France to resist US plans for Iraq
Having failed to prevent a US-led war on Iraq, France now aims to influence the shape of the post-war settlement, writes David Tresilian in Paris
Following months of diplomatic activity aimed at preventing or postponing a US-led war against Iraq, France last week entered a new phase of trying to influence the shape of the post-war settlement against a background of continuing demonstrations in Paris and across France protesting the war against Iraq.
At a European Union heads of state and of government meeting that ended in the Belgian capital Brussels last Friday French President Jacques Chirac announced that "France will not accept any UN resolution legitimating the military intervention and giving the Anglo-American belligerents the right to administer Iraq" after the end of hostilities, adding that only the UN could oversee post-war reconstruction.
Believed to be still smarting from the way the threat of a French veto against any second UN Security Council resolution authorising war against Iraq was used by the British and US governments as a pretext for going to war without UN authorisation, members of the French delegation ignored their British counterparts at the EU meeting.
Chirac held a 10-minute meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday, during which he protested at the attacks on France coming from the British government and media, saying that "France has never criticised British government policy in any way," even though it disagreed with it.
"France's different position is based on a certain idea of the world and of morality," different to that held by the British, the French president said. "However, for all that the English are not in any sense our adversaries."
During last week's debate in the British parliament, two days before the onset of war, Blair said that the threat of a French veto in the Security Council of a second Anglo-American resolution authorising war against Iraq had left no alternative but to go to war without UN authorisation.
Blair said that Britain and the US had "almost" been able to achieve a second UN resolution authorising war, but this had been frustrated by France, which had said it would lay down a veto "no matter what". Had France sent its troops in support of British and American forces in the Gulf, Blair said, Iraq "might have complied" and the need for war avoided.
In response, France said that Britain and the US had been unable to gain a majority on the UN Security Council for a second resolution authorising war, pointing out that Russia and China had also been likely to veto a second UN resolution.
The left-wing French newspaper Libération commented that Blair was using France as a "scapegoat" for his own failure to convince the international community of the necessity of war against Iraq.
Blair was "criticising his neighbour to silence his critics", the paper said, adding that "the American president, out of frustration, and the British prime minister, out of a pathetic need to justify himself, are fanning the latent francophobia of their electorates. By making Paris the scapegoat for their failures, they hope to dodge some embarrassing questions on the eve of a war they will wage alone against (almost) everyone, having placed themselves beyond international law."
French Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin called his British counterpart Jack Straw to inform him of French "shock and pain" at the comments made during the British parliamentary debate.
"These comments," de Villepin said, "are unworthy of a friendly country and of a European partner. They do not conform to reality, and they will persuade no one."
During a television interview on 10 March Chirac ended months of speculation on whether France would use its veto against a second Anglo-American Security Council resolution authorising war against Iraq by saying that "whatever the circumstances, France will vote against, since there is no necessity to go to war to bring about the disarmament of Iraq."
Should the US decide to go to war without UN authorisation, then this would be a "dangerous precedent" for the authority of the UN, Chirac said.
In a statement following US President George W Bush's 17 March ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war within 48 hours, France said that the ultimatum "was contrary both to the will of the Security Council and to that of the international community, both of which wish to see the disarmament of Iraq continue in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1441".
Reacting to the onset of war despite French efforts to prevent it, Chirac last Thursday expressed his "regret at the actions being undertaken without the authorisation of the United Nations", saying that France "had made every effort to argue that the necessary disarmament of Iraq could be obtained by peaceful means".
France, he said, now hoped that the military operations being carried out against Iraq would be "as rapid and as bloodless as possible". Afterwards, France would join with its "allies and with the international community to deal together with the new challenges that will be waiting for us".
Meanwhile, anti-war demonstrations continued in Paris following the beginning of hostilities, with 60,000 demonstrators gathering near the US embassy near the Place de la Concorde last Thursday, blocking the rue de Rivoli for the length of the Tuileries gardens, with smaller demonstrations occurring elsewhere in the capital.
At the weekend, 90,000 demonstrators filled the Place de la République in Paris to protest the US-led war on Iraq, with smaller demonstrations taking place in towns and cities across France and more expected in the coming days.
French public opinion, solidly in favour of the French stance since the beginning of the Iraq crisis, is overwhelmingly anti-war, with Chirac's personal approval rating standing at over 80 per cent.
The French parliament and press have also been supportive of France's stand, despite concerns that in defying the US before the war started, and now in indicating that France will resist US attempts to use the Security Council to legitimate post-war American occupation of Iraq, Chirac may have significantly harmed Franco-US relations.
While describing the US decision to go to war against Iraq without UN authorisation as an "error" and a "setback", several French MPs have warned that in declaring a willingness to veto any Anglo-American resolution Chirac had "abandoned politics" and that he could have done lasting damage to France's relations with the United States.
"No one defends Bush's position," one MP said. "But there was no obligation to try to win a prize for international clumsiness." In threatening to veto any Anglo-American resolution, France had "pushed the Americans in a direction with no other exit".
