Today's Date:

Ambassador of France to the United States François Bujon de l'Estang appears on C-SPAN Washington Journal (Broadcast Excerpts)

SUSAN SWAIN: We’ll introduce you to our final guest of the morning. His name is François Bujon de L’Estang. He is France’s Ambassador to the United States. Good morning, Mr. Ambassador.

HIS EXCELLENCY AMBASSADOR FRANCOIS BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

SWAIN: Thanks for being here. Well, I’d like to have you detail France’s involvement in the anti-terror effort? Let’s start on the military side. What are your commitments?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, they are more than commitments. For the moment, there are already people deployed on the ground. We have about 2,000 people taking part in the present campaign: Navy, Air Force, intelligence. We have three ships in the Sea of Oman. We have six planes that are reconnaissance planes, but also refueling planes that are doing daily flights over Afghanistan, this plus the support crews. We have also some intelligence on the ground and we have just committed to deploying some more troops in the region of Mazar-E Sharif, to secure the airport there and the first echelon is presently deploying in Mazar.

SWAIN: Would you explain to our audience how the coordination of these military efforts, when the U.S. is obviously taking the lead role --When your country’s combatants come in. How does it get coordinated?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, from the very first days of the campaign, we’ve had people in Tampa, Florida, a sort of liaison team if you like, under the command of a general, a French general and we have this group of officers taking part in the planning being done at CENTCOM as the military call it, the central command in Tampa, Florida. That’s how we are able to interlock French participation with the American-led campaign.

SWAIN: Let’s move then to the nation building side. What is France’s contribution or intention to contribute overall to the efforts to rebuild Afghanistan?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: We have just had in Washington as you know a rehabilitation conference that was a really success. Yesterday, we had a French team participating there and we are still in the process of making the estimates really on what will it take to rehabilitate Afghanistan. It will be considerable. You realize that this is a country which has just been going through 22 years of a fierce civil war and whose infrastructure is totally demolished.

So we’ll have to do a considerable effort there, which will take really participation from the whole international community, and it has always been our view from day one that the United Nations should take the lead there. This is something that President Chirac discussed with President Bush when he visited him ten days ago in Washington and also with Secretary-General Kofi Annan whom he went to see in New York in the same afternoon.

SWAIN: We welcome your questions and your comments, specifically focusing on French contribution to the anti-terror efforts. The Ambassador will be with us for 45 minutes all told and you can see the phone numbers on the bottom of your television screen. For our radio audience, let me tell you -- if you’re wanting to dial in, Democrats should use the number (202) 737-0001. For Republicans, (202) 737-0002 and Independents should use (202) 628-0205.

Well, I’m sure, Mr. Ambassador, you have seen in the United States the public opinion polls, which are in overwhelming support of the efforts so far. Would you talk about the French public’s reaction to the anti-terror effort?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Yes. The first thing I’d like to say and I’m sure you know that, is that when the attacks of September 11 happened, we witnessed an enormous wave of sympathy and solidarity expressed in France. Really, something I have not seen in years. Many people -- ordinary people-- wrote or telephoned the American embassy. A number of Americans who were traveling in France at the time have really recounted to me the marks of sympathy and solidarity that were lavished on them. I think they really appreciated it, but this is something extraordinarily spontaneous. There was a true -- there is still-- a true, profound emotion and you should see the mail I am getting. I keep getting mail from ordinary citizens in France or from small villages or from mayors of small cities who write to me and say, Mr. Ambassador, you represent us in the United States, please be sure that you tell the Americans we are with them in this horrible situation.

This is something, which, I think, is very, very deep. You remember also that the day after the attacks, we had a little ceremony in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace, the presidential palace in France, which was attended by the American ambassador in Paris, my colleague, Mr. Howard Leach. And this is the first time as they observed three minutes of silence, this is the first time in French history that a foreign national anthem was played in the courtyard of the Elysee and it was the Star Spangled Banner, which I think was, of course, very fitting and a symbol of that solidarity.

President Chirac was also the first foreign head of state to pay a visit to President Bush on September 18th. He assured him of France’s total solidarity and that fits very well the mood of the country.

SWAIN: Is it also seen not just as an effort to support the United States, but a real threat to the citizens of France -- terrorism, that is?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Yes, because I think there is a very strong realization that the attacks on New York and on Washington we’re really more than that. They were attacks on our values. They were attacks on our beliefs, which are shared values and shared beliefs. You also know that in the past, we have suffered in France several waves of terrorist attacks. Some of them fairly severe, in the ‘80s and again in the early ‘90s, so this is unfortunately something the French are somewhat familiar with. We have had to deal with terrorism. We have suffered losses of civilians, of innocent people. We have known very brutal attacks that came in waves really and were a deep shock to France’s public opinion. So bracing ourselves up to fight terrorism is something natural. This time, the United States were attacked, but it was really an attack on all of us.

SWAIN: And in fact, a news report subsequently -- some of the plots that have been uncovered have been against the EU in Strasbourg.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Yes.

SWAIN: And the American Embassy property in Paris, so in your own country’s soil, there have been some campaigns.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Absolutely and you remember that we also suffered a hijacking in 1993, in which, clearly, the team of hijackers wanted to explode an aircraft above Paris or in Paris or against one of its most visible monuments. This was, obviously, something, which was a warning sign. We should have take it as such. So this could happen anytime. We know that very, very well and we have, again, gone back to the precautions we take in similar situations.

SWAIN: Let’s take our first call for you. It is from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

CALLER: Hello, Mr. Ambassador.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: I have a question. You had last week sent three ships to Algiers to help the people with the flooding that they had there. Why can’t you use that as a tool and say to these terrorists, hey, we have used or war equipment in helping to save lives.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, it was a natural thing, of course, to go to the rescue of the Algerians that had been severely flooded and who suffered very, very bad losses of life and of course of property in that flood and using military equipment for that kind of thing is a very natural thing. We will have to use also all kinds of military equipment to mount a rescue operation in Afghanistan and I think this is something entirely different from terrorists.

With the terrorists, there are not many things that you could say -- you should really act, rather than try and discuss with them or reason with them. These are not people you can reason with.

SWAIN: Let me read to you just a quick item from this morning’s Financial Times about your roles in the region. It reports France wanted to show concern for Afghanistan’s humanitarian aid flow, but its attempt to move troops to Mazar-E Sharif airport likely to be a big conduit for aid during the winter has been delayed by diplomatic wrangles with the Uzbekistan government and the Northern Alliance.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG : This is true to a degree and I have seen also that the British who are deploying troops in another area near Bagram are encountering similar difficulties. This is the politicking that for the moment goes on between factions in the Northern Alliance and between the Northern Alliance and some of its neighbors to the north also. But I understand this is being overcome presently and after a few hours, a day about of talks, we have been able to send forth our first echelon of troops. We are to deploy actually about 250 people in Mazar-E Sharif, but they will come, of course, in successive stages. The first echelon of 60 is on its way.

SWAIN: Next call for you is from Falls Church, Virginia.

CALLER: Good morning.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: Mr. Ambassador. How are you?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Very well. Thank you.

CALLER: Good. Sir, I’ve got two questions. One is kind of just for my parochial interest and the other one has sort of more got to do with, in a way, French politics. First question is, you know, Americans tend to forget how, you know, France and Britain are both still big powers, big military powers and you listed earlier the military forces that France had deployed.

CALLER: I know that France has two big carriers, bigger than the British carriers and I was wondering why neither one of those was deployed. The other question I had had more to do with France’s relationship to the European Union. It’s always mystified me how France which is a very proud, nationalistic country, could want to subsume itself in this European Union thing. The EU has done some things in the financial area and some diplomatic and humanitarian type things, but it really has been secondary. The focus has been on those individual states and I’m wondering how France views its relationship as a world power in relationship to the European Union, when it’s clear now that France’s role as a sovereign state mattered more -- and has thus far mattered more than anything that the European Union has done.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Thank you for two very good questions which are also complex questions and which could take us very far, but I’ll try to give you a short response.

The first one is that, yes, indeed, Britain and France are the two major military powers in Europe. You see this with a very simple measure which is for instance, the percentage that you devote to your defense in your GDP. The British, I think, are about at 2.6 percent. We are at 2 percent and we are the only two countries who spend more than 2 percent of GDP in military budgets. So that gives a measure of France’s and Britain’s military effort, which is why, of course, we were the first two countries to offer a military contribution to the Afghan campaign.

We have not two, but one aircraft carrier presently in operation. The war in Afghanistan caught us at a moment where it was in maintenance at Toulon. It will be operational soon and you should see it in the zone soon enough.

Now, the second question is far more complex. It is true that we have devoted about five decades of our history to build a European Union that is more and more all encompassing, but the European Union is not a military power, of course, as such. Individual countries are military powers. We are engaged as you certainly know with our European partners into an effort to build a European defense and that has been developing over the last two years since the French-British declaration at Saint-Malo. We have committed forces to what will be this European defense. But European defense is really something, which has been conceived for the protection of Europe, not for far away expeditions and I think everybody realizes that the idea of building a European defense was not meant to send, for instance, troops to Central Asia. We are talking about projection of forces in far away zones that are still a new chapter and of course, individual countries are better positioned to respond to this kind of threat.

Also, do not forget that the European Union as such will play a very important role in the construction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan and when I mentioned the conference that was held in Washington yesterday, we had a delegation of the European Union there next to individual delegations of nation state. And don’t forget also that the international organization which has played and is playing the leading role in the political solution in Afghanistan and the rehabilitation effort is the United Nations and there again, the Security Council, its five permanent members are very prominent in that collective effort and in the five permanent members, you find France and Britain as individual countries.

SWAIN: On December 12th, our guest will mark his sixth anniversary representing France in the United States.

Next call for him if from Newport Beach, California. You’re on the air.

CALLER: Good morning, Mr. Bujon de L’Estang.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: Thank you for C-SPAN. It’s very excellent. Mr. Bujon de L’Estang, please forgive me to be a little bit blunt, but isn’t France politic towards all this and especially the so-called friendship with the United States, a little bit of hypocrite state? When you consider the politic of Charles de Gaulle and the fact that he actually kicked out the Americans out of France. When you consider that the French have consistently sold airplanes, weaponry to most of the terrorist countries, including anybody from Algeria to Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan actually at one time.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: I’m very sorry, sir. You are making outrageous statements here. I’m sure you realize it.

CALLER: I’m very sorry about my accent, sir. I apologize for that. Isn’t it a little bit disingenuous for France to suddenly come to the help of the United States now when it has consistently somewhat fought against all the position of United States in blocking, for instance, any possible effort -- the Americans to finish the job in Iraq for the past ten years?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, as I said, I think that this was a statement more than a question and I personally find it rather outrageous because saying that we have sold weapons to terrorists; that we have blocked the effort of the international community to resolve the Iraqi issue for instance, have nothing to do with the reality. Everybody knows that France and the United States do have their differences. France has a strong individuality. It has views that sometimes differ from that of the United States or judgments on certain situations that are not the same as that of the United States. This is a normal thing, I think, in international relations and I would say a normal thing in a friendship actually. You’re best friends are not necessarily the ones who always agree with you and who always tell you that you are the brightest, the best and the most intelligent. Your friends are the ones who say sometimes that they disagree with you on this or that and who give you and advise. France and the United States have a very long standing friendship and very long standing bonds of alliance that are indeed very unique. If you judge the French-American relation on the long historical period, you realize immediately that we are one of a kind since France is the only major country with whom the United States has never been at war. Never. And you would find it hard to list many other major countries in that category. Everybody also knows that even if we have our differences and we differ on certain international situations-- and it is true that we differed, for instance, on the way to treat the Iraqi problem over the last few years-- each time the essential is at stake, each time there is a grave and serious danger, which we confront or that confronts us, we find ourselves shoulder to shoulder and we share in the same combat. This happened regularly in the two World Wars. It happened in the war in Korea. It happened in the missile crisis in Cuba in 1962. It happened in the Gulf War. It is happening in the war against terrorism this time. When the chips are down, France and the United States are together and we are a staunch ally.

SWAIN: In the newspapers, we are beginning to read reports of the second phase of the military campaign. What’s after --

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Nobody knows what that means by the way, but it is true that it is an expression that a number of people use. I suppose that deals with things other than Afghanistan. And it is true that the war we are leading is not an Afghan war. It is a war against terrorism and therefore, there is bound to be a number of fronts on which to wage that war.

For the moment, the issue is certainly bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban regime that has supported al Qaeda or rather, I should say, be progressively taken over by al Qaeda. What will come next? We don’t know really what will come next. This is something on which we’ll have to work together and certainly to exchange views between us because there are a number of delicate situations there that they will have to deal with.

But even without phase two, we have other fronts than Afghanistan. The fight against financing of terrorism for instance is one. This is something on which France and the other allies of the United States are working very actively. The fight on the home front I would say, on homeland security, is also another front extremely important and there, I think, police and judicial cooperation are extremely important. This is one field where France, I think, has been able to bring a lot into the common effort, thanks to the effort we have made over the last 15 years to dismantle terrorist networks in our own countries.

So this for the moment occupies us fully and I much prefer to concentrate on these problems that are at hand and that need to be resolved than on the hypothetical fates, too, that nobody exactly knows what it will be.

SWAIN: Next question for you comes from Florence, South Carolina.

CALLER: Good morning.

SWAIN: Good morning.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: A comment and a couple of questions for the ambassador. Thank you for appearing today. I’m joining the growing allegiance of those who depend on C-SPAN. I regard the major networks as simply being platforms to spew out pro-Israeli propaganda. My questions to you, Ambassador, we hear about the al Qaeda problem, the Iraq problem, what about the Israeli problem?

My second question is this. As we -- the United States -- as we lay waste to Afghanistan right now, we talk about rebuilding it, which is good. Are we going to rebuild Palestine and help to undo some of the atrocities done to the Palestinian people? As an American, I have been ashamed of this country for 40 years. I am a veteran, an American veteran, yet I am ashamed of the gutless, corrupt government of the United States for allowing what has been done to the Palestinian people.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, I think this caller quite rightly draws our attention to the situation in the Near East, which is, of course, one of the most tragic continuing situations that we have to deal with. And it is somehow relevant to our problem of today for all kinds of reasons, but what we see is that there is in the Muslim world in general, in the Arab world, a considerable frustration. That has all kinds of reasons, but one of the reasons is certainly the fact that the peace process in the Near East has broken down and that we have witnessed over the last few months a considerable and constant degradation of the situation, which is something that we have certainly to deal with. You could argue that it is not because we would be able to solve the situation there tomorrow, terrorism would instantly stop. Of course it would not. There are many other reasons for it. But if you flip this over, you see also that if you don’t resolve it, you will continue the fuel the frustration and the suffering that there is in this region and probably you will continue feeding terrorism for the future.

So we do consider as a government that it is really urgent and important to bring our best efforts to revive the peace process there and to bring pressure on the two parties to bring them back to the negotiating table. France has declared itself years ago, 15 years ago if I’m not mistaken in favor of a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state that should, of course, have the right to live in secured borders.We have been consistently of this opinion and we have been consistently trying for a peace process that would bring a sustainable solution in the Middle East and that would stop all this suffering and this violence and it is urgent in the present circumstances that we all do our best to bring the parties to the table.

In that respect, we were quite pleased with the speech made by Secretary Powell yesterday, who announced a renewal of the American effort to try and bring a solution in the Middle East. And we are quite ready, as a country but of course as a European Union as well, to team up with America in trying to bring peace and to promote prosperity in that region and when you talk, sir, about rehabilitation -- yes, indeed, if we are successful in bringing about a durable solution in the Middle East, economic aid and economic aid, of course, to the war-torn areas will be a top priority and the European Union will be quite ready to take part in a collective effort there.

SWAIN: Our next caller comes from Columbus, Mississippi. Good morning, caller.

CALLER: Yes, hello.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: good morning.

CALLER: Sir, I’d like to state my appreciation for the ambassador to take the time to interact with the American public. I really do appreciate that.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Thank you.

CALLER: My question is just as an average American, I’m watching with mystification the gradual integration of the European nations into the European Union and I’m just wondering to what extent do the youth of France consider themselves more a citizen of a European Union, rather than just a French nation?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: I think the European effort has been something very long as you realize and it is something that offers hope to the youth, I think, they all realize it. They hear about globalization. They understand that in the world of today, large economic symbols are certainly better equipped to compete and to win on the economic stage and that’s why there has been public support in favor of the European construction throughout the effort. To be sure, there is also some concern and you said you were mystified and I can understand that. A number of French people or any other people in Europe is also mystified at this collective effort of building a union with presently 15 countries, tomorrow, maybe 27, that all of them have 2,000 years of history and frequently, a very proud history. A very strong culture and very strong individualities. It is not easy, but we want to build on these differences, rather than to do out with them.

We will never produce a sort of European man that would be standardized and that would live without paying due attention to his roots, his culture or his language. I think on the very strong cultural personalities of these different countries, we will build a union that will be, in fact, a collective effort, but that will also preserve the individualities of everybody. It is not easy, of course. It is an every day effort and this is one reason that it is going slowly you could judge. But if you look at it in retrospect, I think in the last four or five decades, we have achieved a great deal and the fact that we have established a sort of state of perpetual peace in Western Europe, that it is today unthinkable that any Western European country would ever be at war again with anyone of his neighbors is something which is extraordinary in itself.

And we have therefore to continue this effort and to build a European Union that will be very strong and as united as possible, but also which will respect the individualities of its major partners.

SWAIN: Our next question for the ambassador comes from Macomb, Mississippi.

CALLER: Good morning, Mr. Ambassador.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: I want to thank you so much for the level-headedness that you have and for all the things that France has given to the world. I love France. I love the French language. I love French food. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anything about France that I don’t like and I just want to thank you.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, thank you very much. That’s a wonderful statement to hear in this bright and sunny morning.

SWAIN: Marion, Pennsylvania, you’re next. Good morning.

CALLER: Yes, good morning, Ambassador.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: My father was at D-Day and he’s very proud of it. And I’d like to applaud France for standing by America in these times of stress tragedy and France has always been our ally and something we would expect and indeed, very important. Earlier you said that this is an attack on our values and beliefs. What about the religious freedom in France?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Religious freedom is one of the essential religions and we have now in France a diversity of religions that we were not used to by the way. France was a predominately Catholic country with a strong Protestant minority and a strong Jewish minority as well. The second Jewish minority in the Western world after the United States. And we have always lived in excellent intelligence and religious freedom has been one of the guaranteed constitutional freedoms in France of course. We have now Islam developing. It came mostly with immigration through an immigration which started mostly in the ‘50s, immigration mostly from northern African countries, but also from sub-Saharan Africa and Islam has grown to represent today, the second religion in France, close to five million people in a country of 62 million. So great religious diversity and great religious freedom.

I think the fear is that you seem to have been expressing are probably related to a law that was voted in parliament recently about sects-- or cults if you like to call them that-- because we have had several incidences in the past few years which involved cults that broke the law in various ways and draw a lot of public attention and public emotion .And French parliament has recently voted a law that certainly does not infringe in any way on the freedom of religion, but that wants to give government a few weapons to fight against some cults that have really broken the law in very distinct and specified cases. That has provoked, I know, some emotion in the United States, which I think, is unwarranted because this is not something, which will forbid any kind of church or any kind of religion, but something that will allow the judicial system to fight against cults that break the law and do not live within the legal framework.

SWAIN: Brevard, North Carolina, you’re next.

CALLER: Good morning, Mr. Ambassador.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Good morning.

CALLER: Why are you just now sending troops to Afghanistan to fight the war against terrorism? And why so few? And what else France doing to fight terrorism?

SWAIN: And how old are you, caller?

CALLER: I’m ten years old.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Ten years old. Okay. Why so few? Nobody is sending big troops there, you know. It is very, very difficult in a difficult country like Afghanistan to send foreign troops in very large numbers. The United States are also sending some ground troops in limited number and this is the best way, I think, we can operate in Afghanistan to try and locate the terrorists and arrest them. You need not large amount of troops, but specified commandos; very well trained, very well equipped to do a very specific task, so that’s why we are dealing with small numbers here.

And as for the second part of your question, we are doing a number of other things to fight terrorism. As I said earlier, we have teamed up with the United States and many other countries to try and stop the financing of terrorist networks through an active cooperation and we are also helping the United States and other allies in the judicial and police inquiry on the terrorists and trying to dismantle the terrorist networks that we have in our own countries because, you know, the problem with terrorism is that its doesn’t come from outside only. We also have terrorists living in our own societies and that we have to spot, fight, identify and bring to justice. So we are, of course, working together with the police and the judicial system in the United States to help in that respect.

SWAIN: I was just going to ask you, if you were as interested in world events at the age of ten as our --

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: You’ll end up as a diplomat.

SWAIN: Next call for you is from New York City, sorry, yes, New York City. Go ahead.

CALLER: In the past, France has expressed a degree of empathy towards the indigenous people in the North American continent. My question is, firstly, what is France’s position currently on U.S. policies towards indigenous people in the North American continent, particularly on the issue of sovereignty and self-determination? And secondly, my question is, how France perceives the U.S. and Israeli withdrawal from the United Nations racism summit

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Well, on the first question, it is true that there has been consistently I think a great interest, mostly cultural interest for the contributions to our civilization of the indigenous people of the United States. But I don’t know that we have a position on what the U.S. Government is doing on this aspect and this is certainly an internal affairs of the United States that we don’t want to pass judgment on.

As far as the issue of the Conference on Racism in Durban is concerned, we were very preoccupied with the way this conference unfolded and, in fact, very disappointed. It is quite understandable that some excesses of language pertaining to the situation in the Near East have prevented some countries from assisting. The United States refused to go to Durban for that specific reason and the European Union who attended Durban had itself to fight in order to eliminate all the excessive language on Israel that had been proposed at Durban. So this -- we could understand this concern. It is a pity though that we were not able to produce better results at this conference, which really demonstrated that there is a huge gap between north and south, between rich nations and less favorite nations, or impoverished countries and this is something on which we have really to team up and work on in the decades ahead because if we talk about fighting terrorism, if we talk about the many frustrations that may have brought forth terrorist actions, we have also to concentrate on the inequalities between north and south, between rich and poor nations and this is an area on which we should really team up and work in the decades ahead.

SWAIN: Just a few more minutes and a spate of New York calls. Another one on the air, go ahead.

CALLER: Hello. There’s been come complaints about religious intolerance and discrimination in France and here in the United States having seen what some of the Muslim extremists have been involved in there is more emphasis on religious tolerance and dialog and understanding. That is here in the United States. I wonder if you see there might be such a movement in France?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: But again, sir, there is no religious intolerance in France. I referred earlier to what has been going on in some incidence with some very minority cults, but there is no religious intolerance whatsoever in France. There is great tolerance actually and the fact that a religion like Islam, for instance, has been able to develop in France is living proof and testimony to that. So I think religious tolerance is really part of a democracy and there can be no modern democracy without a considerable degree of religious freedom and religious tolerance and we must be very careful in the present situation after the terrorist attacks, not to identify terrorism with any kind of religion.

I think President Bush has been very much to the point when he said that terrorists, indeed, have hijacked Islam to pursue their own agenda of hatred, but identifying terrorism with Islam for instance, would be a sort of diabolical trap. This is precisely the kind of trap that the terrorists have led for us to fall into and it is the responsibility of the major democracies to realize that terrorism is in itself, a scourge which certainly must not be identified with any religion.

Don’t forget also that terrorism has produced probably to this day more victims in the Arab and Muslim world than it has in the Western democracies in spite of the recent horrendous attacks.

SWAIN: Another call from New York.

CALLER: Hi. With all due respect, I really must disagree with what the ambassador is saying about there being no religious intolerance in France. I was raised a Mormon and there has been discrimination in France towards the Mormons. As I’m sure you know, the U.S. State Department has complained about this.

Now, what I’m curious about is whether or not with France’s attention on really dangerous terrorist groups, we can expect more tolerance of religious minorities?

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: I am surprised at what you’re saying because I have Mormon friends. I have excellent relations with the Mormon Church and I have never, never heard complaints from Mormons about religious intolerance in France. I think we have had Mormons and Mormon missionaries in France for decades and decades and I am not aware of any manifestation of intolerance vis a vis the Mormons and I am not aware either of any complaints from Mormons about this except you this morning.

SWAIN: Our last question for you comes from Inumquall, Washington.

CALLER: Bonjour, Monsieur Ambassadeur.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG : Bon jour, Madame.

CALLER: I have been visiting France since 1986. And the people on the street spoke like the gentleman who called earlier with the French accent. They were all very disappointed in the way that France’s government has treated the American government because the people in the street really preferred the way the Americans were doing things --

SWAIN: Doing things in what area?

CALLER: In what area? In selling munitions to countries that were not friendly to either Europe or the United States. I arrived in France the first time, two days after President Reagan had trouble getting fly-overs to go to Algeria.

SWAIN: Okay, I actually have to stop you. I think we understand the general tone, but we’re running out of time, so you’ll find a word on cooperation --

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: No, I think I have responded to that kind of comments. There have been in the past and there will be in the future, situations in which our attitude will not be the same than that of the United States. That has happened in the past. It will happen again in the future. We have our own views. We see things sometimes very differently because we also have a very different geographical position on the map than that of the United States.

We sometimes have also a greater knowledge of some neighboring countries than the United States does and that explains why we may have different judgments on such situations, but again, let me reemphasize what I’ve said earlier. Whatever the differences which are normal in an alliance and in a friendship, when the chips are down, when the essential is at stake, there is no question that France and the United States are together, are fighting the same enemies, are sharing the same values and lean and count on each other in difficult situations. This is the case today. It will be the case in the future, whenever we face difficult situations.

SWAIN: François Bujon de L’Estang is France’s Ambassador to the United States, here to talk to us today about France’s contribution to the military and the nation building efforts in Afghanistan. Thank you, sir for being here.

BUJON DE L’ESTANG: Thank you very much.

[END OF INTERVIEW.]