

We can give in to the temptation of fear and fold in upon ourselves, at the risk of provoking the aforementioned clash of civilizations. We can ignore the cries of wounded cultural identities, at the risk of an explosive backlash. Or we can construct, on the basis of respect, openness and dialogue, a new equilibrium and a source of new resolve and energy. Civilizations can be citadels or agoras, places of conflict or meeting places. It is up to us to choose the world in which we want to live. It is up to us to act, with determination, in order to lay the foundations.

*
Today, we must quickly harness the forces of disorder and rupture in order to construct a world order that is concerned with understanding and justice. The urgency is great because new dangers are arising from every corner of the globe.

Since 9/11, we have entered an age of mass terrorism. It strikes every continent. It fuels extreme violence, destructive urges, an exaltation of sacrifice, and an erroneous interpretation of religion. Even though its objectives are global and even though it arises from the disorder that inevitably accompanies times of change, terrorism takes advantage of local conflict and conflates resentments. It seeks to unleash a spiral of violence and reprisals that will escape all control.

Muslim countries are paying a heavy price to the adherents of fanaticism and hate. In Casablanca, Bali, Istanbul and Baghdad, their citizens are the first to be hurt. Therefore nothing could be less true than to view to mass terrorism as the opposition of one bloc against another—the East vs. the West. Nothing could be worse than to fall into this trap of over-simplification. Above all else, the terrorists target, wherever these may be, the spirit of respect and tolerance, the eagerness for dialogue, and the desire for reform and modernization.

In these troubled regions, there is also a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This problem exploits the cracks in globalization, uses secret avenues, take advantages of borders. Owing to the trafficking of secret technologies and materials, terrorists may obtain weapons of mass destruction, increasing by tenfold their destructive capacities.

These acts of violence are only warning signs. The turbulence on the surface hides greater disturbances underneath. These problems lead one to ask if, in their mad rush to progress and wealth, our societies have not weakened humanity and unbalanced the planet. Environmental destruction continues inexorably. New diseases appear and spread, while famine continues to ravage impoverished people. In addition to attacks on biodiversity, there are threats to the richness and plurality of culture. The gaps between the development levels of different countries remain intolerable and fuel feelings of frustration and injustice among their victims.

There are many dangers that add to the world’s instability. Today, regional crises that have not been resolved—that the tension between the East and West keeps under control—risk spreading and joining forces. Wherever borders are perceived to be artificial and governments are seen as illegitimate, wherever cultural identities are denied and the rights of minorities are ignored, the conflicts that have continued sometimes for decades spread their destabilizing effects. And no power, alone, can claim to contain them. Today, even the most peripheral situation can unleash a global crisis.

All areas of crisis are henceforth linked, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from the Middle East to Africa. All of the elements of risk are concentrating themselves in areas of agitation and conflict. This is all the more true since globalization involves a process of decompartmentalization that spreads, in an almost instantaneous fashion, problems that start off as regional. In this fashion, epidemics, attacks on the environment, financial crises, and computer hacking become health, ecological and social disasters of enormous proportions. Once contained conflicts now establish secret connections with other wounds and scourges...

2004-01-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

It is amusing to watch the French implement affirmative action policies, all the while fervently denying the fact. The French have long looked down upon the American “discrimination positive”—dismissed as a policy for a melting pot of a nation without a culture, where each new wave of immigrants was simply piled atop the previous one. Yet Chirac, under pressure from Sarkozy—the popular Minister of the Interior—appointed Aïssa Dermouche to be the prefect of the Jura region near the Swiss border (a prefect is a high-ranking civil servant who represents the State at the level of the département or region. Basically, his responsibility is to ensure that the central government’s marching orders are properly carried out at the local level). Dermouche was born in Algeria but immigrated to France at the age of 18 and was a business professor before assuming his political responsibilities.

In early January, Sarkozy had called for a “Muslim prefect,” noting in a refreshing burst of honesty that “There are parts of France and categories of French citizen who have loaded on their heads so many handicaps that if we do not help them more than we help others, they will never escape.”

Later, Chirac stated, “…last July, I said during a cabinet meeting that I would not accept a candidate for prefect who was not a French immigrant.” However Chirac, in an effort to distance himself from Sarkozy, vehemently denied that he was following any policy such as that pursued in America during the 1960’s. “The idea that someone could be nominated on the basis of their last name is deeply disturbing and unacceptable,” said the French president. One wonders, however, if Dermouche would have been appointed if his last name were Delhommais or Potet. In a valiant effort to distinguish between France’s affirmative action and America’s, the French newspaper, La Croix, writes “In speaking of a ‘Muslim prefect,’ Nicolas Sarkozy used a religious or cultural criterion. This is unconstitutional. That is why the socialist, Dominique Strausse-Kahn, although welcoming affirmative action à la française, ‘does not like Sarkozy’s phrase because it had overtones of affirmative action à l’américaine, which is based on ethnicity.” La Croix goes on to explain, “Affirmative action à la française is based on social or geographical criteria.” Frankly, the distinction escapes me. How is choosing Dermouche based on the fact that he comes from Algeria different than choosing Dermouche because he is of Algerian origin? Yet the French will try any argument in their efforts to distinguish themselves from the U.S.

The appointment of Dermouche is a sea change in French policy. This is a nation that does not gather national census data based on race, religion or ethnicity. The appointment was bound to elicit strong emotions—however few people would have guessed that Dermouche would be attacked in a fashion reminiscent of Birmingham circa 1963. At 4:30 AM on Sunday morning, Dermouche’s Saab was blown up (here is a picture of the car), twenty meters from the new prefect’s house in a posh neighborhood in Nantes. The explosion was so strong that it blew the car’s roof across the street and broke the windows of a nearby house. The Nantes state prosecutor has astutely noted, “There is no doubt that this concerns a criminal act,” and the French police are investigating possibilities among the extreme right or Islamists. However Jean-Marc Ayrault, the socialist deputy and mayor of the city, has warned against jumping to conclusions. He noted that the explosion might have been a random act of car combustion, "as happens regularly and unfortunately in big cities."

2004-01-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

United States:

This must be a joke (at least I hope so):

"Each Yankee soldier who falls today in Iraq is a step towards the liberation of the peoples of the four continents....We affirm without complex our primary, secondary and tertiary anti-Americanism...The USA is the enemy of mankind...Organized on a transnational basis, the "Iraq Committees" are regrouped in a "Transnational Coordination of the Iraq Committees", and in Frenchspeaking Space (Belgium, France, Quebec, French-speaking Switzerland) in a "Frenchspeaking Coordination of the Iraq Committees".

The site links to the Parti Communautaire National-européen, which advocates the following:

"Europe's liberation implies a global withdrawal of the US. The end of american domination must intervene at the military level (disbandment of NATO) as well as at the economical level (nationalization of european based american companies and financial assets)...To remediate the present situation one must first discover the primary causes of the European Bankruptcy. This is important to give Europe the Moral, the ethics and the aesthetics wich have been so much lacking to this day. The question is simple to put : we only have to be masters in our land...Freedom can only be guaranteed by force...Europe must be in europan [sic] hands."

2004-01-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

Writes Will Hutton in The Guardian, “the French position since 11 September is much stronger and more coherent than our own because it is based on a systematic Enlightenment worldview…France is…right to insist that it will not support Islamic sexism; thus, the recent ban on wearing headscarves.”

However, nothing could be further removed from Enlightenment values than France’s current attacks on Muslim girls. While the Enlightenment fought against religious dogma and sought to place reason at the center of intellectual pursuits, it was Voltaire who wrote, in his Treatise on Tolerance, that “[a]n atheist who is rational, violent, and powerful, would be as great a pestilence as a blood-mad, superstitious man.” Enlightenment philosophers often expressed a certain disgust with nationalism and a concomitant emphasis upon the common links binding humanity. In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote, “Such then is the human state that to wish for one's country's greatness is to wish harm to one's neighbors. He who should wish his fatherland might never be greater, smaller, richer, poorer, would be the citizen of the world.”

How, therefore, is the French government’s legislation the inheritor of Enlightenment ideals? Muslim girls are being denied the opportunity to have a secular education; and by denying them a French public education, the French government is pushing these children into religious schools. Moreover, the French government’s policy is little more than a nationalistic impulse to reinforce French identity through exclusion. The French government seeks to turn its public schools into Potemkin villages that ignore the reality of France’s millions of Muslims. That 13-year old girl who is forced to remove her veil before entering her classroom will place it back on when she exits the school doors. How will her classmates react to her differences then? Is it a lesson in tolerance to pretend that all individuals dress and behave in the same fashion? Isn’t it better to accustom children to their neighbor’s differences as soon as possible and to teach them to look beyond these differences to a common humanity? For Chirac, France’s immigrants and their sons and daughters are not sources of strength—there is nothing that the French believe that they can gain from them. Instead, they are only potential converts to the religion of the French state. Globalism is valued only to the extent that the rest of the world becomes more French.

And the victims of France’s policies extend beyond its Muslim population. The archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, has reported attacks on nuns in France and stated, “At a university in Paris, a woman wearing a small cross had it torn off by other students.”

During the Cold War, the American government created alliances with dubious States in order to combat Soviet atrocities. Perhaps this policy of tolerating lesser problems in order to combat a greater one was justified. Yet in the current battle against Islamism, the United States should not ally itself with secular fundamentalists in order to combat religious ones. On the contrary, the US government should reject an alliance of convenience and make clear that France’s intolerance is no more acceptable than that of the Taliban. Despite the taboo of intervening in a foreign nation’s internal affairs, President Bush should have voiced his support for the 5,000 demonstrators who marched in Paris on Saturday against the French government’s policy as well as for those 3,500 protestors in Lille, 1,800 in Marseille, 1,500 in Mulhouse, 2,400 in London, 1,000 in Brussels, 2,000 women in Beirut, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City, and demonstrators in Baghdad. Such a move on the part of the American government would enable it to triangulate the issue, placing itself as a more moderate alternative to the fanaticism on both sides. Although the tragedy of 9/11 remains fresh in Americans' minds, Americans must not forget that Europe’s bloody twentieth century has taught us the dangers of secular zealots who seek to create their Kingdoms on earth through the persecution of others.

2004-01-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a member of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (FARL--a group which, through violence, sought to establish a Marxist-Leninist state in Lebanon), was implicated by a French court in the 1980's murders of Charles Ray, deputy military attache at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and Yacov Barsimentov, second secretary at the Israeli Embassy, as well as in the attempted murder of U.S. Consul-General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984. In order to scare the French government into releasing Abdallah and in order to make France pay for its support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, the FARL killled thirteen and wounded over 300 people during a series of bombings in Paris in 1985-6. Nonetheless, Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison in 1987.

However this past November, a French court ruled to release Abdallah on the condition that he leave France. The French court was convinced that Abdallah had put aside violence and wanted to reintegrate himself peacefully into Lebanon. Alternatively, the French court might have thought that Abdallah was free to carry out his murders, provided that they were not in France.

Yet under pressure from the French Ministry of Justice, another French court has now overruled the earlier decision and has ordered that Abdallah remain in prison. Abdallah's lawyer will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Moreover, the French lawyer accused the French judges of sharing "Mr. Bush's vision" of terrorism.

2004-01-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

France is sending mixed messages to Iran. On one hand, Chirac declared this past Saturday that "Iran has its own particular attraction and Paris favors broadening the span of its ties and cooperation with your country...France and the EU wish to expand and strengthen their ties with Iran in political, cultural, and economic fields." Chirac went on to praise Iran's decision to limit its nuclear capacities and its cooperation in the Middle East peace process.

Then, yesterday, de Villepin offered an implicit critique of recent Iranian efforts to shut reformers out of elections and of Iranian government arrests of student demonstrators. In response, Hassan Rowhani, the head of Iran's National Security Council who is on a 3-day visit to France, took the opportunity to criticize the French government's efforts to ban the veil from public schools.

Despite Chirac's praise of Iran's compliance with nuclear weapons limitations, Iran may be taking liberties in its interpretation of its promises to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Reports CBS: "Iran agreed last year to halt uranium enrichment and allow wider inspections of its nuclear facilities...But diplomats tell Agence France-Presse that while Tehran appears to have stopped enriching uranium, it is still producing the centrifuges that make that enrichment possible, in case Iran wants to resume the process later on."

On an unrelated note, de Villepin--who is on a diplomatic tour of the Gulf--yesterday proposed a regional Gulf security organization under the auspices of the United Nations. One of the goals of the organization, which would include the five permanent Security Council members, would be to discourage terrorism and the development of WMD. It might rival the current Gulf Cooperation Council, which was created in 1981 and only includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

2004-01-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

Internet:

In an affront to end-to-end architecture, the French Assembly plans on making ISPs liable for the content that passes through their servers. The bill obligates ISPs to filter criminal content, such as hate speech. An organization called Odebi is protesting the proposed law, arguing that private organizations should not be granted the role of censors and claiming that the additional responsibilities cast on the ISPs will increase costs, which will be passed on to consumers. Odebi also notes that since multiple websites may share the same numerical IP address, the blocking of one illegal site may result in a denial of access to many legitimate sites.

2004-01-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

Despite the French government's efforts to ban the veil from public schools for the cause of a secular state, it is interesting to note the number of Catholic state holidays in France. Christmas is a given, but how about : Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Assumption Day, and All Saints' Day. These are days when French state offices and schools are closed. Of the eleven official holidays in France, six of them are Catholic-based.

Incidentally, what the French Revolution could not eliminate, France's financial woes may. The French government is proposing to take back Whit Monday in order to raise tax revenues.

2004-01-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

United States:

In the following excerpts from this Le Monde editorial, one can see the fear of some French in reaction to American progress in space. It is difficult to take charges of unilateralism seriously when they are leveled against any step that the United States takes without first consulting the French president.

"America's new ambitions in space, as expressed by George W. Bush, on January 14, signal a rupture with the period of internationalization that has predominated over the course of the last thirty years. After the Apollo program, which was completed in 1972, there were experiments with the Spacelab, Mir, and the ISS that gradually involved different nations, culminating in the construction of the Space Station. While the conquest of the moon crystallized the East-West rivalry during the Cold War, space played a more peaceful role at the end of the century...

For Europe, the situation is sensitive. Even if Jean-Jacques Dordain, the head of the European Space Agency, applauded America's renewed ambitions in space, Europe's role in this new era is far from clear. Will we play a minor, diplomatic role or will we be a true, technological partner? The growing dominance of Airbus over its rival Boeing illustrates the types of battles that will take place over the corridors of space."

What is so difficult to understand is the sense of entitlement that the authors of this article feel. Four thousand researchers in France recently addressed a petition to the French government, accusing it of neglecting funds for pure research purposes. R&D constitutes only 2.2% of the French budget. In contrast, R&D constitutes roughly 5% of the US government expenditures in 2003. The "partnership" that the French seek will not be obtained by miserly French expenditures on R&D accompanied by efforts to get a free ride off of American taxpayers through cries of "unilateralism."

2004-01-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

United Nations:

Mark your calendars:

February 21: International Mother Language Day
October 1: International Day of Older Persons
June 26: International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
April 7: International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda

These are some of the 55 special days that have been approved by the UN General Assembly

2004-01-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

Recommended Reading:

LoFIP has an update on the fate of the French journalists imprisoned in Pakistan as well a translation of a British sociologist's critique of France's anti-veil legislation.

2004-01-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

European Union:

The EU is investigating yet another possible instance of regulatory violations by the French government. This time the investigation involves French aid to the semi-public France Telecom (55% owned by the State). A loan offered by the French government to France Telecom and statements by the French Finance Minister, Francis Mer, dating back to 2002, such as: "If France Telecom has financial difficulties...the State will take the necessary decisions to ensure that the difficulties are overcome," may have violated EU regulations that limit certain types of governmental support and subsidies. At the time that the statements were made, France Telecom was facing a liquidity crunch and had 70 billion euros in debt.

2004-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

The latest victim of French secular fundamentalism? A 13-year-old girl.

2004-01-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

Legal:

It's official: The European Commission will challenge exceptions made last November in the Stability Pact for France and Germany. The French government's response? "[N]ot worried."

2004-01-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

French "Journalism:"

As the US presidential elections draw closer, expect the French press to increase its criticism of the Bush administration. Cases in point:

--The most popular article on Le Monde's website as of today was entitled "They Hate Bush." It discusses anti-Bush sentiment among Americans and contains phrases such as "One finds every type imaginable in the group of Bush haters--senators' moms, artists, renowned journalists who expose their hatred like one who is finally coming out and is getting rid of a great burden..." Incidentally, in the same article, Matt Drudge is described as "the poster boy of the Right;" whereas Paul Krugman is the "distinguished Princeton University economics professor" and "intellectual icon of all Bush-haters."

--Le Courrier International, which is owned by Le Monde, finds a way to criticize Bush's rumored plans to revitalize America's space program. The program is deemed to be nothing more than a campaign ploy, which is an argument that rings hollow whether uttered in the French or American press. It suggests that something that a President does during any of his four years (and, in particular, his first four years), is something other than political. In addition, the fact that Bush might announce a new space commitment during his campaign does not make his commitment less sincere than any of his other commitments. On the contrary, the fact that a President would be willing to make such a promise during a campaign--when the voters will soon have the opportunity to vote on his platform--identifies the politician more, rather than less, with his campaign promises. The end of the article reads, " 'Big projects attract people's attentions,' emphasizes an official source from the Bush administration. One might cite, as an example, President Bush's involvement in Iraq." It takes a truly active imagination to compare sending a man to Mars to the war in Iraq.

--Le Courrier International also criticizes U.S. efforts to convince other countries (such as France) to forgive Iraqi debts. The gist of the article is that Iraq is wealthy enough to pay off its debts and that poorer countries with overwhelming debts should be the focus of the American government's attention. However it is not clear why Iraqi money should be spent on rewarding countries or businesses that loaned money to Hussein instead of on rebuilding the infrastructure of the country. Even though Iraq does have oil reserves, this is not an argument that the money should be used to line the pockets of French bankers instead of being used to provide better education, health care and jobs for the Iraqis. Furthermore, even though a change in government does not absolve a country of the previous regime's debts, there is something to be said for a diplomatic policy that discourages lending money for dubious purposes to dictators.

2004-01-12T15:56:00.000-08:00

& the UK:

"Britain's and France's experiences of the second world war were profoundly different. Britain's memories are of lonely and dogged resistance of 1940, and of the support of the Empire and of the United States in winning final victory. France remembers not just the contribution of the Resistance and French forces to the eventual defeat of Nazism, but also the horrors of invasion and occupation. Inevitably, our approaches to Europe in the decades after the war were shaped by these experiences. France's overwhelming priority was to build a framework where war with Germany, which it had suffered three times in seventy years, would be made impossible. And General de Gaulle was determined to recover French national pride through leadership in Europe. Britain's first reaction to European integration was to treat it as something which did not concern us; only later did we decide to be part of it. Our experience during the war convinced us deeply that keeping the strongest possible relationship between Europe and the US was the cornerstone of our security and prosperity...

Our differences over Iraq were, in essence, differences over how best to maintain the authority of international rules. I respect the position which France took, and it is a matter of regret to me that we were divided over it. But Britain went to war in Iraq, as a last resort, because Saddam Hussein was still defying the international community after 12 years of discussion and 17 UN resolutions. We felt that international law without enforcement would become a dead letter. If we had failed to live up to the tough words of the unanimous Resolution 1441 and its many predecessors, we would have not only been left with the continuing threat from Iraq: our ability to persuade others to respect international standards would also have been much diminished."

--Jack Straw, in his speech celebrating the Entente Cordiale, a 1904 agreement in which France and England agreed to respect one another's colonial conquests in Northern Africa.

2004-01-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

European "Journalism:"

"What distinguishes the British soldiers from their American counterparts in Baghdad is the British willingness to communicate, their sense of humor, and their rejection of all vulgarity and clumsy propaganda."

--German journalist Peter Scholl-Latour in this French translation from an article in Welt Am Sonntag.

Often underlying European critiques of American vulgarity are implicit criticisms of America's fluid social hierarchy and large immigrant population. Dominique de Villepin, with his aristocratic last name and as the son of a French senator, simply cannot be "vulgar." As this Belgian newspaper notes, de Villepin has the "natural elegance of the well-born, of the very well-born." Canada's CBC has described him as "elitist and arrogant." In contrast, de Villepin's American counterpart, Colin Powell, is the son of Jamaican immigrants and the product of the South Bronx. The commander of the coalition forces in Iraq is another "vulgar" American--Ricardo Sanchez--who was born dirt poor in Rio Grande City, Texas into a Mexican-American family. In contrast to the European stereotype of American soldiers as Bible-thumping, culturally isolated, trigger-happy adolescents, Sanchez grew up in a land between two countries and, in order to succeed, had to demonstrate an awareness of different cultures. Yet Powell and Sanchez do not have the skin color, bank accounts, or backgrounds that are necessary to gain access to European corridors of power. One can therefore understand a certain European frustration that such individuals should wield power in today's world.

2004-01-10T06:31:00.000-08:00

Journalism (Update):

A Pakistani court has sentenced the French journalist Marc Epstein and news photographer Jean-Paul Guilloteau to 6 months in prison and a 1,350 euro fine apiece for violating Pakistani immigration laws (see December 21 posting). The Pakistani prosecutor had sought a 3-year sentence. Epstein and Guilloteau's lawyers is appealing the case. A hearing for Khawar Mehdi Rizwi, a Pakistani journalist who accompanied Epstein and Guilloteau and has been denied, since his arrest, any contact with the outside world, is scheduled for January 13.

Le Courrier International quotes an anonymous Western diplomat as stating, "The message of the Pakistani government to foreign journalists who challenge Pakistan's image of itself has been made eminently clear."

2004-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

Terrorism (Update):

French intelligent services (i.e. the "DST") are now claiming that ben Chellali and others arrested last Tuesday (see January 8 posting) near Lyon were planning a chemical attack on French soil. The French are also claiming that ben Chellali provided false papers, money, explosives and lodging to those who were planning an attack on a Russian delegation back in December 2002.

Further details include:

--Menad, ben Chellali's eldest son (the younger one being currently in Guantanamo), unsuccessfully tried to enter Chechnya in order to fight against the Russians. He allegedly encouraged the younger people in his neighborhood to give him their passports and, if asked, to report them as "lost" to French authorities.
--The French are building up an argument to expel ben Chellali, an Algerian citizen, back to his land of birth.

2004-01-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

French "Journalism:"

Le Monde begins its coverage of Bush's recent immigration announcement with the following lead:

"Only 10 months away from the Presidential election, George Bush has proposed to regularize illegal immigrant workers by according them a legal status limited to three years but renewable. This regularization is temporary and the illegal workers will not be able to obtain the "greed card" of permanent residents."

One-third of the article consists of a section entitled "Negative Reactions," which notes, "Although the United States has historically been a country of immigrants, the arrival of new immigrants provokes negative sentiments in American society." It also criticizes Bush's plan for not according the illegal immigrants full US citizenship status.

Deutsche Welle suggests that Le Monde's reaction to Bush's proposal was typical of the European press. Rather than noting the differences between American and European immigration policies, the European press chose to dismiss Bush's ideas as a political ploy that did not go far enough.

Meanwhile, the French Interior Minister has signed an agreement with Hong Kong designed to stem the flow of illegal Asian immigrants into France.

2004-01-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

European Union:

Yet another case of France flouting European Union regulations. This time it's safety regulations. What is amazing is how the French government doesn't even bother to respond--let alone comply--with the adverse court decision.

2004-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

The international backlash against the French government's secular fundamentalism is growing. The prominent Egyptian cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has threatened to sue the French government (presumably in French courts) over any legislation that bans the veil from public schools.

Jordanian protesters demonstrated outside the French embassy in Amman, asking whether France wants a "war with Islam."

In Iran, 60 professors at Al-Zahra University wrote a letter to Chirac, claiming that the proposed French legislation would violate the "human right" to education.

In Gaza City, hundreds of female supporters of Islamic Jihad marched through the streets, chanting "Islamic women against the French orders."

The Canadian Islamic Congress addressed the following letter to the French government:

"We consider this move to be a regressive one which clearly violates Muslims' democratic freedom of religion and the human rights of some five million French citizens -- especially those of Muslim women who wish to exercise their rights and freedoms in a democratic and liberal French society.

If your country's proposed legislation against religious clothing becomes law, it would set a very dangerous precedent for the further erosion of the rights of religious minorities in other Western countries. It would signal a return to the ugly period of the Inquisition and place France outside the world's civilized community.

We therefore sincerely hope that your government will reconsider the passing of this legislation. For the sake of France, its citizens, and its global neighbours, the anti-Islam law deserves to die before it kills the rights of countless patriotic and law-abiding Muslim citizens."

In stark contrast to the denunciations of the French action, the French Council of the Muslim Faith is discouraging protests against the proposed French legislation. The Council, which some consider to be a Muslim Uncle Tom, was established with the support of the French government in order to encourage the development of a French form of Islam, distinct from its North African and Arab relatives. Dalil Boubakeur, the chairman of the Council, is quoted as saying: "Demonstrations in the name of religion are very dangerous."

2004-01-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

European Union:

The French government often casts itself as the defender of cultural and linguistic diversity. This generally means nothing more than promoting French culture and language. Case in point, on January 6, the French National Assembly unanimously passed a bill that shamelessly promotes the French language in the European Union all under the banner of linguistic diversity. With the imminent increase of EU member countries to 25, the EU representatives are currently trying to determine the working languages of various committees. The French Assembly's bill, whose goal is to combat "the growing hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon model," noted with alarm that only 30% of EU documents in 2001 were originally composed in French, as compared to 58% in 1998. In order to fight the possibility that one language other than French might predominate in the Union, the French National Assembly recommends that:

--French and English be used at all meetings of the Common Foreign and Security Policy committee.
--French, German and English be used at all meetings of permanent EU representatives
--French be taught in all schools throughout the European Union as well as to all European Union officials.

But, if the goal is linguistic diversity, then why choose French and not Spanish, Italian or Polish? In fact, to promote real diversity, one might select one of the less popular languages such as Maltese, in order to ensure its presevation. The likely response to this argument is that the French language used to occupy English's role as the lingua franca of business and international affairs. Yet this was in the past, and why should the European Union favor the language now when English is far more popular? The National Assembly's efforts serve as yet another example of France trying to throw its weight around in its efforts to dominate the European Union.

2004-01-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

In the early morning hours of January 6, masked and armed men broke down the doors of several Muslim households in search of the 59-year-old Chellali ben Chellali. Not finding their target, they grabbed, instead, ben Chellali's wife and son and searched their apartment, emptying drawers onto the floor, confiscating their mail, and taking their cell phones--including that of ben Chellali's 12-year old daughter. ben Chellali, himself, was later found outside the apartment.

Baghdad? Felluja? No, this scene transpired near Lyon, and the masked and armed men were members of France's intelligence service, the DST. Their actions were part of a larger French investigation to find those responsible for allegedly preparing a chemical attack against a Russian delegation in Paris back in December of 2002 in order to protest Russian massacres in Chechnya. In addition, the French police might have feared that these men and women (ben Chellali's wife was also taken into custody) were planning a new attack on French soil.

ben Chellali, who immigrated to France in the 1970's, is an imam belonging to the Salafist sect . He had previously been detained by the Croats in Bosnia (ben Chellali's friends claim that he was just "delivering medicine"). One of his sons left France for Pakistan in June 2001 and was captured by the Americans in Afghanistan. He is currently in Guantanamo.

André Gérin, the Communist mayor of the ben Chellali's hometown of Vénissieux, praised the DST's action, stating that it "will help to limit all of these cells and this radical and political Islam that is harming our neighborhoods. For too long, this movement of obscurantism and violence that feeds off of the most disgusting activities has rotted our neighborhoods."

Needless to say, members of ben Chellali's neighborhood did not share in the mayor's sentiments. About 50 of them gathered yesterday to discuss the arrests and vowed "revenge." Writes Al Jazeera, "Support for the Chechen cause is strong amongst France's Muslims, as it is throughout Muslim communities all over the world."

2004-01-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Legal:

Some legal developments highlight the tension between the EU and France:

First, the European Commission is planning to take legal action against France for restrictions on tourist operations in France. Only tour guides approved by the French government can host tours in designated French museums and other sites; however the labyrinthine application process is alleged to be difficult for foreigners to fathom. France ignored a European Commission warning last April regarding this issue, and the European Commission's action risks a confrontation with France's influential CFE-CGC union.

Foreign tourist guides may be the least of France's problems, however, if EU lawyers decide to challenge the recent suspension of the Stability Pact's deficit rules for France and Germany in the EU Court of Justice. The European Commission has until January 25th to challenge the French and German exceptionalism.

Finally, the French government is investigating corrupt former employees and partners of Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. Several individuals, including Yves Franchet, Daniel Byk and Hervé Charlot, have been implicated in the slush funds and accounting frauds that occurred at the end of the 1990s and involved over-charging for services to the tune of millions of euros.

2004-01-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

Terrorism:

Michael Radu, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, describes how various European countries (but Germany in particular) have paid off terrorists. According to Radu, after Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat kidnapped 32 European tourists last year, the German and Swiss governments may have paid as much as 1 million euros per head for some of the hostages. Radu writes that Germany's efforts to buy off terrorism is not new: "In 1974 it [the German government] paid 2 million marks for the release of a citizen kidnapped in Chad; and according to reliable Turkish sources, it made a deal with the terrorist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) to permit the PKK to operate freely in Germany in exchange for not engaging in violence there."

2004-01-06T00:28:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

An Islamist group called Ansar el-Haq (The Apostles of Justice) has called Agence France-Presse’s Cairo bureau to claim responsibility for the recent Flash Airlines crash in the Red Sea. Given Egypt’s response to the 1999 Egypt Air Flight 990 crash off of New York (which the Egyptian media blamed on the U.S. and Israel) and the fact that the Egyptian government’s denial of any terrorist involvement in the Flash crash was practically simultaneous with the crash, I don’t trust any declarations or denials of the Egyptian government with respect to the crash. However French attorney general, Dominique Perben, has stated that the Ansar el-Haq claim lacks credibility, and I don’t see any reason for the French to cover up a terrorist attack.

Ansar el-Haq’s claim is nonetheless interesting because, in the same phone call to AFP, the group also threatened to attack Air France unless the French government reconsiders its ban on the veil in public schools. This may be nothing more than an ugly prank call designed to drum up publicity; however it may also point to a potentially violent backlash against Chirac’s crackdown on veils in French public schools.

2004-01-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

Recommended Reading:

David Brooks writes, in The NY Times, of the myth of the neoconservative conspiracy that has become the Gospel in certain European circles. Writes Brooks:

"Every day, it seemed, Le Monde or some deep-thinking German paper would have an exposé on the neocon cabal, complete with charts connecting all the conspirators...And if you can give your foes a collective name — liberals, fundamentalists or neocons — you can rob them of their individual humanity...You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue."

Brooks accurately describes the French media mindset that cast Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle as Rasputins who slinked about the Beltway and cast their almost mystical influence over the Bush administration. Brooks also, I think, gets the motivation right--to simplify and thereby more easily dismiss and demonize one's opponents. Rather than grappling with the multiplicity of factors that led a country as large as the United States with its multiple constituencies to endorse an undertaking as vast as the Iraq war, French intellectuals conjured up their own strawmen--alleged masterminds driven by money or Zionism who hijacked the US government.

2004-01-05T12:20:00.000-08:00

International Law:

In a recent interview with the BBC, Jack Straw made reference to the legal mechanism which will help to define Coalition forces' status in Iraq after the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government. The devise is known as a Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) which defines the rights and responsibilities of soldiers from one country (“sending state”) who are placed in a friendly, foreign state (“receiving state”). According to one source, the United States has SOFAs with more than 90 different countries (although the State Department only cites around 50), and their details vary widely. It should be noted that the US is not unique in the negotiation of these agreements. The UN generally negotiates a similar instrument, called a Status of Mission Agreement (SOMA), before embarking on peace-keeping operations. The UN SOMAs generally exempt soldiers on the mission from trial in local courts for crimes committed in the course of their duties.

In general, the US SOFAs treat issues ranging from susceptibility of US military personnel to local incomes and sales taxes to the liability of US soldiers under local criminal laws. For example, a SOFA might indicate that conduct that is a crime only in the receiving state will often be tried in the receiving state’s courts. In instances of concurrent jurisdiction (where the conduct at issue is against the law of both the sending and receiving state), the sending state often asserts primary jurisdiction when the victim of the crime is from the sending state or when the crime was committed during “official conduct.” To take one example, the multilateral SOFA that exists among NATO members provides, in part, that:

“the military authorities of the sending State shall have the right to exercise within the receiving State all criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction conferred on them by the law of the sending State over all persons subject to the military law of that State;”

Even when the receiving state, under the terms of a SOFA with the US, has authority to try US military personnel, the US insists on certain safeguards, ranging from an impartial court to prohibitions on confessions extracted through torture.

Incidentally, it is via the instrument of the SOFA that the US government has tried to get around the International Criminal Court, by driving a legal truck through the Rome Statute’s Article 98 exceptions (details on and an argument against the US’s legal argument can be found here ).

2004-01-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

There are rumors that Ariel Sharon is planning to visit Paris. I find this hard to believe, but, if true, it would make the European reception of Bush in London look positively friendly.

2004-01-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Miscellaneous:

In an unintentional act of irony, those who brought AK-47's, hand grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and anti-aircraft missiles into a holy place of worship have accused those who removed these weapons of not respecting religion.

2004-01-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

Recommended Reading:

Christopher Hitchens has a great piece in Slate on the dissimilarities between the Battle of Algiers and current operations in Iraq. Sample quote:

"I would challenge anybody to find a single intelligent point of comparison between any of these events [surrounding the Battle of Algiers] and the present state of affairs in Iraq. The only similarity that strikes the eye, in point of guerrilla warfare, is that the toughest and most authentic guerrilla army in Iraq—the Kurdish peshmerga—is fighting very effectively on the coalition side. Not even the wildest propaganda claims of the Baathist and jihadist sympathizers allege that the tactics of General Massu are being employed by General Abizaid or General Sanchez: Newspaper and political party offices are being opened not closed, and just last month the Saddam ban on Iraqi pilgrims making the hajj to Mecca was rescinded."

2004-01-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

Several articles are printed each day on the French government’s approach to Islamic veils in school. Most of these articles are indistinguishable from one another. Here, however, are a few of the more interesting ones:

The reaction from the Arab world has, not surprisingly, been negative. In Iran, the Ayatollah Ahmad Janati called for a reevaluation of diplomatic and business ties between Arab countries and France, while thousands of Iranian Muslims shouted “Death to France” after a mosque sermon that condemned French efforts to ban the veil from state schools. France's few Sikhs are also becoming more vocal and have called upon India's Prime Minister Vajpayee to pressure the French government to exempt turbans from any legislation. According to this article from the Hindustan Times, "Sikh men in France are often refused identity cards because they will not take off their turbans. Some schools have expelled Sikh pupils for wearing turbans." Interestingly, the article also notes that "Sikhs enjoy exemptions in other European countries, such as one in Britain dropping a requirement to wear a crash helmet when riding a motorcycle."

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, on the other hand, has supported France's power to ban the headscarf; however his rationale is worrisome. He stood behind the declarations of the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar mosque, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, who had earlier stated: "If a Muslim woman is in a non-Muslim country, like France, for example, whose officials want to adopt laws opposed to the veil, it is their right." The reason that I find this rationale troubling is that it suggests that a Muslim cannot fulfill the full extent of her religious obligations outside of lands ruled by Muslim governments. This goes beyond rendering unto Caesar's that which is his and seems to support Islamic theocracies. If Muslims can only truly be Muslims under the leadership of a Muslim, then what future is there for secular states in the Middle East?

Meanwhile, the English-language Arab News notes that many of the most fashionable veils in the Middle East come from French fashion houses, suggesting that France has literally manufactured the veil controversy. The Arab News also presents a paean to the eroticism of women's hair.

In order to gain perspective on the problems between the French government and France's sizable Muslim community, this article from the New Zealand Herald describes the French love affair with bureaucracy. The French government employs 25% of the French workforce and occupies an intrusive yet welcome role among the French populace. In order to boost the number of French natives, "each year the President awards Medaille de la Famille Francaise to women who have large families, something that would not be out of place in North Korea. Women who have at least four children get a bronze; there's a silver for those with six or seven offspring; and those with eight kids or more hit the jackpot with a gold medal." Although the article does not directly address the veil controversy, its description of overwhelming French dependence upon the State for solutions and economic welfare helps to explain why the French are so set upon a forceful integration emanating from the central government in ways that seem to trespass upon individual rights.

Finally, although the above articles might suggest that Islam is having to conform itself to European ways, an article by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post (registration required) on the Egyptian-born historian Bat Yeor presents a slightly different viewpoint: Europeans are growing ever closer to the Arab world. In France, Yeor traces the roots to de Gaulle's efforts to weaken the alliance between the United States and Europe. Says Yeor, "The Arabs were to give France strategic independence from the US. France's attempt, first through the European Economic Community and now through the European Union to create a unified European foreign policy, in competition with the US and led by France, sees European alliance with the Arab world as one of the primary sources of this strategic independence." It was this strategic alliance, according to Yeor, that was partially responsible for a liberal immigration policy between Europe and the Arab world, and this alliance has continued up until today. Yeor notes that when Chirac visited Egypt in 1996, "Chirac proclaimed that Europe and Muslims should write history together."

It will be interesting to see whether the goodwill that France has acquired in the Arab and Muslim world as the result of its opposition to the war in Iraq will be squandered over the veil.

2004-01-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Miscellaneous (Middle East):

Despite approximately one hundred American humanitarian aid workers who were sent to the earthquake-devastated Iranian city of Bam and the temporary easing of American sanctions against Iran in order to provide support for the earthquake victims, anti-American sermons were still delivered in Bam's Saheb Alzaman mosque. Said Asghar Asqari, "I hope for the day when we will cut off the hands of our American and Israeli oppressors, of these belligerent forces that are occupying Iraq and Palestine, in order to replace them with hands that offer, assistance, friendship and humanity." In Tehran, the ayatollah Ahmad Janati claimed that the US was "trying to take advantage of the situation, but the Americans have received a slap in the face." Despite the devastation that has killed at least 30,000 Iranians, the Iranian government rejected offers of assistance from Israel.

2004-01-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

New Years:

In what is becoming a French tradition, hundreds of cars were set on fire in poor neighborhoods throughout France on New Years Eve.

2004-01-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

French "Journalism:"

One of the most popular articles on Le Monde's website is a piece entitled, "In the US, Colin Powell is distancing himself from Donald Rumsfeld's strategy." The article is really just a blurb that strings together some quotations from Powell, such as one that notes that the strategy of the Bush administration is "not characterized by a strategy of preemptive strikes." Powell's comment that "it would be ridiculous to state that Bush's foreign policy has been perfect" is somehow interpreted by Le Monde as a "conciliatory" gesture towards Europe.

Powell's op-ed in The NY Times presents a slightly different point of view. Writes Powell, "President Bush's vision is clear and right: America's formidable power must continue to be deployed on behalf of principles that are simultaneously American, but that are also beyond and greater than ourselves...Freedom cannot flourish and prosperity cannot advance without security, and this we are determined to achieve."

The French have a strange fixation with Powell, believing that he would embrace their foreign policy if only he were free to speak his mind. Their portrayal of Rumsfeld vs. Powell is like some Manichean battle between the forces of darkness and light. Yet the French journalists are making a mountain out of a mole hill. While Rumsfeld and Powell clearly have their differences of opinion, Powell often refers to the work that he and Rumselfd are doing together (in this interview, Powell mentions how he and Rumselfd have been seeking greater NATO cooperation), and they are closer to one another than either is to the French. Powell does not sound anything like de Villepin when he states, "Syria still doesn't get it that they have to abandon support of terrorist activity. They've got to return any Iraqi monies that they might have in their bank...And we're trying to persuade them that, you need to get out of the hole that you had been in for all these years, and you need to start getting rid of weapons of mass destruction programs, stop supporting terrorist activities which destabilize the region, and come out and start participating in the 21st century world that has benefits for you, if you will get rid of this kind of behavior. "

French journalists want there to be strife in the Bush administration and are desperate to find a sympathetic face in the American government. They are willing to engage in a kind of wish fulfillment journalism when reality runs counter to their illusions.

2003-12-31T11:14:00.000-08:00

Africa:

According to Le Journal du Dimanche (which lacks an Internet presence), Libya approached France in 2002 in order to discuss abandoning its WMD program. However France allegedly refused and directed Libya to talk to the British. The reasons for this French behavior are unclear; however a reference to the incident can be read in this recent French Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference.

2003-12-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

"The French bank Société Générale said yesterday one of its security guards had been 'over-zealous' in turning away from a branch in Paris a Muslim woman who was wearing an Islamic headscarf."

--via the Telegraph

2003-12-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

French "Journalism:"

Alain Hertoghe deserved applause. Instead, he was given a pink slip.

Who is Hertoghe? He was the assistant editor of the Internet site of La Croix, a French Catholic daily whose print version dates back over 100 years. However Hertoghe has been fired for writing La guerre à outrances : Comment la presse nous a désinformés sur l'Irak (A War Carried to Extremes: How the Press Misinformed us of Iraq). In his detailed book, Hertoghe examines the Iraqi war coverage in March and April of le Figaro, Libération, le Monde, and Ouest-France, and his conclusions damn the French media for their biases. Writes Hertoghe, “To read the French dailies, one would assume that America was, with the exception of a handful of admirable pacifists, overrun with disagreeable, scatterbrained, egotistical and violent ‘patriots.’” But Hertoghe goes further. He says that Le Monde became “Saddam’s Gazette” and accuses the French media of exaggerating the scale of anti-war protests in European capitals and of trying to fulfill, through its coverage and editorials, its wish for an American defeat. This included frequent comparisons between Baghdad and Stalingrad and between Iraq and Vietnam. Furthermore, Hertoghe claims that the French media ignored examples of Coalition progress in the war and its aftermath that did not fit the French media’s framework for an American defeat. Hertoghe summarizes the French media’s coverage—which he attributes to anti-Americanism—as a demonization of the Bush administration, fidelity to Chirac-Villepin’s strategy, and an unwavering adherence to antiwar public opinion.

According to the International Herald Tribune, La Croix fired Hertoghe because his book allegedly "damaged the reputation of the newspaper and the authority of its chief editors and questioned the professional ethics of some of the paper's staff members." This reaction is reminiscent of Le Monde’s response to a book critical of that newspaper, La Face Cachée du Monde, by Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen. Le Monde attempted to block the publication of that book and then proceeded to sue the journalists for defamation. Although one would think that a journalist’s dismissal for well-document analyses would raise the ire of fellow journalists, the French media’s response to Hurtaghe’s dismissal has been anemic. Writes the IHT, “Despite the book's appearance under the imprimatur of a leading publisher, Hertoghe said he was invited to discuss it on only one radio and one television broadcast…The only extensive review in print of the book, he said, appeared in a free newspaper available to commuters in Paris.” A search today on Google’s French news site (news.google.fr) of “Hertoghe” pulled up only 6 relevant articles (and none of them were from papers that Hertoghe criticized with the exception of Libération).

Writes Daniel Schneidermann in Libération, “The French press is in a crisis for several reasons. Notably, its readers complain that they are not informed in a complete and honest fashion. Quietly firing those journalists who provide support for readers’ assessments will not restore the French media’s credibility.” (Douglas Gillison has provided an English translation of Schneidermann's article over at WATCH) Contrast La Croix's head-in-the-sand attitude with that of The New York Times, which has a public editor (currently Daniel Okrent) who is "charged with publicly evaluating, criticizing and otherwise commenting on the paper's integrity."

Part of the media's job is to question out loud the authority and claims of those in positions of power. Yet when the media insulates itself from criticism--when it reserves the right to question but refuses to be questioned in turn--it becomes an inquisitor with unknown motives and loses the credibility necessary to fulfill its vital role of facilitating public debate and decision-making. The French media seems to have a lot to learn.

For more information in English on Hertoghe's firing, go to LoFIP.

2003-12-28T18:11:00.000-08:00

Africa:

Lost amidst the news of Libya’s apparent, new-found willingness to limit its weapons program was another North African event: the failure of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) to meet as scheduled. Established in 1989, the AMU comprises Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Its purpose was to create a political, social and economic entity in the oil and gas-rich northern Africa on the model of the EU, and the AMU has discussed agricultural treaties, a free trade zone (the North African Common Market) and a common defense system. However, the AMU meeting scheduled for December 23 and 24 has been indefinitely postponed. The causes include the long-running dispute between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara (see archives) which led Morocco’s King Mohammad VI to pull out; tension between Mauritania and Libya over the latter’s financing of a coup d’état in the former country; and hurt feelings over the fact that Maaouiya Ould Taya, the president of Mauritania, had reestablished diplomatic ties with Israel without first consulting its Maghreb neighbors. The AMU meeting would have been the first one in nine years, and this summit shared the same fate as the one scheduled for June 2002, which Libya requested be cancelled.

The dysfunctional nature of the AMU is a blow to pan-Arab unity (if that concept isn't already extinct) and the hope for stronger regional African organizations, but it also further ensures that these North Africa countries will align themselves with greater powers in an effort to support and define themselves. Given the dearth of strong African regional associations, these countries will look either north to Europe and/or west to the United States. Around the time that Algeria was pulling out of the AMU meeting, that country’s president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was visiting Chirac. That was Bouteflika’s seventh trip to France since his election in 1999, and 2003 was commemorated as France-Algeria year in both countries. However Khadafi’s seeming cooperation with the US and UK contrasts starkly with his continued failure to cooperate with the French in the UTA affair. And don’t think that Colin Powell’s recent visit to North Africa was just a photo-op. While the Maghreb may be as disunited as ever, the French can no longer assume that francophone Africa lies solely within their influence.

2003-12-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

United States:

2003 marked the 200th anniversary of one of history’s best real estate bargains: the Louisiana Purchase in which 800,000 square miles of American frontier were purchased from France for $15 million. While the Purchase seems a remote historical point, it offers parallels between French and American leaders of then and now.

One would not have guessed prior to Jefferson’s presidency that he would be responsible for the near doubling of America’s size. The third President of the U.S. was a staunch anti-federalist who had opposed a powerful central government. He had been against Hamilton’s National Bank, and, during his presidency, Jefferson reduced the federal budget by downsizing the army and navy. However foreign control of the Port of New Orleans—with all of the restrictions that this allowed on American commerce on the Mississippi River—posed a threat to America’s merchants and American settlers west of the Mississippi. Under the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain had granted American ships certain privileges on the Mississippi, such as shipping goods through the mouth of the river without paying duty. However, increasing French influence in the region menaced American interests. After Spain’s King Charles IV ceded the Louisiana territory to France in 1801, American privileges in the Port of New Orleans began to be revoked. There were fears that the French intended to shut off the Mississippi from Americans all together. That is when Jefferson—despite the fact that the Constitution did not explicitly authorize the federal government to purchase territory—instructed Robert Livingston and James Madison to offer Charles Maurice de Talleyrand $10 million for the Port of New Orleans. Facing military setbacks in the Caribbean, the need for cash to finance his military campaign, and the likelihood of a renewed war with Great Britain (as well as American threats to side with Great Britain), Napoleon ceded the entire Louisiana Territory for $5 million more than was offered for the Port of New Orleans alone.

As the details above suggest, the story of the Louisiana Purchase involved a president who came to power on a platform of limited government but ended up, in the interests of national security, expanding the federal government’s powers and America’s influence. On the other side of the Atlantic was a leader who embraced a vision of a Europe dominated by France. He at first made threatening gestures to the American government followed by a crude and hasty miscalculation that vastly underestimated US power. In their haste to extend their influence, the French accidentally helped to create a larger and more influential United States.

On December 20, 1803, the Louisiana Territory was officially transferred to the United States. On December 20, 2003, neither Bush nor Chirac were present in New Orleans to commemorate the event. Perhaps there could have been no more fitting commemoration than these men’s absences—the testimony to a French-American relationship long characterized by alternating indifference and mistrust.

2003-12-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

Several noteworthy articles focus on France’s North African and Muslim communities and their relations with France’s Jewish population. First, Le Monde offers a piece on Tariq Ramadan, one of the most influential Islamic intellectuals among French Muslims. Ramadan teaches philosophy at a Geneva high school and Islamic studies at the University of Fribourg, and he annually sells around 50,000 audiocassettes of his discourses. He is the grandson of one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has sought to place Egypt under shari'a (Islamic law) and has been banned in that country since 1954. Ramadan, however, denies any links with the Brotherhood.

Ramadan moves in the same political circles as Jose Bové and the “alter-globalists,” such as Attac. However, he has attracted additional attention because of his calls for a “moratorium” on the stoning of adulteresses in the Islamic world—not a ban, but merely a pause on this practice while mentalities evolve. Ramadan has also criticized French Jewish intellectuals for focusing too much on the needs of their religious communities and not enough on the needs of society as a whole (a critique in English of this latter comment can be found here). Ramadan has vehemently denied any charges of anti-Semitism.

My impression is that Ramadan's statements regarding Jewish intellectuals would have been uncontroversial if written by a member in good standing of the secular French Left in the pages of Le Monde. Le Monde makes similar implications with respect to American Jews and Israel on a frequent basis. However, the fact that a Muslim would utter such words incenses some individuals. With respect to the statement regarding the moratorium--of course, it seems odd to call for a pause rather than a flat-out ban on something as barbaric as stoning adulteresses. However, Ramadan is in no way endorsing stoning. He has stated that "husband-wife violence is unacceptable from the standpoint of Islam." Ramadan's point merely seems to be that eliminating stoning may be more palatable to certain communities if it is presented as a moratorium followed by debate, rather than a ban imposed from on high.

Next up, the International Herald Tribune reveals that Paris prosecutor, Yves Bot, may bring charges against the French comedian, Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala. Born in France to a Cameroon father and French mother, M'Bala M'Bala recently appeared on French television with “a Jewish skullcap and made a Nazi salute… As he made the salute he invited ‘youths watching today from suburban high-rises to join the American-Zionist axis.’ He then cried ‘IsraHeil’ - an apparent reference to the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute of Nazi Germany.” In my opinion, any successful prosecution of M’Bala will only make him more of a hero to certain Muslim French youth. Combat the ideas, not the messenger of them.

Finally, Haaretz has a piece on the changed nature of Jewish-Muslim relations in France. What was once a peaceful co-existence between the two religious minorities in the immigrant neighborhoods north of Paris changed when “the Palestinian intifada erupted and the local Arabs vented their wrath on their Jewish neighbors. They spat on Jewish passersby in the street, scrawled graffiti on the walls of their shared apartment buildings, harassed children wearing skullcaps, calling them "sales Juifs" - "dirty Jews" - and even tried to burn down the neighborhood synagogue.” The article also comments on the increasing radicalism of French Muslim youth: “The wave of return to religion by the Muslims in the past few years is obvious everywhere. There is hardly a woman or young girl without a head covering, and the immigrant shop owners have added an Arabic name to the French one. The living conditions are harsh and the unemployment rate among the migrants is 2.5 times the national level.” However the article places anti-Semitism in France in perspective, noting, “Three of the five candidates of the Socialist Party who are leading in the presidential polls are of Jewish origin. The leading candidate of the right wing to replace Chirac, Nicola Sarkozy, has never hidden the Jewish part of his family on his father's side….[I]n the past three years, which were studded with anti-Semitic attacks and incidents, not one Jew has been hospitalized, not one Jew has been injured or has required medical treatment of any kind against this background.”

2003-12-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

Save us from the great evils which rend humanity
in these first years of the third millennium.
Save us from the wars and armed conflicts
which lay waste whole areas of the world,
from the scourge of terrorism
and from the many forms of violence
which assail the weak and the vulnerable.
Save us from discouragement
as we face the paths to peace,
difficult paths indeed, yet possible and therefore necessary;

2003-12-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

Secular Fundamentalism:

Madeleine Bunting offers an interesting piece in The Guardian on the flaws of liberalism in addressing aspects of faith. She turns the traditional framework of rational secularists vs. religious fundamentalists on its head, questioning whether it is not the secularists who, in their arrogance, are not the close-minded radicals. Bunting writes:

"Liberalism has always regarded religious faith as irrational and emotional, and as something that must be corralled into safe irrelevance. By the latter half of the 20th century, it was within sight of achieving its goal, as European Christianity crumbled. Nowhere was this more true than in France. That victory only reinforced the French liberal tradition's sense of its own superiority and historical inevitability; the assumption was that wealth and time would between them kill off the last vestiges of religious faith. But this has not proved true of France's Muslims, and now, disastrously, liberalism has resorted to the full force of the law to buttress its supremacy."

The dangers of secular fundamentalism are often ignored by the French, as they focus on the menace of religion, whether Islam or evangelical Christianity. Although communism and fascism should have taught us this, Bunting's piece reminds us that certain secular religions breed as much fanaticism as any deity-based one. And while Bunting claims that British liberalism turns religion into a pale shadow of its former self by "trimming" it into a system of ethics with a divine underpinning, it seems to me that the British approach and, even more so, the much-maligned American one in which religion exists as a necessary complement to government and society, create a much more balanced picture of humanity's multifaceted nature, with all of its rationale and faith-based dimensions.

2003-12-25T06:42:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

Together with Germany and Japan, France is planning to train Iraqi police in Germany. According to the Japan Times, "Germany will teach criminal investigation techniques, including fingerprint and footprint identification methods, while France will provide the knowhow to create a police riot squad. Japan will supply equipment necessary for police activities such as patrol cars and radio transmitters..."

2003-12-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

Journalism:

Update: The Pakistani courts have released the French journalists Epstein and Guilloteau on bail. Their trial is scheduled for January 10.

2003-12-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

Legal:

The French media has been reporting that Vice President Cheney may be criminally liable for corruption. Here are the details:

Technip is a French engineering and oil & gas company that has recently caught the eye of the French government. In the great tradition of such corrupt French oil companies as TotalFinaElf, Technip is being investigated by the French government for questionable business practices in Angola, Congo, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. Technip joined forces in the early 1990’s with Kellogg Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton) as well as with an Italian and a Japanese company to build a gas liquefaction factory in Nigeria. As this translated Le Figaro article points out (the original Le Figaro article has been stuffed in that newspaper’s expensive archives), $180 million dollars was then paid to a shell company whose only official was a lawyer with close contacts to both Halliburton and influential Nigerians. The implication is that the $180 million went to line the pockets of Nigerian officials in exchange for help with the gas liquefaction project. Since Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, the idea is that he may be implicated in this whole affair.

However what I don’t understand is how the French judge (who, incidentally, has the very un-French name of Van Ruymbeke) could ever claim jurisdiction over Cheney. The Le Figaro article refers to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The US ratified the Convention in 1998, and France did likewise in 2000. The act encourages its adherents to make it a crime “for any person intentionally to offer, promise or give any undue pecuniary or other advantage, whether directly or through intermediaries, to a foreign public official…” The Convention also has a section entitled “Jurisdiction” which states, in pertinent part:

“1. Each Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the bribery of a foreign public official when the offence is committed in whole or in part in its territory.

2. Each Party which has jurisdiction to prosecute its nationals for offences committed abroad shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction to do so in respect of the bribery of a foreign public official, according to the same principles.

3. When more than one Party has jurisdiction over an alleged offence described in this Convention, the Parties involved shall, at the request of one of them, consult with a view to determining the most appropriate jurisdiction for prosecution.”

Even assuming that Cheney were implicated, his company’s alleged bribery did not take place “in whole or in part” on French territory. And Cheney is clearly not a French “national.” Moreover, a recent International Court of Justice opinion immunized sitting foreign ministers from a foreign state’s authority. In short, don't count on Cheney being dragged into French courts any time soon.

2003-12-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

French-American Relations:

Le Monde offers several articles today on the strained nature of French-American relations. One article is simply a hit list of allegedly anti-French comments made by U.S. government officials (presumably a comparable French list would have been too long to put on Le Monde's website). Here is an excerpt from one piece by Patrick Jarreau:

"The official tone is that of appeasement but when, for one reason or another, the role of France is raised, the American government seeks to diminish this role. Colin Powell's recent trip to North Africa should be placed in this framework as well as the American support to European countries hostile to the French-German alliance. It can be expected, according to Mr. Mead [Walter Russell Mead from the Council on Foreign Relations] that the U.S. will try to prevent French candidates from assuming leadership roles in international organizations.

When the American policy was desperately failing in Iraq, some American analysts reevaluated the French position. Now that Saddam has been captured, Paris's gloomy predictions have lost their edge and are perceived more than ever in the U.S. as an expression of anti-Americanism."

The French paper goes on to note:

"In Paris, the 'virulent anti-French nature' of the Bush administration is presented as proof of American hegemony that threatens Europe--a Europe that has, since the end of the Cold War, refused to be America's handmaiden. In this context, several ex-Soviet bloc countries' 'alignment' with the U.S. makes Eastern Europe truly the 'Old Europe.' "

2003-12-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

Nationalism:

French nationalism takes a new form in this movement: Les Identitaires. Its adherents describe their ideology as:

--A disgust of materialism, consumerism, and the exploitation of workers by international shareholders;
--Total opposition to interacial mixing and to never-ending guilt-trips for Europeans;
--Hostility to imperialism, whether it be of North American or Muslim origin.

The movement is directed at French youth, and it publishes a magazine called "Youth Resistance" (Jeune Résistance) whose past issues have denounced globalism, immigration and cultural diversity.

This is the point at which the far right meets the far left, and France's tolerance and encouragement of an anti-American and anti-Other discourse grows out of control. Despite its opposition to "Muslim imperialism," the site links to Islamiya, which provides the time in Paris and "Occupied Jerusalem" at the top of its web page.

2003-12-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

British diplomacy is on a roll. Jack Straw & Co. was involved in the IAEA's agreement with Iran, the negotiations with Libya, and now The Guardian reports that Blair is pushing France and Germany to put the squeeze on Syria to reign in its WMD programs and stop its sponsorship of terrorism. Syria has never signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. However Syria has signed but not ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. Although a signature is sufficient, given the right circumstances, to bind a state to a treaty under Article 12(1) of the Vienna Convention, the Biological Weapons Treaty explicitly states in Article XIV that the Convention "shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of their instrument of ratification or accession." Therefore the treaty's application to a signing but non-ratifying member is suspect. However Article 18 of the Vienna Convention makes clear that a "State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when...it has signed the treaty." Syria clearly seems to have violated the purpose of the Biological Weapons Convention. Article I of the Convention states: "Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstance to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain...Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes." In contrast, Syria is suspected of having offensive bioweapons capabilities, including anthrax and botulinum toxin. Moreover, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Syria currently has a significant stockpile of the nerve agent Sarin and is working to develop the more deadly VX.1 Syria produces SCUD ballistic missiles of various ranges capable of carrying chemical warheads as well as air-dropped bombs. According to the London Times, Syria tested a SCUB B missile fitted with a warhead carrying VX in 1999." However the only remedy that the Biological Weapons Convention provides against a breaching party is for a country to lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council.

As admirable as Blair's efforts to address Syria may be, the UK may face problems from France. According to The Guardian, "France, still bristling over the war in Iraq and anxious not to be seen to be doing Washington's bidding, is likely to have the strongest reservations about pressuring Syria."

2003-12-23T04:38:00.000-08:00

Education:

Dr Eamonn Butler over at the Adam Smith Institute (December 19 posting) has an interesting piece on school choice in Europe. He writes, "In the Netherlands, 70 percent of Dutch kids go to non-state schools. Parents choose the school they want, and the state pays. They change schools, and the money follows the child - exactly the same amount of money that the state would have spent on them in a state-sector school." He notes the rise of school choice in Sweden and Denmark as well. As far as I know, this phenomenon is non-existent in France.

2003-12-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

"The president's decision, just three months before regional elections, is an attempt to placate the right and tamp down a big threat to French democracy - the extreme-right National Front. But it will only further alienate Muslims - stuffed in overcrowded suburbs like St. Denis and afflicted by prejudice, crime, and unemployment - while doing nothing to resolve the real issues separating that community from the rest of France. It may also drive Muslim girls out of state schools into Islamic classrooms, further hindering integration."

--A Christian Science Monitor editorial posted on the Muslim American Society's website

The site is a strange amalgam of rarely heard thoughts such as these: "Mr. and Mrs. American Muslim, what are you doing for your faith? Are you doing good and preventing evil; are you an activist in our nation for the betterment of society and the world, are you voting, donating your time and money; or are you simply content with the polite "e-mails" to your congressmen? Are you feeding the poor; sponsoring the orphans; are you reaching out to Christians, Jews, and others to inform them of Islam; are you learning the language, culture, and civics of America; are you volunteering in charitable organizations; are you condemning Muslims when they perform evil acts? Are you living for today, or preparing for tomorrow? If you are, God bless you, if you are not, may God have mercy on your soul when you meet Him."

...And then there are more commonplace thoughts such as these: "Why the sudden schism and animosity between Christians and Muslims, between Americans and Arabs? It's Israel, it will always be Israel..."

(from Mohamed Khodr's posting)

2003-12-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

Journalism:

A post on Sunday mentioned the arrest of the French journalists, Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau, in Pakistan on charges of unauthorized travel. They were denied a release on bail and had planned on beginning a hunger strike in prison in order to protest the actions of the Pakistani government. However, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the journalists' magazine (L'Express) have dissuaded Epstein and Guilloteau from undertaking the hunger strike, presumably to avoid increased publicity and antagonizing the Pakistani authorities.

2003-12-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

International Law & Nuclear Technology:

Amidst the reports of Pakistan's possible sales of nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran, one might ask whether Pakistan's alleged actions, if proven, have violated its international legal obligations. While Pakistan has, in the past, denied selling nuclear weapons technology, these public lies were not binding promises. The most pertinent document would be the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which does not allow a signatory "to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices." However Pakistan, together with India, Cuba and Israel, is not a party to this treaty. Were one of the countries whose nuclear weapons program Pakistan has assisted to actually use a nuclear weapon, then Pakistan may have violated the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (which prohibits helping a state "to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects"). However Pakistan has not signed this convention either. Of course, no one would want to wait for the fallout necessary to invoke this provision.

International legal arguments might have to become more creative. For example, one might claim that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty amounts to customary law (opinio iuris)--which is generally viewed (under article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice) as one of the sources of international law. However is a prohibition on selling nuclear weapons a widespread practice among nations that is generally viewed as legally binding? On the contrary, the purchase and sale of nuclear information seems to occur, if not frequently, than often enough to frustrate classification as opinio iuris. In the North Sea Continental Shelf case, the International Court of Justice stated with respect to international custom that "an indispensable requirement would be that within the period in question, short though it may be, State practice, including that of States whose interests are specially affected, should have been both extensive and uniform." Moreover, Pakistan has a strong argument that it is a "persistent objector" since it never signed onto the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and it seems to have consistently acted in a way that denies any custom against the transfer of nuclear technology.

A final attempt to find Pakistan violative of some international legal obligation might turn to the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons from the International Court of Justice dating back to 1996. However no one is accusing Pakistan of using nuclear technology--only of selling it (although selling such technology for the purposes of warfare may be viewed as violating the spirit of the ICJ's holding).

In short, I don't think that Pakistan's alleged sales of nuclear technology to Iran or North Korea violate any specific obligation under international law.

This entire line of reasoning might strike many as absurd. "A world in which each crackpot leader has nuclear weapons is to be avoided. Who cares what international treaties or opinions hold?" I agree that the United States government and its allies have an interest in ensuring that the transfer of military nuclear technology is as limited as possible. However these international texts provide a point of departure for international negotiations as well as criteria for objectivity and credibility far greater than invocations of American security interests (which might not be too convincing to a Pakistani). That is why it is troubling that Pakistan's sales--with all of the threats that they pose to international security--seem to be permissible under international law.

2003-12-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

Religious Minorities:

3000 protesters marched in Paris on Sunday against Chirac's efforts to ban veils from public schools.

2003-12-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

Journalism:

In keeping with its much vaunted reputation for freedom of the press, Pakistan has imprisoned Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau of L'Express. The alleged reason is that the two journalists were traveling in a region of Pakistan for which they did not have authorization. The journalists had visas for Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore but not for Quetta, where they were found. The journalists argue that they were in Quetta merely to travel to Afghanistan. Epstein and Guilloteau were producing a story on the Taliban.

On December 16, Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, a Pakistani journalist who was working with Epstein and Guilloteau, was detained by Pakistan intelligence agents and has not been heard from since. Rizvi was accused of "tarnishing Pakistan's international reputation." Frankly, there is not much to tarnish.

2003-12-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

My apologies for the limited posts and very delayed e-mail responses over the past several days. I've been in the process of moving and have finally emerged from beneath a mass of cardboard boxes. Posting will not be as heavy as before because I'm still dealing with a 56K connection.

On a more interesting note, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is praising the American and British success in persuading Libya to abandon--at least in words--its WMD program. However, as evidence of the chasm between US and French perspectives, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "This testifies to the efficacy of a diplomatic effort in devising a peaceful response to the major challenge of proliferation in the world." French media is also emphasizing that Libya's declaration is a victory for diplomacy, and the implication is that it constitutes a rebuke to the more aggressive American stance in Iraq. Brian Whitaker makes this point more explicitly in The Guardian when he writes: "The success of the efforts in Libya...raises many questions about the course of action adopted in Iraq, and whether the methods that have worked with Tripoli might not have also succeeded eventually in Baghdad." Whitaker assumes that diplomacy is a one-size-fits-all proposition, and he overlooks the differences between Qadaffi's chameleon-like nature that has enabled him to survive through multiple re-incarnations as well as the Libyan's responsiveness to economic sanctions and Hussein's self-destructive brinkmanship. Moreover, it is interesting how Whitaker and the French are attempting to distance this British and American diplomacy from the Bush administration--as if the American diplomats that dealt with Libya were Foggy Bottom renegades. The French also assume that the US and UK's aggressive stance towards Iran, Iraq and North Korea had little to do with Qaddafi's decision. However, does anyone believe that Libya would have been so willing to comply with American and British wishes if Saddam Hussein were not now in prison and hundreds of thousands of allied forces were not in Iraq (the question at the end of this page from Bush's speech yesterday gets it right)? Blair noted that "Libya came to us in March, following successful negotiations on Lockerbie, to see if it could resolve its weapons of mass destruction issues in a similarly cooperative manner." I wonder if that was before March 19 or after. On the other hand, Qaddafi is still ignoring French efforts to blackmail him to pay more money for Libya's involvement in the crash of a DC-10 over Nigeria years ago.

Unlike the French government and media's words, there is no clear dichotomy between diplomacy and force. Instead, Qaddafi's apparent change of heart bolsters the link between negotiations and the threat of force. A condemnation of "hollow words diplomacy" could be heard from Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, during his appearance last week before the Security Council (hat tip to Last of the Famous International Playboys). Zebari stated: "The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure." What was the response of Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations? "I don't want to comment on the past."

2003-12-15T19:51:00.000-08:00

European Union:

Chirac criticized over France's heavy-handed position during the EU summit.

2003-12-15T19:47:00.000-08:00

Legal:

The wrap-up of the Executive Life settlement. Note that former Credit Lyonnais Chairman Jean Peyrelevade and former bank director, Dominique Bazy, are not covered in the deal.

2003-12-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

United States:

Tyler Cowen over at Volokh Conspiracy has the following thoughts on Hollywood & cultural diversity:

"...movie and broadcast quotas are counterproductive for French culture, and for most other cultures around the world. Hollywood movies, for instance, have financed the multiplex boom that has been so helpful for the domestic production of European movies. Furthermore quotas tend to keep out the more interesting American films. Jurassic Park will get through in any case. So quotas will not only make Hollywood look worse in European eyes, but in the long run they will lower the quality of Hollywood movies. European audiences, on net, improve quality, if only because they are older. They tend to demand more thoughtful and more sophisticated products. They also like 'auteurs' more than American audiences do."

2003-12-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

Finally, a constructive proposition from France with respect to Iraq: France proposes Iraq debt relief

2003-12-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

Middle East:

What is the official French reaction to the capture of Hussein? A spokesman for Chirac stated that the capture was "a significant event that should strongly contribute to democracy and stability in Iraq and should permit Iraqis to regain control over their destinies in a sovereign Iraq." Raffarin emphasized that "the arrest of the former dictator Hussein is good news that will open the door to Iraqi sovereignty." The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared: "France hopes that this arrest will contribute to stability in Iraq, to a return to Iraqi sovereignty in the best conditions and to a reconciliation of everyone involved. France also hopes that this arrest will strengthen the resolve of Iraqis to reconstruct their country." Noticeably absent in the declarations was any recognition of American efforts. Noticeably present was a continued emphasis upon France's position with respect to Iraq: the transition of power to Iraqis is not happening fast enough....The timeline for a sovereign and democratic Iraq should be measured in weeks, not in months or years.

2003-12-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

Miscellany (Middle East):

Why is the mainstream press not all over the anti-terror demonstration in Baghdad (scroll down on linked page for links to photos)? HealingIraq writes, "Al-Jazeera estimated the size of the crowd as over ten thousand people." The Washington Times is reporting 4,000 demonstrators.

2003-12-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

European Union:

"In the past, when France and Germany pulled together, the rest of Europe followed. But their once-meek neighbours are fed up with being shoved around and have turned negotiations on a landmark EU constitution into a tug of war....'If anyone was expecting that in an enlarged EU, Poland would shuffle off into a corner, keep its head down and deprive itself of the right to vote, they should think again,' Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller warned recently."

--via Forbes

2003-12-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

United States:

If you're wondering why Wolfowitz cited "the essential security interests of the United States" in order to justify the limitations on contract bidding in Iraq, look at Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It provides an exception to the GATT's free trade principles for "essential security interests." In part, Article XXI states: "Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed...to prevent any contracting party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests.... taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations." Given the recent rebuke over steel tariffs, the US government is trying to preempt any challenge before the WTO. The French government is already analyzing whether the contract limitations in Iraq are consistent with international law.

Invocation of Article XXI does not provide immunity from GATT. For example, the EU was ready to challenge the Helms-Burton law in the late 1990s. However, as this article notes, there is an argument that countries may, under GATT, be able to determine for themselves when Article XXI conditions are satisfied (this process is referred to as "auto-determination"). This would allow a broad reading of the rule, perhaps creating an enormous exception.

For more information on Article XXI, Foreign Policy in Focus has a good analysis. One particularly interesting discussion that is not directly related to Article XXI focuses on the law that Massachusetts passed in the mid-1990s, prohibiting state contracts with Burma's repressive military junta. It turns out that the European Union challenged the Massachusetts law on the grounds that it discriminated against Burmese companies (although I'm not sure what standing the EU had in the matter). Before a WTO dispute panel could hear the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law as a violation of the US federal government's foreign affairs powers.

2003-12-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

Politics:

66% of French citizens oppose another term for Chirac.