President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to China is proving highly profitable for French industry, with deals worth $32 billion announced, including two nuclear power stations and 160 Airbus passenger planes. Many contracts have of course been a long time in negotiation, but have been bundled into a single, dramatic announcement for this trip.
Yet although French business will be rubbing its hands with satisfaction, there is a notable difference in the tone of Sarkozy, as he spoke of the deals. Had it been his predecessor Jacques Chirac, there would have been a considerably more chauvinistic tone, and some snook cocking at the Americans. Sarkozy by contrast seemed to be speaking first as a European — the Airbus consortium is after all Pan-European — and then as an internationalist.
This mirrors the changes he has brought to French foreign policy, which no longer appears so opportunist. Chirac rightly condemned the Iraq invasion, but largely for the wrong reason — an inherent anti-Americanism. Sarkozy’s approach is altogether more embracing. He is not prepared to set France apart from the stream of events, either in Europe or wider afield. We can anticipate therefore that Paris will be playing a more constructive role in the Middle East, both within the EU component of the quartet and independently:
The emergence of a more realistic French foreign policy ought to have a significant impact on the EU. Britain, despite the cooler attitude taken by its increasingly accident-prone new Premier Gordon Brown, remains closer to Washington than Brussels in foreign policy terms. Germany’s position has been ambiguous. Now that France has ceased to be the prickly presence in the European corner, it can offer effective leadership to a European partnership, which it has always been uniquely placed to do.
The Chinese of course are happy to do business with EU member countries because they need to spread their commercial relationships. They know that Washington once hoped to tie up Beijing in trade deals and investments as a way of preventing the Chinese from challenging American global economic dominance. No such agenda exists among EU planners in Brussels.
Unfortunately for Sarkozy, the success of his China trip has been slightly marred by the re-eruption of violence in the streets among angry youths, largely of Algerian origin. The death of two young teenagers in a collision with a police car has so far sparked two days of violence, which Monday night saw five police officers seriously injured. When he was interior minister in 2005 Sarkozy call similar rioters variously “rabble,” “gangrene” and “scum.” Such a reaction will not do this time. Whatever criminal element may lie behind these riots, they also clearly represent a deep social and economic malaise, which has still not been addressed by the French authorities. Sarkozy should make this task a priority. Foreign policy triumphs are no good if, back home, part of your country is on fire.
