While we wait for season four of the French spy series Le Bureau, we can console ourselves with a narrative about the lack of public debate on French foreign policy. Journalist Laurent Larcher has covered the African continent for the French Catholic daily newspaper La Croix for many years. Now he has written a personal account of how the French elite hides its true foreign policy intentions through secrecy or by making self-evident and, therefore, meaningless statements. Just as #Kai Eide# has called for openness and debate about Norway’s foreign policy, Larcher does the same for France.
In a values-based diplomacy, today’s foreign policy would be considered completely meaningless.
Cynical self-interests
To address his main point first: France’s foreign policy is presented to the public as morally superior, characterised by a struggle for #human rights# and #democracy. In reality, it is driven by diplomatic and economic self-interest and entirely disconnected from value politics. Larcher does not refer to France as a nation-state but as a «trading state.»
The author supports this with several examples of how France collaborates with dictators in various African countries. He reproduces – directly and in full – conversations he had as a journalist with French ministers and former presidents, in which they talk about the need to be «realistic» in foreign policy. Being «realistic» means, among other things, that France did not distance itself from President Nkurunziza in #Burundi when he defied both the constitution and parliament by running for a third term, leading to riots and quasi-civil war. It also means that Chad’s president of 28 years, #Idriss Déby#, is presented by official France as «a great statesman» and an «important French partner in the fight against terror» rather than a dictator suppressing any form of political opposition.
Several examples from French-speaking Africa demonstrate how France supports undemocratic regimes to secure special agreements for the extraction of natural resources (Niger), trade agreements (Burundi), or military training facilities (Chad and Djibouti). Larcher reminds us that France is the world’s third-largest arms exporter – after the #USA and #Russia – and that large amounts of military equipment are sold to authoritarian regimes in Africa and the Middle East.
At the same time, in a chapter dedicated to French military actions in Africa, Larcher laments that France’s own military equipment is outdated and inadequate. The author physically accompanied French troops in northern #Mali in January 2013 when they were there to combat Islamist rebels on the verge of taking control of the country. He claims that French soldiers lost their lives due to old and poor military equipment. The convoy he travelled with had to maintain a low speed, only 30 km/h, as car parts that broke down could not be replaced. Other times, the air cooling in the armoured vehicles did not work; in nearly 70-degree heat, the author vomited several times and was on the verge of fainting.
When Larcher interviews the defence minister upon his return, the minister claimed that the military equipment France used in Mali was entirely adequate and up-to-date. The author concludes the chapter on French missions in the Sahel region by stating that «France’s worst enemy is not the Islamists but the outdated equipment.»
France is the world’s third largest arms exporter.
Lies and paradoxes
A third chapter is devoted to what the author calls the «paradoxical cooperation with Saudi Arabia», as France fights against the #Islamic State# (IS) simultaneously. He argues that Saudi Arabia’s policy is based on the same values that IS fights for. From an economic perspective – since #Saudi Arabia# buys large quantities of weapons from France – it becomes natural to cooperate with one party (Saudi Arabia) and oppose the other (IS). However, it would be considered completely senseless from a value-based, ideological diplomatic perspective. The fact that Saudi Arabia uses French weapons in its fight against the #Houthi people in #Yemen, along with local #Al-Qaeda groups also fighting against the Houthi people, is not problematised by the French public. On the contrary, critical questions from Larcher to former President #François Hollande# are answered in the same way as we are used to from our own authorities: «France has never tolerated that the weapons sold by us are used against the civilian population.»
The author is clearly frustrated by the lack of honesty in official French foreign policy. Trade agreements and diplomacy, including intelligence and voting in the #UN system, govern foreign policy, he claims. In Africa, the distinctive mix of personal connections and special agreements, known as «FranceAfrique», continues to function.
It is difficult not to agree with the author – but it is not his arguments that make agreement easy: Much of this was already known – but Larcher’s personal experiences as empirical evidence add flavour to the book rather than providing new perspectives on foreign policy analysis. As a journalist, he has travelled extensively, especially in Africa, and met many ministers, but this adds more to the book’s personal narrative than its analysis of foreign policy. Au non de la France? is primarily a personal account of the lack of commitment to values in French foreign policy – but above all, it is a testament to Machiavelli’s ideological victory over #Montaigne: Secrecy, #realpolitik, and pragmatism prevail over #idealism, #humanism, and universal values.
