After
Bold Step on Syria, French Leader Finds Himself Dismissed as Lackey
8
September, 2013
PARIS
— As portrayed in a satirical television show here this week,
President François
Hollande
is left behind to hold
President Obama’s coat while the American leader and President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia hold private talks. Mr. Hollande gullibly
concludes he is playing a key role.
Later
in the show, “Les Guignols de L’Info,” a rough French
equivalent of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” Mr. Hollande is
seen interrupting a visit to a school to ask Mr. Obama’s permission
to use the bathroom.
If
Mr. Hollande ever thought that his decision to stand steadfast
alongside the United States in backing a retaliatory strike against
Syria would give him new stature on the global stage or help him at
home, the last week has been a sharp shock.
Public
opinion is running strongly against him; a poll published this
weekend in the conservative daily newspaper Le Figaro showed about
two-thirds of the French opposed to military action against Syria.
There are growing demands that he grant Parliament a vote on the
matter, and considerable speculation that he could lose if he did.
The
White House is doing its best to buttress Mr. Hollande — Secretary
of State John Kerry, on a visit here this weekend, used a televised
appearance to make the case, in French, that failure to act would be
akin to the Munich Agreement of 1938, in which Britain and France
sought to appease Hitler by allowing him to control the Sudetenland.
But the French president is learning, like British leaders before
him, that close alignment with Washington carries as much risk of
looking weak as opportunity to look strong.
Earlier
this year the French marveled when Mr. Hollande, inexperienced in
foreign policy, weighed down by economic woes and often seen as
vacillating, executed a swift and successful military strike in Mali.
They rewarded him with an increase, though fleeting, in his usually
dismal approval ratings.
This
time around, so far at least, he has not received even that brief
benefit.
Mr.
Hollande is facing an avalanche of sometimes contradictory criticism
from left and right: that he is acting rashly in committing France to
military action; that he is being too timid in awaiting the go-ahead
from the United States and the United Nations; that he needs to heed
public and parliamentary opinion and that he needs to assert the
traditionally broad powers of the French president to employ the
armed forces without parliamentary approval.
Perhaps
most of all, he is being criticized for failing a basic test of
French politics — protecting the country’s pride. Having quickly
agreed to join in a military action, France is now forced to wait on
the sidelines while Congress debates whether to give its approval.
Mr. Hollande’s critics say he looks like a lackey.
Even
some who have endorsed a military strike have taken Mr. Hollande to
task for his handling of the issue. A front-page editorial in Le
Figaro by Paul-Henri du Limbert said that no one could criticize Mr.
Hollande for wanting to face down barbarity, but nonetheless his
strategy left something to be desired. The president, he said, had
somehow managed to “throw a spotlight on his own powerlessness.”
“It
is a singular situation,” Mr. du Limbert concluded. “but no one
can expect that France will come out of it looking stronger. “
To
some degree, Mr. Hollande’s decision to stand with the United
States and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain in calling for a
military strike against Syria to “punish” the Assad government
for a chemical weapons attack is well in line with French tradition.
French
troops were gassed in World War I and France has been long been
active in trying to ban such weapons. Mr. Hollande’s Socialist
Party is generally sympathetic to humanitarian intervention in the
case of atrocities.
Under
President Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr. Hollande’s predecessor, France
sought closer ties with Syria, and invited President Bashar al-Assad
to Bastille Day celebrations at the Élysée Palace. As a result a
number of business agreements were forged between the two countries,
most of which have dissolved since the violence erupted.
France
has other reasons to care about what happens in Syria, including
protecting neighboring Lebanon, a former French mandate. It is also
being pressed by allies including Saudi Arabia to see the conflict in
Syria as part of a broader proxy fight over Iran. Mr. Kerry said
Sunday that he had received assurances of Saudi support for a strike
on Syria.
But
for Mr. Hollande, as for Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron, almost nothing on
this issue has unfolded smoothly or quickly.
Under
pressure to win more support from other European countries, Mr.
Hollande has now said any action should await the completion of a
report by United Nations weapons inspectors on the apparent gas
attacks, which took place near Damascus last month and according to
American intelligence reports killed more than 1,400 people. When he
succumbed to pressure to hold a debate on the matter in Parliament,
opponents across the ideological spectrum brought up many of the same
concerns being discussed in Britain and the United States.
“There
was a contagion effect from what was going on in the U.S.,” said
Hubert Védrine, a former French former minister who is member of Mr.
Hollande’s party. “And people became very aware that Syria is not
Mali. And suddenly there were some very difficult questions being
discussed. Can we do it? Is it legitimate to do it? Will it achieve
anything?”
Mr.
Hollande’s supporters say he could hardly have anticipated this
turn of events, especially Mr. Obama’s decision to seek legislative
approval.
“What
we have seen in recent years is American presidents trying to get
more powers for themselves,” said one former adviser to Mr.
Sarkozy, who declined to be named because he did not want to look
like he was meddling in Mr. Hollande’s affairs. “So, I think it
natural that it surprised Hollande that Obama would do something like
that.”
Nonetheless,
Mr. Hollande now faces a Parliament empowered by public opinion, with
some members, including his own supporters, still calling for a vote
on the issue. Some have suggested that polling the Parliament could
even present Mr. Hollande with a deft way of reasserting France’s
independence.
Noël
Mamère, a prominent member of the Green Party who supports Mr.
Hollande’s stance, said he wanted the French Parliament to hold a
vote on the same timetable as the United States Congress.
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