Why would I - francophone and francophile, married to a French woman and parent of dual nationals - possibly be bothered by this week's visit to Washington by French President Nicolas Sarkozy? After all, I have consistently underlined, even when it was highly impolitic and unfashionable, the longstanding ties between the United States and France.
Then I read Jonathan Steele in The Guardian, who has put his finger on why I am uneasy:
The visit to Washington - from where he returned yesterday - is of a different dimension, though here the Americans are as much to blame as Sarkozy and his entourage for the phoney mood music. They are hyping the alleged shift in French policy as falsely as Sarkozy's people. Some US and French commentators are even saying that Sarkozy is Bush's staunchest European friend, the new Tony Blair. What is the substance? Sarkozy's predecessor, Chirac, was a lifelong admirer of America, spending a gap year there, working in a bar and collecting a bevy of American girlfriends. Sarkozy, by contrast, first visited the US at the age of 31 as the guest of a US government "young leaders" programme - the classic case of an ambitious man who was willing to be wooed.
For a look at some of the "phoney mood music," you need go no further than Steve Clemons' post in The Washington Note. Illustrated with an official White House photo of the cheesy Marquis de Lafayette - George Washington "Reenactment," Clemons' post analyzes with a very astute Washington insider lens the highs (few and far between) and lows of the guest list for the Sarkozy fete. The non-invited or the no-shows (only the White House protocol people will know) are legion, and not a lightweight crowd: no Senate Foreign Relations Committee members; no labor (but lots of managment); no heads of international institutions based in DC, like the newly installed head of the International Monetary Fund, Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Watching bits and pieces of Sarkozy's address to Congress, what stood out was the sycophancy, not the straight talk. Yes, I know he said that the US needed to start leading the fight against climate change, and he did the kind of jawboning to boost a weak dollar that, frankly, Bush and his economic team seem unable or unwilling to do.
But what came across the airwaves from Capitol Hill was the smarm, the easy lines guaranteeing the standing ovation, of which only Congress seems capable of doing with a gusto that hasn't been seen since the days of the Politburo getting applauded for its latest five year plan. Yes, it is good that Sarkozy honored the US role in both World Wars in this week of Veterans Day/Armistice Day. But that too can be overdone.
On the Bush side, I truly wonder about the sincerity of his feelings toward even this self-professed pro-American French head of state. After all, this is the same Bush who publicly berated a French-speaking American journalist who dared to ask a question in French at a joint Chirac-Bush press conference (but the question was for Chirac...). The same Bush who shared the smirking sneer over the "French looking" John Kerry. The same Bush who thanked France on October 7, 2001 for its solidarity with the US over September 11 and for providing forces in Afghanistan, but then proceeded to ignore the French contribution in his pique over Jacques Chirac's opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
Everyone made nice this week, and so I should be grateful for even superficial signs of French-American rapprochement. But no one can match Thomas Jefferson's sincerity in a toast to Lafayette:
When I was stationed in his country for the purpose of cementing its friendship with ours, and of advancing our mutual interests, this friend of both, was my most powerful auxiliary and advocate. He made our cause his own, as in truth it was that of his native country also. His influence and connections there were great. All doors of all departments were open to him at all times. In truth, I only held the nail, he drove it.
I hope that a bit of the heartfelt bonds forged by our 18th century founders with the United States' first ally will be revived by this visit. But Sarkozy might want to schedule a return visit to Washington sometime after January 20, 2009, and start afresh with a new American president, who will hopefully have more domestic and international standing than the current incumbent.