Posted on 03/23/2005 5:15:14 PM PST by Graybeard58
NEW HAVEN -- The French ambassador said U.S.-French relations are better during President Bush's second term although differences remain on China and how to export democracy.
Jean-David Levitte spoke to about 175 students and faculty at Yale University on Tuesday.
"During the first four years, President Bush discovered that if America can win, alone, all the wars, America cannot, alone, build peace throughout the world," Levitte said. "For that, the U.S.needs allies. These allies, you will not find in China or Russia, you will find them in Europe."
Levitte, 59, spoke a day after the European Union decided to continue its arms embargo against China, which had been a point of contention between the United States and Europe, led by France. France continues to believe that China has made progress in human rights and that the arms embargo it began after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre should therefore be lifted.
Levitte conceded that China's human rights record was "not perfect" but that it has improved dramatically since 1989. Despite the EU's recent decision to continue with the embargo, Levitte called it "outdated" and suggested it was unfair to blame Europe for supplying arms to China when Russia is responsible for 94 percent of weapons sales to China. He nevertheless tried to dismiss the impasse over the Chinese arms embargo because, he said, "The last thing we need between the U.S. and Europe now is another crisis."
French and American relations have thawed slightly since a United Nations debate two years ago in which the traditional allies sparred vehemently over the invasion of Iraq. As France's French former representative to the United Nations, Levitte was intimately involved in the Iraq resolution, insisting that an invasion was not needed to move the country toward democracy and rid it of weapons of mass destruction. A year later, 93 percent of Frenchman believed France's decision was right and 12 percent of them and 24 percent of Americans -- consider the other an adversary rather than an ally, according to a poll in The Economist.
Nevertheless, Levitte said three critical changes have helped move the two nations closer. They include the success of the first democratic elections in Iraq since Saddam Hussein took power; the death of Yasser Arafat and the democratic election of a new Palestinian leader, President Mahmoud Abbas; and the "tragic assassination" of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, which "created a kind of orange revolution" in Lebanon. France and the U.S. have both requested that Syria withdraw troops and security services from Lebanon.
The three circumstances helped build move both countries toward a rapprochement, a change particularly enhanced by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent trip to France in which Rice "charmed 60 million Frenchman," Levitte said. "It was an amazing success because the style was different," he said of the Rice visit. "She charmed the French people and it changed the mood and prepared the ground for the visit of President Bush."
Levitte, who was present at the meeting between French President Jacques Chirac and Bush said "it was the best meeting ever between the two leaders." During the meeting, Chirac and Bush cited their cooperation on issues from Kosovo and Afghanistan to the desire to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Citing the economic interdependence of France and the U.S. and its continued cultural dialogue (France hosts nearly 500 cultural events a year in the U.S.), Levitte insisted that France and the U.S. were born of the same Enlightenment-era philosophies. "I do consider that if we are from time to time, in disagreement, we are much more than friends, we are members of the same family.
"Now we are in, yes, a transformed situation. And you have in front of you a happy ambassador."
Born in the south of France, Levitte joined the foreign service in 1970 before serving in the administration of former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1974. He remained at the Elysee Palace in 1981 and held a variety of positions overseas before becoming the senior diplomatic advisor to Chirac in 1995. Chirac appointed him as permanent ambassador to the U.N. in 2000.
The talk was sponsored by Resource Center for the Teaching of French, the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Programs in International Educational Resources and the Connecticut State Department of Education.
So9
French wineries closing every day. Warm up those "relations".
Only because there's less going on in the world for them to behave like complete sh!theads over.
Levitte is one off those guys you look at and say to yourself, "his mouth is moving, but I can't hear anything coming out"
In yer dreams, Froggie...
Anti-Americanism is a cultural habit of France. It only sounds like France is tilting toward US for the danger of isolation for the non of the EU constitution, resulting in criticism from other EU countries. Unless France bans Anti-Americanism by law in its country, and remove their spies from United States against American military firms, there will be no future with a good relationship.
Pardon my rudeness, but the only reasons relations are warming is that both governments agree on Syria. It is a crying shame that international friendships these days are based on mutual hatred for this or that nation.
My opinion of France has not changed. I don't think they understand how many individual Americans they have permanently disgusted. We're not talking about the State Department here.
I'll never buy French wine or cheese again the rest of my life. France is not our ally, it is our enemy.
The ambassador is a lying French POS....
What would you expect him to say.....
The French have become the ally of our enemy, making France our enemy....
Never really cared for them anyway! Never did trust them....
Semper Fi
I stopped buying Culligan and Kleenex. To the best of my knowledge, they are french-owned. Bought wine from S.Africa and Austrialia.
Not with me they aren't. I am waiting for the economic destruction of the french and I think it is coming fairly soon. Can't wait to see them begging.
What, they're not trying to bleep us up the wazoo anymore?
it would help if chirac wasn't a chamelier.
Oh, wait, since it has not been resolved, we can't tell which French person to trust, can we?
Anyway, I am being nice to the French for now. I had a 9 1/2 flight from Paris to Miami on Air France last week and they upgraded me to Business Class (completely unexpected). Having 9 1/2 hours to stretch, drink Bordeaux, eat French cheese -- and, I admit, get charmed by the very nice 40-something French flight attendant -- I'm the cheese-eating surrender monkey of Free Republic. (It was very good cheese, though).
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