Posted on 08/29/2003 1:09:27 PM PDT by Jean S
French Propose Their World Order
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
In an Aug. 25 speech that was almost surreal for its flighty idealism, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called for a "new world organization" to replace the United Nations as it is currently structured.
At an annual conference in Paris bringing together 200 top French diplomats and Foreign Ministry officials, de Villepin reiterated his view that the United States must cede power to a new "collective-security" organization. "[B]uilding a new world, founding a new order" was "urgent," he insisted, "an immense task that is incumbent upon us." It was France's role to lead Europe to become "one of the founding pillars" of the new system, he said.
The new collective-security system should be "founded on collective responsibility and world democracy," de Villepin said. In particular, he said that France was now looking favorably to the idea of enlarging membership of the U.N. Security Council and vesting it with expanded powers. While he provided no specifics in his speech, aides later said that he believed Germany, Japan, India, Brazil and a major African power such as Nigeria all should be given permanent seats on the council, along with veto power over all Security Council resolutions, including those authorizing the use of force.
In a direct dig at the Bush administration, de Villepin insisted that no nation should be allowed to use force, even in the defense of its own interests, without specific approval from the Security Council. "Using force is often tempting," he said, but "can only be justified if collective security or urgent humanitarian needs require it." Force must be "a last resort," and "only when the international community, through the Security Council, decides."
France rarely has asked for Security Council approval when it has intervened militarily in Africa, and in 1999 had no problem in joining a NATO coalition that bypassed the United Nations, rather than face the threat of a Russian veto, to wage war against Serbian strongman Slobodon Milosevic in Albania. But when the United States assembled a "coalition of the willing" to oust Saddam Hussein, after France blocked U.S. efforts to win U.N. support, that was "unacceptable."
A senior adviser to de Villepin tells Insight that France is hoping to patch up relations with the United States, but it is not quite sure how to proceed. For one thing, the adviser said, the French had failed to understand the depth of anger among ordinary Americans over French behavior at the United Nations during the Iraq crisis, and they don't appear to have learned from that failure. "The anti-French campaign in the United States was all led by right-wing pressure groups, and it was regrettable," the adviser said.
In what was intended as a sop to the United States, de Villepin said that no country should take umbrage at the French insistence on a new "multipolar" world order. Sweeping aside the record of his own diplomacy, de Villepin said, "[T]he French vision of multipolarity does not aim at organizing rivalry or competition, but responsibility, stability and initiative."
Therese Delpech, a strategic-affairs adviser to the French Atomic Energy Commission, which designs and builds French nuclear weapons, is one of the rare officials who has publicly criticized de Villepin for his multipolar vision. "Those in Europe who are promoting this notion of a multipolar world are not always aware that the term itself tends to further split the Western camp at a moment when we should be closing our ranks," she wrote in a recent article in Politique Internationale, the premier French policy review. "Besides, what new 'poles' are we talking about? Russia? Japan? A stronger China?"
De Villepin hinted that France was preparing a new showdown with the United States and Britain over Iraq, this time disguised as an effort to transfer authority for the post-war military occupation from the United States to the United Nations. "The new structures that eventually will be put in place cannot be simply an enlargement or adjustment of the current occupation forces. Instead, we must put in place a veritable international force under a U.N. Security Council mandate," he said.
According to the center-right daily Le Figaro, the French intend to demand, as a condition for sending their own troops or approving any expanded U.N. role in Iraq, that the new U.N. force "not be placed under American command." That condition will meet with strong resistance from the White House, since President George W. Bush promised voters during his election campaign that he would not allow U.S. soldiers to be placed under U.N. command.
De Villepin's vision of French grandeur and primacy on the world scene is widely shared by his subordinates, who unlike top officials at the U.S. State Department, are mostly foreign-service bureaucrats. "There were only five or six advisers who challenged his handling of the Iraq crisis," one official told Insight.
"What France is looking for is independence from the United States," says Delpech, while Germany wants to escape its world responsibilities. In both cases, "multi-lateralism is a rhetorical formula more than a guide to political action [and] is weakening European integration."
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight.
Globalist puke.
I like the idea of replacing the U. N. though. Let's just replace it with a nice plaque or something, instead of a new "supersized" U. N. designed by France.
The sad thing is that are multitudes in the U.S. that will agree with this.
At least they aren't hypocrites.....
Ah, la bellyacher France, which has defied EU for 3 years now in regard to it's deficits. And France that will become Al-France is 50 years or less. Notre Dame, that will have a mosque built on top of it.
France, that marveleous place that is clinging to it's Offal Tower demanding that French be the world's leading language in spite of all the Chinese, Spanish speaking, and not to mention, the hated English speaking peoples.
It does remind one of the band still uselessly playing on on the poop deck while the Titanic sank.
Should nations be allowed to bend over and take it up the tailpipe from every dictator that comes along... Does France still advocate this posture???
Way to go, ingrates.
We should send half a dozen or so Marines (should be plenty) to invade France and then veto any action by the security council...
LOL!
Only one way to read this, I suppose.
The French want the world, and specifically the United States of America, to be ruled a global government--one that is backed up by armed force that exceeds any other on the planet.
Them's fightin' words.
Come get us, Dominique...and bring your friend Kofi...
There is no room for anyone but the United States on the Security Council. No one else is important enough to rate a seat.
Because American Counties are about equal to other nations, every American County should have a seat in the General Assembly
So9
Leaving the elderly relatives home to die as families go on a month-long vacation and the whole country except the tourist resorts and the funeral homes shut down.
Facing every problem by making the crucial decision of who or what to surrender to.
Adoration of, and abject submission to, the State. No appreciation of the importance of individual freedom as against the interests of the State as determined by the whims of the mob or the Robespierre or Napoleon of the moment.
Yes. France is the model to follow.
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