France leads ... sort of

[Stephanie]

OUCH

The Sunday Times
In a world of uncertainty, it is comforting to have something on which one can rely. So don’t sneer, don’t carp and don’t laugh; instead raise a glass to toast . . . the French.
When Israel launched its attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, President Chirac was among the first leaders to call for a ceasefire, cocking a snook at the Anglo-Saxon pair, President Bush and Tony Blair, the prime minister. M Chirac went on to be instrumental in the passing of the United Nations resolution which demanded just that, and which promised to send in UN troops to ensure that southern Lebanon was free from Hezbollah.



There is, of course, no such thing as “UN troops”. There are, rather, national troops loaned to the UN when it assembles a mission. Now that there is indeed a ceasefire of sorts and the UN is required to assemble troops, one might have assumed that it would have a substantial number from the nation that had been most vocal calling for such a UN force: France.

As if! When France started, as the saying has it, to “talk the talk”, M Chirac suggested that some 5,000 troops were needed, a Middle East expedition to rival Napoleon’s adventure in Egypt. The French, however, appear to be reluctant to “walk the walk”, offering the grand total of 200 soldiers. The Italians have come forward with 3,000.

Not that one should be surprised. There are few more regular — or entertaining — sights than French statesmen indulging in grandiose statements of political and philosophical intent, and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing. Whether it is French domestic reform, the future of the European Union, Nato or foreign policy, the French are past masters at saying one thing and doing quite another. And they are all the more reliable for that.

Diplomacy relies on the ability to predict the behaviour of another nation. So the predictable unpredictability of the French is a godsend. Heaven help us if the French were to be consistent with their words: nobody would have a clue what was happening.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2320575,00.html

 

[Annie]

I have to agree, the French are not going to come out of this one uncriticized:

http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=153613

With doublespeaking France, honor gets lost in translation
By Jules Crittenden
Boston Herald City Editor
Sunday, August 20, 2006

French is the traditional language of diplomacy. Diplomacy is the art of saying one thing while doing another.

In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”

To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there.

I don’t speak French, so I have no idea what the actual French words are for those concepts or what possible nuances there may be. I’ve been relying on news reports in English, which now inform me that the French do not intend to send any significant number of troops to what is supposed to be a force of 15,000 in Lebanon, like everyone thought they said they would.

The heady moment of peace brokering having passed, uponsober reflection, the French now say they already have a general and some staff in south Lebanon ordering about UNIFIL, the U.N. monitoring entity there. That’s plenty of leadership, the French suggested: All France needs to contribute now is another 200 combat engineers.

In tactical terms, when it comes to securing a Middle East conflict zone, that can be referred to as “squat.”

The United Nations, which is trying to salvage what is left of its own self-respect after the utter failure of UNIFIL in Lebanon, is now publicly begging European nations to contribute troops.

To find the last plain-speaking French leader, it is necessary to go back to Napoleon Bonaparte. He said he was going to take over Europe, and proceeded to do so. No, scratch that. He said he was going to bring French liberty and equality to Europe, then crowned himself emperor. Subsequent French history offers us a sordid string of third world colonizations followed by bloody wars to hang on long after the time to relinquish colonies had passed, setting the stage for corrupt government and prolonged conflict in places like Vietnam. I can understand why Francophiles might find this harsh. I'm certain it lacks the nuance of French.

More recently, we’ve seen the naked hypocrisy of Dominic de Villepin in the United Nations, braying about his humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people, while trying to ensure mass murderer Saddam Hussein remained in power to honor his French contracts.

The shamelessness of France knows no bounds. They have a domestic Arabic population and business interests in the Mideast to satisfy. They desperately want to be taken seriously as a major power. So they sat down with the United States and hammered out a peace plan. Then, before the ink was dry, they shrugged a Gallic shrug.

I wish I could be charitable here and find some good excuses for the French. Ernest Hemingway, who had a soft spot for them, used to like to say, “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.” But Hemingway, unlike the French, had a sense of honor.

French was once the lingua franca, back when men wore powdered wigs and France was a power to be reckoned with. None of those things are true now. French has been replaced by English as the language of foreign policy, business, tourism, the Internet and just about everything else.

If we, those of us who enjoy conducting business in English rather than say, Chinese or Arabic, want it to stay that way, I’d suggest step one is that we should continue to state clearly our intentions and do what we say we aregoing to do. Even when the world doesn’t necessarily like what we are saying.

That is our French lesson for the day.

 

[Gunny]

We should have let Germany keep France.

 

[red states rule]

I heard on the news there were 100,000 Frenchmen up in arms.

I thought they were talking about the French army

 

[Gunny]

I heard on the news there were 100,000 Frenchmen up in arms.

I thought they were talking about the French army

No, if that were the case it would be "with their arms up."

 

[red states rule]

I stand corrected.


During the Cola Wars, Paris was occupied by Pepsi for three wars

 

[Said1]

 

[Gunny]

"See What Guns Survived Our Grueling Drop Test Gauntlet."

 

[padisha emperor]

France decides tonight to send 2000 men in Lebanon, and will see, if the situation will stay unsafe, to send more troops.
GW Bush salute the declaration of Jacques Chirac.

French army is strong of 350,000 men, with 250,000 men in the army, navy and air force (and 100,000 in the "gendarmerie nationale", a coprs in France, a little like the police).
35,000 of these men are all over the world, 11,000 in Africa

 

[Gunny]

France decides tonight to send 2000 men in Lebanon, and will see, if the situation will stay unsafe, to send more troops.
GW Bush salute the declaration of Jacques Chirac.

It's called "politics." Bush probably has a picture of Chirac superimposed over his dartboard.

French army is strong of 350,000 men, with 250,000 men in the army, navy and air force (and 100,000 in the "gendarmerie nationale", a coprs in France, a little like the police).
35,000 of these men are all over the world, 11,000 in Africa

France has a Navy? For WHAT exactly?

 

[Avatar4321]

Let me know when they Surrender Paris.

 

[padisha emperor]

France has a Navy? For WHAT exactly?

well, we'll be serious two minutes

France has a Navy. France had always a quite good navy, in the 3 best navies of the world during a long time. Not so good as the british one, of course, it was not a life question for France.

France has the biggest shores of Europe : more than 3800 kilometers (2375 milles).
And France has the second biggest naval domain of the world (with all the island and over-seas territories).

So, a navy is necessary and logical.

And maybe you don't know that, but the French navy is bigger than the britsh navy, since the reforms in the Royal Navy (a few years ago).


(for USA, of course, the french fleet, or the british fleet, seems to be small in comparaison with the US Navy)

 

[Gunny]

well, we'll be serious two minutes

France has a Navy. France had always a quite good navy, in the 3 best navies of the world during a long time. Not so good as the british one, of course, it was not a life question for France.

France has the biggest shores of Europe : more than 3800 kilometers (2375 milles).
And France has the second biggest naval domain of the world (with all the island and over-seas territories).

So, a navy is necessary and logical.

And maybe you don't know that, but the French navy is bigger than the britsh navy, since the reforms in the Royal Navy (a few years ago).


(for USA, of course, the french fleet, or the british fleet, seems to be small in comparaison with the US Navy)

Nice to see the confession to French neocolonialism by a FRENCHMAN.

France's NAvy has been instrumental is defending the coast of France exactly WHEN?

Size doesn't matter. The US Marine Corps is smaller than your combined armed services and we could whoop y'all's asses without the aid of our sister services.

 

[red states rule]

Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?

A: Nobody knows, it's never been tried.



Q. Why don't they have fireworks at Euro Disney?

A. Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender.

 

[padisha emperor]

Nice to see the confession to French neocolonialism by a FRENCHMAN.

France's NAvy has been instrumental is defending the coast of France exactly WHEN?

Size doesn't matter. The US Marine Corps is smaller than your combined armed services and we could whoop y'all's asses without the aid of our sister services.

Neocolonialism ? USa have more men over the world than France...The 35,000 men over seas are in FRENCH territories or in old colonies, where France keep good relationships

About the french army quality : be sure that your Marines would be kicked by the french marines, the "Troupes de Marine". I don't say that because i'm french, but really, these guys are excellent soldiers.

US Army, UK's Army and French Army are considered to be the best 3 armies of the wolrd (quality).

 

[red states rule]

Neocolonialism ? USa have more men over the world than France...The 35,000 men over seas are in FRENCH territories or in old colonies, where France keep good relationships

About the french army quality : be sure that your Marines would be kicked by the french marines, the "Troupes de Marine". I don't say that because i'm french, but really, these guys are excellent soldiers.

US Army, UK's Army and French Army are considered to be the best 3 armies of the wolrd (quality).

“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.”
General George S. Patton.


Q. What did the mayor of Paris say to the German Army as they entered the city in WWII?
A. Table for 100,000 m’sieur?

 

[Annie]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2330259,00.html

France about-turns into a bigger military mess
Michael Portillo

‘Il faut aller à Gorazde.” (“We must push through to Gorazde.”) The French defence minister would repeat it like a chant. It was 1995. In Srebrenica, a United Nations so-called safe haven in Bosnia, 8,000 men had been slaughtered by Bosnian Serbs.

Gorazde was another enclave that the UN had promised to defend. But the French and British forces in the region were many miles away. As participants in a UN humanitarian mission they were lightly armed. They had lorries, not tanks, and no aircraft. So the idea of pushing through to Gorazde was fanciful.

It had been a French general, Philippe Morillon, who as head of the UN forces in the former Yugoslavia had first pledged to protect Srebrenica. He did not have the resources to keep that promise and Dutch UN forces in the city did nothing to prevent the massacre. We (the other Nato defence ministers) found a word to describe the French habit of making impressive statements with no means to put them into effect. We called it “grandstanding”.

That gallic custom has been on display again over Lebanon. After the French had taken a vociferous lead in drafting the UN security council resolution that brought about the ceasefire, it was shocking to discover that France was offering just 200 soldiers towards a UN force of 15,000. Late last week, after wasting valuable time since hostilities ended nearly two weeks ago, President Chirac gave way. Having attracted the world’s scorn he raised his country’s offer to 2,000.

There is a cultural difference between the French and the British obvious in their diplomatic styles. The French believe that what they say is at least as important as what they do. They spin grandiloquent phrases and strike postures. Rhetoric is away of life and if you point out it is divorced from all strategic reality that is thought to be nitpicking.

The British, on the other hand, get engrossed in tedious detail like: “Is this practical? Who is going to supply the troops? What will be their rules of engagement?” With Lebanon the French have discovered phrase-making is not enough. In recent days they have become very practical, bleating that there are no established rules of engagement (governing what the soldiers can do and when they can fire) almost as though they were British.

If any country could have settled such important details in advance it is France. It took the kudos for working up the UN resolution. It acted as spokesman for the Arab world within the permanent five members of the council. It insisted that the resolution should not be made under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which would have given the troops the right to impose their will by force.

The unclear rules of engagement derive directly from the ambiguity of the French-inspired resolution. But France has nonetheless used the uncertainty as an excuse for delay. At any time France could have eased the problem by offering to lead the UN forces and proposing rules for all participants. Then every nation would insist on its own variations. They always do. French forces are now arriving in Lebanon with the mission and the rules still unspecified. Chirac claimed he had received assurances from the UN that enabled him to increase French numbers.

In reality he buckled because the Italians had offered to lead the deployment and the Americans had mischievously welcomed that bizarre idea. France could not bear the mortification of operating under the command of its southern neighbour — least of all in Lebanon, a country so strongly tied to the French by history and culture. Chirac’s sheer ineptness has brought him avoidable humiliation. Already held in contempt by America and disdained by the British, he has now advertised his unreliability to a wider global audience.

At the heart of this mess is France’s reluctance to tackle Hezbollah. Back in 2004 the security council adopted resolution 1559 demanding that the terrorist organisation be disarmed. Like many resolutions it is a declaration without serious intent. In the two years since it was adopted nothing has been done, at least not until the recent Israeli military campaign, and that was denounced by most countries, including France. During recent days, as France has procrastinated, arms have been pouring in from Syria and Iran to re-equip the terror group. France’s failures of both diplomacy and nerve have made it less likely that the ceasefire will hold, and made the UN mission more dangerous.

There is now no suggestion that UN troops will attempt to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with UN policy. The question must be rather, to what extent will the French-led mission turn a blind eye to the group’s re-armament? If Hezbollah moves its Katyusha rockets back to the Israeli border, will the blue-helmeted Frenchmen stand in their way? It is extraordinary how little France has gained after 46 years of doggedly pitting itself against the United States. Perhaps President Charles de Gaulle was still reeling from the shame of the second world war (when France had had to be rescued from Nazism by America and Britain) when he expelled the American-dominated Nato from Paris in 1960. The North Atlantic alliance hurriedly relocated itself in a hospital building in Brussels that had just been finished but not yet occupied by the Belgian health service. It is housed there still, and visitors often remark on the wide corridors, not realising they were designed for trolleys.

Since 1960 successive presidents have chafed against American influence in Europe and the world. They begrudged Europe’s reliance on US forces stationed in Germany to defend us from the Soviet threat. But France (in common with other European countries) was unwilling to transfer money from social to military spending to reduce that dependency. The sense of being in America’s debt has powerfully increased French resentment of Washington.

France’s performance in Bosnia actually did something to restore its prestige. Despite the rhetorical hyperbole, once Nato had taken over from the UN, French troops performed effectively. For a short while US impatience with Europe (over its inability to handle crises on its own territory) was reduced.

But that relative success seemed only to encourage France to move apart from America. In the years after the Gulf war of 1991 it gradually peeled away from the alliance that enforced the no-fly zones protecting Iraqi Kurds from air attack. Chirac had enjoyed a special relationship with Saddam and with the Arab world in general. He sought to establish a European foreign policy that was unAmerican and more pro-Arab. The French also worked to make the EU into a military alliance that could be used for peacekeeping without American support. As usual, the purple prose ran far ahead of what European forces could actually do unassisted.

Now that British and American forces are bogged down in Iraq, this should be the moment for the French cock to crow. But what exactly has the distinctive French alternative produced for the world or France? The softer European approach to Iran over its nuclear programme was decisively rebuffed, and Europe has had to join America in calling for sanctions. When France was invited to provide leadership over Lebanon, it vacillated. Its offer of 2,000 soldiers remains underwhelming. Chirac’s pro-Arab policies have not even bought off Muslim discontent at home, as the urban riots showed.

Last week a former junior member of the Bush administration, Jeff Babbin, likened undertaking a military operation without the French to going on a deer shoot without an accordion — you just leave behind the noisy useless baggage. For France to have split so decisively with the globe’s most powerful nation without having established a successful alternative approach to the resolution of crises is a major policy failure for Chirac. Whatever criticisms he may have of George W Bush, the American does not fail to put his troops where his mouth is.

That is where Chirac has been caught out. In the case of Lebanon, grandstanding was not enough. He has now stepped forward to do his duty with all the relish of a man slipping into a quicksand. French forces may be ineffective, or suffer casualties, or both. Washington cannot wait to see what happens next.

I would not say our relations have improved much.

 

[Gunny]

Neocolonialism ? USa have more men over the world than France...The 35,000 men over seas are in FRENCH territories or in old colonies, where France keep good relationships

About the french army quality : be sure that your Marines would be kicked by the french marines, the "Troupes de Marine". I don't say that because i'm french, but really, these guys are excellent soldiers.

US Army, UK's Army and French Army are considered to be the best 3 armies of the wolrd (quality).

Yeah, neocolonialism. Like Djbouti, Eritrea, Iraq, Syria, the Sudan .... need I go on? In each case France has more than good relations going ..... more like economic coersion.

Never heard of the "Troupes de Marine" before. Is that a Vaudeville act?

 

[Zieveraar]

France decided not to jump in without any guarantees and a decent mandate. Perhaps this can prevent previous failures by the UN such as Rwanda, when they let 10 of their own die so everyone runs away and let hundred of thousands die.

As for the Patton quote about the French army, never been proven. There is proof however of Patton cabling General Koenig (French commander of the FFI) that he would never have gotten as fast that far in France without their aid.

 

[red states rule]

France decided not to jump in without any guarantees and a decent mandate. Perhaps this can prevent previous failures by the UN such as Rwanda, when they let 10 of their own die so everyone runs away and let hundred of thousands die.

As for the Patton quote about the French army, never been proven. There is proof however of Patton cabling General Koenig (French commander of the FFI) that he would never have gotten as fast that far in France without their aid.

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."
--Norman Schwartzkopf

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the
1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it."
---John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona