France, NATO and the West – on the margin of the Védrine report
La Lettre Sentinel n°47, October 2007
Language of the original publication: French
For the time being, there is above all a change of style, which capitalizes on the usual honeymoon following each election (let us recall that Chirac was greeted at the time as “the most American of all the French presidents” by the Anglo-Saxon press). The government is busy to break with the image of a France in systematic opposition – and by doing so, it undercuts the arguments of those who would have used this to hamper its European initiatives. In fact, it reverses the burden of proof. By announcing their availability for a “reintegration”, the French make the demonstration of their sincerity concerning EU-NATO compatibility, it is therefore now up to the others to do the same. In particular by accepting the French pre-conditions related to an independent European defence. France would thus put the (Euro-)Atlanticist camp vis-a-vis their fundamental contradiction: if, indeed, the values and the interests are as common, between the two sides of the Atlantic, as they claim, there is no reason to see European autonomy as a heresy. [However] we are only talking of a potential here, and for the moment nothing confirms that the government intends to exploit all the possibilities.
The full text is available in French on the website of La Lettre Sentinel.
(Hajnalka Vincze, France, NATO and the West – on the margin of the Védrine report, La Lettre Sentinel n°47, October 2007, 16,000 characters)
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