Hollande impresses US with his enterprise

Call it the unlikely or unexpected “special relationship”. France and the US have more than 200 years of common history and it all started with a love affair, followed by numerous rows and permanent suspicion. With Franois Hollande being honoured with a state visit to the US this week, both countries will celebrate a warmer than usual relationship, a major surprise coming from a French president who is so unpopular at home and was not particularly known for his foreign policy vision or skills.

When most people talk of the “special relationship”, of course, they mean the United Kingdom and its supposed unbreakable link to its former colony, based on a common language and fate, forged on battle fields, including the most controversial ones such as Iraq where the French refused to join. But lately, you have to wonder if the French are taking over the role of the US’s best friend, at least on the European continent? In the past year or so, the US administration has found itself dealing mostly with the French on a number of international hot spots, from Syria to Iran, from African conflicts to the fight against jihadists.

Surprisingly, the French, who not so long ago were considered “cowards” and “traitors” in Washington (remember the “freedom fries” controversy in Congress?) for refusing to join the Iraq invasion in 2003, were perceived in the last few months to be more interventionists than the US. This was certainly the case in Syria, where French Rafale fighter jets were already preparing to take off, following the chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus last August, when President Obama unplugged the mission by deciding to consult Congress. The day before, the British Parliament voted against the UK taking part in the planned punitive operation.

The French were taken off guard, unpleasantly surprised by Obama’s sudden U-turn. President Hollande, already weakened by his government’s handling of France’s economic problems, had to face opposition and media criticism for finding himself alone.

The invitation to come to Washington was announced in the wake of this unpleasant failure of communication between allies.

Another surprise came a few weeks later when France blocked an initial deal between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany on one side and Iran on the other. The US arrived in Geneva with a last-minute proposal without prior consultation with its allies and the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, was instructed to oppose it. Another round of talks was necessary to reach a potentially historical agreement.

On a more traditional vein, French troops moved swiftly in Mali last year to block a column of pro-Al Qaida jihadists threatening the capital of this former French colony in West Africa. And French troops moved again, more recently, in the Central African Republic’s capital of Bangui to stop massacres in an increasingly failed state.

This activist foreign policy is not new in France — which has a long history of sometimes dubious intervention on the African continent and still has a capacity of deployment despite budget restrictions. This was, however, unexpected from Hollande, a socialist who defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2012, by pledging to be a “normal” president. His predecessor had led the field to fight in Libya in 2011 and was once appropriately caricatured on the cover of the Economist as a late-day Napoleon.

His critics nicknamed Sarkozy’s successor “Flanby”, a wobbly caramel pudding, not exactly the character you expect to send troops against terrorists in a far-away land.

Hollande surprised everyone, including the French, by showing on foreign policy issues the kind of determination he lacked in domestic affairs. This was apparently noticed also in Washington.

In today’s unpredictable multipolar world, France has emerged as one of the few remaining european nations with the will, and the means, to play an active role on the international stage.

As the European Union has not managed to get its act together in implementing its professed Common Foreign and Security Policy, it is left to individual member-states to do it, i.e. France and the UK, the former colonial empires with diminishing but surviving armies and diplomatic expertise.

Of course, Hollande can be accused of looking internationally for the success he has not found at home, especially on fighting unemployment and the budget deficit. But this international grandeur is not unpopular in a country that has difficulty admitting it is no longer as influential in the new world than in the old days.

That is enough common ground for a rapprochement between a Superpower that has lost a lot of clout with the rise of the others and a medium-sized European nation that is still looking for its place on the global stage. It need not be named a “special relationship” — the UK can keep the name — but it is enough to be called an alliance.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd

Pierre Haski is a former foreign correspondent for AFP and French daily Liberation, in Johannesburg, occupied Jerusalem and Beijing, and a former deputy editor of Liberation. He is co-founder and CEO of the French independent news website Rue89.com