EVIAN, 2 June 2003 — French President Jacques Chirac welcomed US President George Bush at a summit of world leaders yesterday aimed at healing rifts over Iraq, as protests against the high-powered meeting turned violent.
Chirac, whose staunch opposition to the Iraq war infuriated Bush, shook hands briefly and smiled for the cameras after the US leader set foot on French soil for the first time since the crisis that has rocked trans-Atlantic ties.
As Group of Eight leaders arrived in the French spa resort of Evian for talks on addressing the global terror threat and improving aid to developing nations police clashed with protesters in cities in neighboring Switzerland.
Swiss riot police fired tear gas on stone-throwing demonstrators in Geneva, where a gang of black-hooded youths also wrecked a petrol station after a night of rioting that scarred the wealthy lakeside city.
Police also battled anti-capitalist activists in Lausanne who had set fire to barricades and sprayed graffiti on cars, arresting as many as 400 people, while on a nearby motorway a Briton was seriously wounded when police cut a rope he was climbing to hang a protest banner.
The violence — despite a massive security operation on both sides of the border — came as tens of thousands of activists marched from Geneva and the French town of Annemasse to air a raft of grievances against the world’s rich and powerful, although their numbers were far below organizers’ hopes.
To counter the threat from both demonstrators and potential terrorists, some 25,000 French and Swiss police and military personnel have been deployed to protect the leaders.
While G-8 summits generally assess the global economy and recommend measures on growth, and will do so again this year, the Evian gathering will also need to heal the wounds over Iraq.
A spokeswoman for Chirac said he and Bush would focus on the future in talks on Iraq but neither will back down from his hard-line stance.
“If they discuss Iraq, it will not be to relive the past — that wouldn’t be of much use — but to look toward the future,” Catherine Colonna said.
Controversy is raging over the failure to find evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction, the key justification for the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Bush, while saying this weekend that he wanted Europe and the United States to bury the hatchet over Iraq, also made it clear it was time for everyone “to step up to the shared duties of free nations.”
The Iraq war bitterly divided the G-8: Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States supported military action while Canada, France, Germany and Russia were all opposed.
Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who held their own summit early yesterday in Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg, insisted their friendship was as strong as ever.
Bush also shook German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s hand at a dinner the previous evening, going a little way to thawing relations.
Schroeder was due to fly into the summit later yesterday after being delayed by a special party congress in Berlin.
Among a group of other invited leaders was Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is making his first foreign foray since his appointment in March and was holding an evening meeting with Bush.
The summit began with a working lunch focusing on growth and international cooperation which around a dozen other leaders, including from Brazil, China, India, Malaysia and South Africa, had been invited to join.
Chirac wants G-8 countries to make the world’s poorest continent a top priority by addressing problems such as debt relief, AIDS, drinking water, trade and promotion of democracy.
UN chief Kofi Annan and leaders of the World Bank, World Trade Organization and IMF were also taking part.
Annan called on the G8 not to lose sight of the developing world, urging rich states to slash farm subsidies and boost debt relief. “We face many development challenges, but it is no good tackling them piecemeal,” Annan told the heads of state and government.
