Chirac: beyond Gaullism?

• Author: Sicherman, Harvey
• Position: French President Jacques Chirac

The annual G-7 economic summits have been justly described as photo opportunities in which anything except economics may be discussed. The Halifax Summit of June 1995 was no exception, the sherpas having gotten their masters to agree on the economic communique even before they arrived at the mountain. But a singular photo-op at Halifax captured something new: the collective leadership of the West crowded about a tall commanding figure reading a message on the Bosnian crisis. That figure was not President Clinton. He stood respectfully behind the man enthusiastically holding center stage -- the new French president, Jacques Chirac.

It was a Gaullist dream come true. A timid Germany, a less-than-timid Britain, a faltering Japan, and a seriously distressed Italy were joined by a weak Russia. Above all, there was Bill Clinton, the American "domestic" president, hobbled by a hostile Congress and an erratic foreign policy. Chirac seized his opportunity, and international leadership spoke with a French accent for the first time since de Gaulle himself departed the scene nearly thirty years before.

The hugely popular newly-elected president of the world's fourth-largest economy, Jacques Chirac was also the leader of the Gaullist party. Six months before, as mayor of Paris, he had been considered a long shot to win France's highest office. Savoring his unexpected triumph, he began even before the summit with a piece of Gaullist haughtiness, defying world opinion by scheduling a round of French nuclear tests. Now, using the Halifax meeting as a launch pad, he promptly disconcerted the Russians, the Americans, and the British by declaring a new policy in Bosnia: get tough or get out. He wanted to avoid a Munich, he said. As for the leadership of the West, he told a reporter, there was no such leadership.

Before June was over, Chirac had also ridden roughshod over prevailing niceties at a European Union summit in Cannes, criticizing the Greek prime minister over the Balkans and the "lax" Dutch drug policy while conducting brisk meetings as host-chairman. He also sought, to create a group of "wise men" to study the risks of currency fluctuation and trade conflict between countries joining the proposed European Monetary Union (EMU) and those remaining outside, both groups containing countries in commercial competition with France. Chirac proposed as chairman for such a group a former French president and current coalition ally, Mr. Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

Meanwhile, the French president was breaking taboos at home. He acknowledged French complicity in the deportation of Jews to the slaughter in World War II, an admission his predecessor had stubbornly resisted. Chirac thus became the first postwar French leader to accept the shameful truth that too many Frenchmen had been not just defeatists but collaborators in their defeat.

All of these dramatic activities brought mixed results. By early October the Croatian offensive against the Serbs and a burst of American diplomatic activity had overshadowed the French role. The EU proved resistant to French plans, too; bruised by Chirac's highhandedness, the smaller member countries led a successful charge to deny him his wise man's group, thereby irritating the host who had irritated them. Chirac himself seemed surprised by the hostile international reaction to his nuclear plans. Last and certainly not least, he was coming under growing criticism at home for a domestic policy that was noticeably less decisive and energetic than either his foreign policy or his preelection promises. In particular, he was being held hostage to his campaign pledge to reduce France's high level of unemployment.

Despite these setbacks, Chirac's boldness in seeking to fill the vacuum of Western leadership created by the inadequacies of the Clinton administration has been impressive. The French challenge -- Le Defi Francais -- came as a surprise on both sides of the Atlantic. France's European allies had grown rather bored with the prickly mix of self-interest and Gaullist gloire represented by Mitterrand, and had come to relegate the French to a subsidiary role. Washington, too, dismissed France as a secondary power and focused its attention on a reunited Germany. Chirac's seizing of the initiative has thus served to remind his allies of France's importance. But the question remains: Is Chirac's attempt at vaulting France once more into international leadership sustainable? Or is he doomed to be simply a flash in the pan, someone who will soon subside into a mildly annoying irrelevance?

Under the Gaullist constitution, the French president exercises virtually unfettered control over foreign policy; the British prime minister, the German chancellor and the American president are mere committee chairmen by comparison. And until Chirac, that power was exercised by de Gaulle's successors on behalf of "Gaullism," a broadly popular set of principles to the French, but principles that most of France's allies, and especially the United States, only vaguely understood and tended to regard as presumptuous.

Chirac and his policies can only be understood in the framework of Gaullism and its four key elements: (1) retention of an independent nuclear arsenal as essential to French independence and global influence; (2) diplomatic domination of an economically more powerful Germany; (3) suspicion of NATO as an instrument of American power and a determination to stay distanced from it; and (4) assertion of the nation, and nationalism, as the true and reliable lodestar of international politics. These elements together sustained de Gaulle's vision of France as the leader of Europe -- a Europe of nations, not supranational institutions -- that would maneuver between the Anglo-Saxon powers and the Russians.

All of these principles have been challenged drastically by the end of the Cold War. In the first six months of a seven-year term, Jacques Chirac has already begun to lead in new directions, modifying policy -- and Gaullist traditions -- in some cases (but not all), and hinting at more change to come. But Chirac faces some daunting dilemmas. If, how, and when he resolves them will affect not only vital French interests but also the security of Europe and the future of the Atlantic Alliance.

The Nuclear Dilemma

As the cold war ended, the small and costly French force de frappe (5 submarines with 80 missiles; 18 IRBMs; and about 225 nuclear-capable aircraft) seemed to appreciate in value. Theoretically, at least, the massive reduction of the superpowers' nuclear arsenals required by START I and START II made the French nuclear deterrent more formidable; it had meant little in the 1970s and 1980s as the United States and the Soviet Union fielded ever larger numbers of warheads. Even more significantly, the French nuclear force might now be joined to the already existing "Eurocorps", consisting of French and German contingents, to create a real European defense community.

These ambitions, however, collided with another reality. The Gulf War exposed serious weaknesses in French conventional forces. Under French law, conscripts cannot be used abroad and the professional French contingent sent to the Gulf was small and under-equipped. Four years after the event, Defense Minister Charles Millon was still reminding the readers of Le Monde (June 30, 1995) of "the difficulties we encountered during the Gulf War", and stressing the need for a new professionalism emphasizing space technology, intelligence, firepower, readiness, and mobility -- all characteristic of the Pentagon's best efforts in Operation Desert Storm. (It was only in july of this year that the French managed to launch their own spy satellite -- not up to U.S. standards, but to the French preferable to relying on the United States.) France's emphasis on self-reliance and its long absence from NATO's integrated military organization (though never as complete as the Gaullists pretended) had hurt the country's military capability. Clearly, more money must be spent if French nuclear and conventional forces are to be improved. But there is no money. The French government's deficit is too high, and the impending European Monetary Union requires it to be lowered considerably. Chirac will therefore be hard put to sustain even the current defense budget of about $37 billion per year (in francs virtually the same as 1993).

These facts about the overall condition of the French military...