Africa and the New Man in France's Affaires Etrangeres

A. Mullu

19 May 2007

The French have their 23rd president, Nikolas Sarkozy. For them, the 52 years old lawyer and former Interior Minster doubly represent both a promise and threat. That is indeed why the French, traditionally a difficult people to govern yet who have a proverbial love for politics, are still so divided about him.

Mr. Sarkozy's new cabinet which includes Bernard Kouchner, a 67 years old socialist and founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, stirs similar sentiment. The appointment of Mr. Kouchner as a Foreign Minster is the most daring decision Mr. Sarkozy has yet made. Bernard Kouchner comes from the socialist bloc. In many ways, he holds views that are starkly different from that of Sarkozy's. He is blunt, excessively interventionist and pro-human rights. What does this mean to France's future relationship with Africa? Will Mr. Kouchner attempt to rewrite France's foreign policy? A look into his carrier and thought indicates no one should expect otherwise.

Very few expected that the naming of Francois Fillon will ignite such an interest from a foreign policy point of view. Discussion on foreign policy was conspicuously absent during the election campaign. Neither did it appear that foreign policy considerations influenced the election's outcome. If one simply carefully scrutinizes the debate among the top candidates, the politicians appeared running for a municipal post than for the top job in one of the world's influential nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

And yet Bernard Kouchner has just stepped into a foreign policy milieu already defined by his new boss. Mr. Sarkozy's broadest pronouncement on foreign policy came just a week before the second round of the election. He said he will work hard to save France from its national malaise and restore its status at the international level. In his speeches and press statements, Mr. Sarkozy noted that human rights will be at the heart of his foreign policy.

The president's first mission was to Germany where he flew barely six hours after he assumed his presidency. He met Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and talked about saving Europe from its paralysis. There are some crucial details to his EU's foreign policy: abandonment of future EU constitution and rejection of EU's further expansion. He is also expected to push for Frances's active participation in NATO. For long, France has resisted to embrace the western military and security alliance.

President Nicolas Sarkozy also seeks to reverse Jacques Chirac's strained relationship with Washington. Though Sarkozy has maintained that US's invasion of Iraq was a 'historic mistake', he had confided to associates that Frances's use of its veto threat at the U.N. Security Council in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. He is also openly sympathetic to US's position on Iran. Chirac had suggested that France might be prepared to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

There is also a wild rumor that Mr. Sarkozy harbors a weakness to Israel. On 17 May 2007, The New York Times reported that a murky group known as the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claims links with Al Qaeda, threatened that it would wage “a bloody jihadist campaign” in France in reaction to the election of the “Zionist crusader.” Mr. Sarkozy's father is a Hungarian Jew. Mr. Kouchner’s paternal grandparents were Russian-born Jews. The president has openly praised Tony Blair, a rare thing for a French president to do.

On Africa, however, Mr. Sarkozy is less clear. This is probably why there was a muted reception of his victory by African leaders. Mr. Chirac was gifted in how to handle African leaders particularly those from the Francophone bloc. The relationship has resulted in a complex dependence of these African leaders on French security and military help. France trails behind other G8 countries in development assistance to Africa. So far its aid to Africa has been marred with corruption. Sarkozy wishes to change that by channeling these resources through international institutions. This should be good news to many countries. The biggest worry for African countries, however, is Mr. Kouchner's undue interventionism and his questionable morality.

And yet Mr. Sarkozy has not elaborated his foreign policy to wards the African continent. This is why France's African policy will most likely be shaped by the foreign establishment under Kouchner than the Elysee palace.

Mr. Kouchner comes as Mr. Sarkozy's gesture to the Socialist bloc. He belongs to the opposition camp and had voted for Ségolène Royal. Though the chance of a socliast politician dominating a conservatice goverment is slim, there is no doubt that he will shape France's foreign policy in a direction that has repercussion to other countries. Mr. Koucher's tenure marks beginning of activist foreign policy in France. This is clearer to no one that Sarkosy himself who, according to various sources, plans to establish a foreign-policy advisory body within the Elysee palace in order not to be undermines by his underling. The fact that Sarko has too many big domestic issues in his plate makes is most likely that he would have to leave the diplomacy largely to Mr. Kouchner.

In his long career in humanitarian work, Mr. Kouchner has literally invented the concept of interventionism in the works of MSF. He left ICRC in 1970s and co-founded MSF after criticizing ICRC's neutral stand in the Bifra war in Nigeria. This commitment has also followed him both in his humanitarian work and political life. He supported US's intervention in Iraq. He is often blunt and undiplomatic; a style which remained with him even during his tenure as UN High representative in Kosovo.

He belongs to an idealist camp. As such he makes a clean break from Gaullist tradition which has invariably weighted intervention in the internal affairs of other countries from a calculated consideration of France's national interest. Mr. Kouchner looks at the question from a prism of morality-from the perspective of humanitarianism. By so doing, Mr Kouchner will probably seek to balance the conservatives' obvious lack of a moral center.

He had shown disdain and bluntness to African leaders whom he considered corrupts and abusers. Once he referred to Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko as "a walking bank safe in a leopard-skin hat" as a time when France was helping Mobuto against rebel groups.

His activities as human rights activist has brought him numerous awards; "Dag Hammarskjöld" prize for Human Rights in 1979; "Athinai" prize from the Alexander Onassis Foundation for his human rights activities in 1981, and "Prix Europa" for his human rights activities in 1984.

He has distinguished himself by flying to dangerous sites in Africa and then asking for his photograph to be taken. One of his most popular pictures from Africa is from the 1990s in which he is seen carrying sack of rice in Somali seashore in his Rice for Somalia project. He was one of the personalities included in Time's 2006 edition of 60 Years of Heroes.

In Somalia, 1990s

As an early advocate of humanitarian intervention, Mr. Kouchner's foreign policy establishment is likely to give numerous African countries a lot of work for years to come. Some may expect his excesses will be checked by the president. In a curious interview with The New York Times (May 19, 2007), Mr. Kouchner said that Africa is one of the foreign policy issues on which he is ' not close' with the president. It is likely that Mr. Sarkozy may leave Africa as Mr. Kouchner's turf.

On the content of his policy for Africa, however, it does not seem that Bernard Kouchner has figured that out yet himself.