Nicolas Sarkozy, our beloved, but small, French president, decided (unilaterally) this week that France should reintegrate NATO's command, after General de Gaulle pulled France out of it about 40 years ago in 1966. His reasons are numerous and all of them are not completely irrelevant. To sum up, the world has changed, the dangers have evolved, the communist threat disappeared, France should actively participate to the NATO decision-making process instead of following it from the side. Furthermore, France belongs to most of NATO's structures: it is NATO's 4th biggest contributor in troops, and it is currently involved in 38 of the 40 NATO missions. It is hence completely natural to reintegrate NATO's military command. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac both tried to get France back into there during their presidency. Hence, there's nothing new under the sun.
I don't agree...I have no particular nostalgia for General de Gaulle, I even do not consider myself as a Gaullist (in the view of de Gaulle's anti-European stands, this will not surprise you...though I agree with him we should have never let the UK enter what was then the European Community).
I have no expertise in the NATO ins and outs. But here is simply what I know and what I feel:
1. The US illegally invaded Iraq in 2003, which led to the chaos we are all witnessing there today. Saddam was no angel but he also did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am extremely proud about my country refusing to take part to this illegal attack against a sovereign country. Would France have been able to have the same position, being a full member of NATO? we will of course never know, but I do not believe this independence would have been possible. To be more accurate, I strongly believe that Germany and Russia strongly opposed the US-led invasion because of the french position (they probably would have opposed anyway, but they probably felt less isolated).
2. France (previously) believed that a third path was possible: neither the US, neither the Soviets...This has attracted a lot of sympathy around the world, especially in the arabic and African countries. I fear that France will lose this credit by joining NATO. It is indeed much harder to hear somebody shout in a crowd than in a church. Our non-aligned, atypical stand gave us echo...
3. Mr Sarkozy told the French people that his efforts to get France back into NATO would be accompanied by a strengthened and renewed European Defense system. What did Mr Sarkozy obtain from the US? the Norfolk SACT and an inter-arm high-ranking position for French officers in Lisbon...well done...anything else? where is the European Defense? Are several hundreds of additional french officers in NATO going to be enough to influence the US and make the world hear our difference? I am silently laughing...
4. What do we get by joining NATO? NOTHING!!!
What do we lose by joining NATO? Independence, respect, and a certain freedom of speach . We also lose all chances of ever building an independent European Defense and army. But, most of all, we implicitly acknowledge that being different and thinking out of the box is not a viable diplomacy today. In the past few days, many analysts in the French newspapers have said that reintegrating NATO would not mean systematically following the US, though I have heard the contrary in the Netherlands where France is said to finally get back into the rank...CNN even states: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has aligned France more closely with the U.S."
The world evolves and France should evolve likewise. However, does France's future and safety stand here with its European partners, or there, with the US? I am sad for my country and I cannot refrain from thinking about my grand-father, who passed away more than 15 years ago, and who was a resistant during WWII. I am trying to figure out what he would say today. Names of birds would probably fly across the room...all the more when considering that our beloved, but extremely small, president decided not to consult the French people: lack of time or lack of courage? Is this quick decision linked to the fact that the French troops in Afghanistan are apparently going to fight under US command from next summer on?
We have a constitution in France and here is what it says:
Art. 11
al. 1) The president of the Republic can submit to a referendum the signature of a treaty;
al. 2) A referendum about a subject mentioned in the first alinea can be organised at the initiative of a fifth of the members of the french parliament, backed up by a tenth of the enlisted voting citizens. This initiative leads to a law being proposed;
Art 34
The law determines the fundamental principles about the general organization of the nation's defense.
