President Sarkozy’s interview on foreign policy

Interview given by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, to the quarterly "Politique Internationale" magazine (excerpts)

Paris, May 2007

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Q. – Aside from the European Union, what must our long-term objectives be in the international arena?

FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVES

THE PRESIDENT – The first is to ensure the security and independence of France and the French, as well as of our friends and our allies. Because our interests are worldwide, our responsibility is global. Our security interests can no longer be separated from those of Europe and of our partners who share our destiny and values. Faced with the new threats, such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and ecological disorder, cooperation is the key to success. Our second major objective must be to promote internationally the universal values of freedom, observance of human rights and respect for human dignity, since France is really herself only when she embodies freedom from oppression, and reason to combat chaos. Finally, the third major objective of our foreign policy is to promote our economic and commercial interests to make France stronger in the globalized world.

ATLANTIC ALLIANCE/EUROPEAN DEFENCE

Q. – On security, in particular, people sometimes see the Atlantic Alliance as incompatible with Defence Europe. Do you think it is?

THE PRESIDENT – That approach is unproductive. Europeans, like Americans, need both of them. They complement each other. Of NATO’s 26 members, 21 are members of the European Union. Of the EU’s 27 countries, 21 are members of NATO. But we must ensure with our European partners that NATO doesn’t mutate towards becoming a global organization carrying out missions in the area between military, humanitarian and international police activities. NATO has no remit to become a rival to the UN.

UNITED STATES

Q. – You’ve been criticized at times for being too close to George W. Bush’s administration. How do you answer your detractors?

THE PRESIDENT – I tell them it’s a quarrel over nothing. The friendship between Europe and the United States is a necessity for global balance. It is deep, sincere and unwavering. But friendship also means standing by one’s friends when they need you and being capable of telling them the truth when they’re wrong. Friendship also means respect, understanding and affection, but not submission. Friendship is genuine only if one is free. I want a free France and a free Europe. I ask our American friends to let us be free – free to be their friends.

IRAN/NUCLEAR

Q. – Given the nuclear proliferation threat in general and the Iranian nuclear issue in particular, what must France’s response be?

THE PRESIDENT – Experience teaches us that when it comes to nuclear proliferation, the international community must be united and determined, and France must continue to act to keep up the pressure on Iran. Today the prospect of a nuclear-missile-armed Iran is unacceptable. It would pave the way for an arms race in the region and directly threaten Israel and southeast Europe. Tehran has to choose between cooperation with the international community and increased sanctions. Personally, I think there must be no hesitation in strengthening the sanctions regime because I believe sanctions can be effective. Moreover, this is what the Security Council has just decided. In return, if Tehran agrees to cooperate, the international community must guarantee the Iranian authorities that it will honour its commitments, particularly in terms of access to civilian nuclear power.

With regard to civilian nuclear power, cooperation is possible with our partners in the South. Saying this is a way of telling Iran that we are not doomed to confrontation. The energy of the future isn’t destined to be the exclusive possession of the most developed countries once a system of safeguards can function effectively. With this in mind, I’ve suggested setting up, under UN and International Atomic Energy Agency auspices, a veritable world bank for civilian nuclear fuel which would allow emerging countries access to the benefits of atomic energy without the risk of diversion for military purposes. Such an institution would have the advantage of removing all economic and political interest in national uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing programmes.

GLOBAL WARMING

Q. – Global warming is very probably, along with nuclear proliferation, the other major danger threatening our planet’s very survival. Do you think that the answers proposed so far by the international community are equal to the challenge?

THE PRESIDENT – The Kyoto Protocol was a great step forward even if its ambitions fall short in the light of scientific data. We have to go further with the 20 industrialized countries emitting the most greenhouse gases. I’m thinking especially of the United States, which I’d like to shoulder its share of responsibility for global warming. We Europeans could offer to cooperate with the US in research into the energies of the future, pooling our respective assets. But China, like Brazil, India and Russia, will also have to play their full part in the fight to protect the environment. I think it’s essential to make trade environmentally friendly. The WTO must integrate this into the negotiation of international agreements. It would be desirable for incentives or fiscal measures such as a “carbon tax” to be brought in to combat environmental dumping, particularly in the fight against global warming.

But we should go further and set up a genuine “world environment organization” (WEO). Its role would be to rationalize environmental principles and standards, and pool the efforts currently scattered between countries and international structures. Because it would be a forum of expertise and international negotiation, this would be a credible interlocutor for other multilateral organizations. It could in particular be a counterweight to the WTO, which has a tendency to neglect environmental problems.

IMMIGRATION

Q. – Similarly, should immigration be regulated at world level?

THE PRESIDENT – We must succeed in establishing a concerted management of migration between host countries, countries of origin and transit countries, while at the same time taking a particularly firm stand in the fight against illegal immigration. In a Europe being built on the basis of the principle of the free movement of persons, immigration policy would gain a great deal by being defined at Community level. With our European partners we must collaborate more closely with the main countries of origin in order to fight together and more effectively against the people-smuggling rings and implement a concerted immigration policy focusing equally on the needs of the host countries and countries of origin. Our immigration policy must also go hand in hand with a genuine co-development policy to fight the poverty which is the primary cause of immigration.

Another avenue which will have to be opened up, even though not in the very short term: a treaty on international migration. The international community has got itself organized to cooperate in the management of the main international issues: development, health, the environment, maritime affairs, air safety, space, labour law, etc. Curiously, international migrations aren’t subject to any international regulation and are abandoned to planetary chaos. The international treaty on migration I’m thinking of would include rights and obligations for both States and migrants. An international migration agency would be tasked with ensuring the treaty’s application.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Q. – You’ve often referred to your commitment to human rights. Yet it’s customary to say that good intentions don’t make for good foreign policy…

THE PRESIDENT – Experience proves otherwise. The nation-States are no longer the sole players on the international stage. New powers and new issues have emerged. Who would have thought that human rights would so quickly gain universal value, particularly thanks to the NGOs? Who would have thought that the lives of women, their rights, their physical integrity, would be an international issue, promoted by the women themselves? I’ve had the opportunity of saying this in Bamako, Cotonou and Dakar: flying in the face of conventional wisdom, Africa today prides itself on having several fine solidly-rooted democracies strengthened by several successful changeovers of power.

Those claiming to pursue Realpolitik aren’t as realistic as all that! They confine their diplomatic action to an effort to change nothing of the world’s reality. "Stability" is their watchword. Inertia, their obsession. Yet inertia isn’t a policy, it means giving up. Stability for stability’s sake doesn’t come into my way of seeing the world. If only because that sacrosanct stability can reflect a cruel and unjust status quo.

I’d add that all action now takes place under the informed and vigilant gaze of national and international public opinion. And if we are rapidly informed about everything, how can we not admit that silence becomes culpable and inaction criminal? Silence is not acceptable when we know. Our silence in the face of 200,000 deaths and 400,000 refugees from the Chechen wars is untenable. As is our indifference in the face of the 200,000 people who have died in the ethnic massacres in Darfur. It is urgent to act so that Darfur doesn’t remain a shameful page of our own history. We must do the utmost to get all parties to honour the ceasefire commitments and facilitate deployment of an international force.

Q. – Perhaps it’s less easy to speak out against great countries like China and Russia…

THE PRESIDENT – No. The fact that China and Russia are great powers doesn’t mean we have to refrain from denouncing human rights violations committed there. In the same vein, I have to say that I find recent developments in Russia worrying.

MIDDLE EAST

Q. – What’s your view on the situation in the Middle East?

THE PRESIDENT – The Middle East region is being torn apart. Threats are piling up: terrorism and violent extremism, civil conflicts, power-seeking and ballistic and nuclear proliferation. Each of these hotbeds of tension – Iraq, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, Iranian nuclear issue – has not only its own causes and dynamic, but also, in some cases, its destabilizing interference in the region. All this today presents a major challenge for the international community, particularly for Europe, which is on its doorstep and for which these are strategic issues. We must of course cooperate closely with the region’s moderate and responsible governments as well as with our major partners in the world. Because she had warned against the war in Iraq, because of her historic commitment to Lebanon, and because she took the initiative in 2003 with Germany and the United Kingdom to seek a solution to the Iranian proliferation crisis and is the friend of Israel and the Palestinian people, France has a special role to play in the region.

Q. – What advice would you give the Iraqi government on how to end the present chaos in Iraq? Should the coalition troops be pulled out and with what timescale?

THE PRESIDENT – The solution can only be political. There must be a new "pact" between Iraqis ensuring every community, every segment of Iraqi society, every Iraqi, equal access to the country’s institutions and resources. One which would isolate the terrorists. As regards withdrawal of the foreign troops, France hasn’t got any troops on the ground and so isn’t in the best position to define the timetable. There are, it seems to me, two pitfalls to avoid: a precipitate withdrawal, which would lead to chaos, and the absence of any prospect of withdrawal, which the Iraqis would react to by intensifying the violence and would play into the terrorists’ hands. The wisest course is to set a goal to be worked towards for the withdrawal, which it will be for the Iraqi authorities to make more specific in the light of the situation and liaising with the countries with contingents on the ground. The Iraqis will thus be assured that the objective really is to restore their full sovereignty.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Q. – What’s your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

THE PRESIDENT – On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I firmly believe that a lasting solution can come only through a fair, and thus negotiated peace, with the establishment of two viable democratic States, living side by side in security and within secure and recognized borders. No one must lose sight of this fundamental reality: an occupied people will never give up, whatever they endure. This is why it’s important to adopt a balanced position towards both parties. The need for Israel’s security is indisputable and nothing justifies the use of violence by the Palestinians; but Israel’s pursuit of a fait accompli policy on the ground seriously mortgages the future. With her partners, particularly in the Quartet, France must do her utmost to achieve a negotiated solution.

LEBANON

Q. – Can France play a role in the Lebanese crisis?

THE PRESIDENT – The role of France and the international community is to help the Lebanese defend their country’s sovereignty and integrity. Last summer, Lebanon, as too often in her history, was martyred, and innocent people paid with their lives for a conflict which wasn’t theirs. But who must the Lebanese first hold accountable for their immense suffering? My answer is clear: first of all, Hezbollah. Because I believe that friendship is strengthened by frankness, I have made a point of saying to our Lebanese friends that in this conflict there was an aggressor, Hezbollah, and a victim: Israel. With the same frankness, I said to their Israelis that their reaction was excessive and inappropriate. I shall always defend equally strongly Israel’s security and Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence. Today it’s essential for the commission of inquiry into Rafiq Hariri’s assassination to be able to complete its work and for Hezbollah to prove they are a political organization by laying down their arms.

AFRICA

Q. – In Africa, France’s presence, especially at the military level, is increasingly contested…

THE PRESIDENT – You’re right. The presence of French military bases is becoming less and less tolerated by young Africans. The primary mission of these bases is to help the African Union establish a peace and regional security architecture giving the continent a tool to guarantee its stability more effectively and collectively. But this French military presence also, at times, allows France to intervene in humanitarian crises to maintain the security of civilians and foreign nationals. Such interventions can be misunderstood, in Africa as in France. These are always difficult decisions, which have to be taken as a matter of urgency and consist in choosing between two bad solutions. Either France doesn’t intervene and is accused of failing to honour her bilateral commitments and abandoning governments and stricken peoples. Or she intervenes and is criticized for meddling in a sovereign State’s domestic affairs.

We must undoubtedly give further thought, with the African Union, to ways of anticipating these crises. Improving crisis prevention requires strengthening African peacekeeping capabilities, and the French military presence must contribute more to this. Once the African Union is equipped with a strategic and military capability enabling it, itself, to restore the international rule of law on the continent, this French presence will have to be limited to the strict minimum.

DEVELOPMENT

Q. – What’s your view of development? And how do you see France’s development policy?

THE PRESIDENT – We must set ourselves an obligation to deliver results, and not just regarding the means. There has been a sea change since the low point we reached in 2001, under the socialist government, when France’s Official Development Assistance had fallen to 0.32% of national wealth. Since then, at Jacques Chirac’s instigation, it has gone up 75% in five years and today stands at over €8.2 billion. Nevertheless, I can’t see why development aid should be an exception to the principles which have to guide the use of public money: a specific strategy has to be set, mutual imperatives defined and a results culture created. More aid must mean greater effectiveness on both sides.

We must no longer accept the possibility of development aid becoming a bonus for bad governance and predatory regimes. Similarly, people must stop turning a blind eye to corruption deeming it an inevitable evil. France should give priority to those African countries – and not only Francophone ones – which adhere to these principles. We must also build a major co-development policy. This will involve marshalling the dynamism, skills, and savings of migrants in France to serve their countries’ development. Finally, the other focus of this policy must be on promoting widespread use of microcredit and help for micro projects.

UN

Q. – Has the UN still got a role to play?

THE PRESIDENT – Of course. We need the United Nations Organization because it it’s universal and it alone has the necessary legitimacy and efficacy to deal with certain problems. We see this in Africa, where peacekeeping operations aren’t confined to the military dimension, but are also supporting political processes of transition, the organization of elections, restructuring of the security forces and rebuilding of judicial systems. Wherever there’s a need to assert international legitimacy in the face of States, formulate universal standards, promote new principles, regulate a globalized world, the United Nations is irreplaceable.

UNSC REFORM

Q. – Final question: should the Security Council’s composition be revised?

THE PRESIDENT – If we want to safeguard the United Nations’ effectiveness, the Security Council’s authority must be indisputable. For this, its representativeness must be strengthened quite simply because the world has changed. This enlargement of the Council must involve all the world regions and particularly the countries of the South. Major countries like Germany, India, Japan and Brazil must play a permanent role on it and both Africa and Latin America must also be represented.

I’m aware that it’s difficult to get a consensus on this question between the world’s 192 States. I propose exploring transitional arrangements in order to move forward progressively. We shall have to combine maintaining the status of the five permanent members, a limited overall increase in the number of seats on the Council so as to maintain its efficiency, and the creation of new permanent seats with no right of veto. It will very probably be necessary to postpone until later the definitive choice of some new permanent members. Why not think about creating "special status" seats, electable for a three-year term for example? Why not think about the possibility that, if a State were elected to one of these "special status" seats three times, its seat could become permanent? Whatever arrangement is adopted, the attributes required to become a permanent member must be based on clear criteria: certainly population, but also financial contribution to the Organization and above all troop contribution to peacekeeping operations./.