France’s Mideast talks plan masks fears of becoming marginalized

Alain Juppe

Michael Cosgrove - French Foreign minister Alain Juppé is now winging his way back to France after his visit to Tel Aviv and Ramallah to try and persuade Israel and the Palestinians to meet in Paris for talks aimed at getting the stalled Mideast peace talks back on track. He failed to sell his idea of course, but at least France’s name was mentioned - albeit little - in the Mideast for once. It can't be said he didn't try.

Juppe's visit didn't attract any hostile opposition but then again it wasn't given much prominence in Mideast press and diplomatic circles either. The French offer to host Mideast negotiations in Paris by early July at the latest was broadly based on the same kind of ideas that Obama unsuccessfully put to Netanyahou recently. Those ideas included a return to pre-1967 borders, and a promise of no unilateral action to be taken by either side in the future.

Crucially however, France's approach differed from that of the United States in one insurmountable way. France supports the rapprochement between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority and Hamas whereas the Americans and Israelis reject it. That alone was enough to ensure the failure of Juppe's mission, assuming that it had any chance of succeeding in the first place, which is extremely doubtful. Abbas predictably gave the plan a guarded welcome whilst, equally predictably, the Israelis made it perfectly clear that they had rejected it, although they did use restrained and polite language to express their disapproval.

There was no way that France was going to succeed in restarting negotiations on a basis which was even more unpalatable to the Israelis than that which they rejected in no uncertain terms in Washington.  So why did the French come up with this package in the first place, given that they must have known that it had 'Failure' written all over it like white on rice from the moment it was conceived? The answer can be summed up in one word - influence.

Although France is the most vociferous advocate of attempts to oust Muammar Gaddafi from Libya it has generally regarded many of the various revolts and revolutions which are shaking the Mideast and Northern Africa with a mix of outward support and inner anguish. Indeed, former Foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie outraged public opinion during the Tunisian revolution when she suggested that France should help the Tunisian authorities to suppress it by supplying riot troops and equipment. She was finally forced to resign in February after it was leaked that she had used a Tunisian businessman's private plane during the uprising. Alain Juppé is her successor.

France used to be - and would still like to regard itself as being - a big player in the Mideast and Africa due to its former colonial role in those regions, but French influence there is on the wane because former friends and allies which helped France do business with many of the countries involved in today's events have either been weakened or have already gone. Ben Ali is in exile (and France has never condemned his order to police to open fire on protesters) and the French still consider that Obama betrayed Egypt's Mubarak.

Why is Libya different? The only reason that France is in such a hurry to get rid of Gaddafi is that Paris did not approve of his decision to improve relations with Britain and the United States at France's expense. To top it all off, America and China have been making commercial inroads into markets which had always been controlled by France before, and both Chinese and American diplomatic activity has been increasing over the last 10 years or more. It's much the same thing in the Mideast, where French influence has been declining for many years whilst that of America is increasing. An example of the competition that France now faces can be seen in the fact that whereas France only - and begrudgingly - gave Tunisia about 12 million dollars in urgent aid after the revolution there, America wiped out 1 billion dollars of Egyptian debt.

France's options are extremely limited compared to those of America's massive foundations, cultural and educational exchanges and financial clout, and it's not as if the French can count on European support for action in Africa and the Mideast given that European governments are chronically incapable of reaching a consensus on so many issues. Finally, Nicolas Sarkozy's ambitious plans to form a trade and diplomatic Union of countries around the Mediterranean, which includes France of course, are now all but brain dead thanks partially to a mix of British and American diplomatic pressure to counter it because it was obviously conceived to be a means of reducing Anglo-Saxon influence in the region. The French would understandably like to regain what used to be their enormous influence over Northern Africa and the Mideast, and France's failed Mideast talks initiative is a result of that policy, but it would take an astronomical leap of faith to believe that they have any realistic chance of doing so.

The pendulum of fate which inexorably regulates the rise and fall of empires is now falling for France but it is still, just, rising for America, although that country too shall reach its zenith one day before beginning, in its turn, to fall under the weight of the gravity of change.