Robust Foreign Policy from France?
Is it really possible for France to have a robust foreign policy? Normally I wouldn't think so. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy has me intrigued. He has appointed Socialist Party member Bernard Kouchner as his new foreign minister. Who is Bernard Kouchner? Michael J. Totten provides in intriguing profile:
Dr. Kouchner had had it. He knew communism was a mendacious lie. But the idea of "Workers Without Borders" (which, as Paul Berman notes, is what "Workers of the World Unite" ultimately means) stirred his soul, even so. Workers didn't inspire him so much as the idea of the abolition of borders. So he formed his own revolutionary organization of sorts, and he called it Doctors Without Borders. Doctors Without Borders was what the Red Cross would have been if an anti-totalitarian Che Guevara had founded it. Its missions, Berman writes, "were no less dangerous than any guerilla struggle, no less frightening, no less difficult, but [they had] the great virtue, in contrast to a communist insurgency, of refusing to lie."
... So Kouchner and Doctors Without Borders rented a French vessel and rescued some of the boat people. Scooped them right out of the sea. Some of his left-wing comrades burned with volcanic rage "“ rage against Kouchner for saving people! American imperialists, not the Vietnamese communists, were the villains in their mental universe. Kouchner showed up their fantasy as a lie, and they hated him for it.
Later Jimmy Carter dispatched the United States Navy to rescue the rest of the boat people. Doctors Without Borders were followed by Sailors Without Borders. This, from the point of view of the formerly communist and anti-imperialist Kouchner, was nothing short of fantastic.
Little surprise, then, that Kouchner "“ unlike many of his former comrades on the left "“ favored the humanitarian rescue of Iraqis from the predatory regime of Saddam Hussein. From Workers Without Borders...to Soldiers Without Borders. He became frustrated, apoplectic actually, at what he saw as the Bush Administration's arrogance and incompetence. But he supported the war all the same, and he did so strictly on left-wing grounds.
Sarkozy and Kouchner are giving me lots of reasons to keep an eye on France in the coming months.
This entry was tagged. Foreign Policy