[Peace-discuss] Fwd: France urges US to ease stance on terrorism

[Al Kagan]

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>Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 23:06:26 -0600
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>Subject: France urges US to ease stance on terrorism
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>France urges US to ease stance on terrorism
>By Victor Mallet in Paris
>Published: February 8 2002 20:32 | Last Updated: February 9 2002 01:35
>
>Lionel Jospin, the French prime minister, on Friday bluntly urged the US
>not to reduce all foreign policy issues to the fight against terrorism
>and called on Washington to resist unilateralism. Mr Jospin's comments,
>in a deliberate digression during a speech on money-laundering, reflect
>European anxiety about the direction of President George W. Bush's
>foreign policy following his condemnation of Iraq, Iran and North Korea
>as the "axis of evil". Mr Jospin is the first European prime minister to
>make such an outspoken attack, although cabinet ministers from Germany,
>Spain and France have already criticised Mr Bush's remarks in his State
>of the Union address last week..
>
>Echoing Mr Jospin's remarks, Chris Patten, the European Union's external
>affairs commissioner, warns Washington in an interview on Saturday with
>Britain's Guardian newspaper against going into "unilateralist
>overdrive" and taking "an absolutist and simplistic" stance towards the
>rest of the world. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, suggested
>the speech was political rhetoric for a domestic US audience. On
>Wednesday, Hubert Vedrine, the French foreign minister, accused the US
>of being "simplistic" in looking at all the world's problems through the
>prism of the anti-terrorism campaign. "It's absurd," he said.
>
>Mr Jospin was more diplomatic on Friday, recalling France's "absolute
>solidarity" with the US after the September 11 attacks. But he implied
>that the US did not understand the lessons to be learnt from what had
>happened, and would be wrong to rely purely on military might to stamp
>out potential terrorist threats. "The problems of the world cannot be
>reduced simply to the struggle against terrorism, however vital that
>struggle may be," Mr Jospin said. "Nor can such problems be solved by
>overwhelming military power."
>
>He contrasted Mr Bush's go-it-alone approach on arms negotiations,
>environmental protection and development aid with what he called
>Europe's vision of "a more balanced international community, and a world
>that is safer and more just". Mr Jospin added: "We want the United
>States not to yield to the strong temptation of unilateralism."
>
>Criticising the US is a traditional sport for French politicians, and
>the realisation that France's armed forces had little to offer the US
>during the Afghan war has aggravated French sensitivities over
>Washington's global military dominance. France's open hostility towards
>US policy, however, is a marked change from its unequivocal support in
>the immediate aftermath of September 11.
>
>European policymakers are also concerned about Mr Bush's views on Iran
>and on the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which the US has taken an
>increasingly public pro-Israeli line. Mr Vedrine on Friday again
>criticised US support for the decision by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli
>prime minister, to marginalise Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian
>Authority, a tactic he said was leading to "a strategic impasse" in the
>Middle East. Earlier in the week Mr Vedrine told French radio that if
>Europeans did not always agree with US policy they should say so openly.
>"The Europeans today do not agree with the White House approach on the
>Middle East, and believe it is a mistake to support Ariel Sharon's
>policy of pure repression," he said.

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu