Today's Date:

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I don’t think you can frame it that way. I believe that today—we were talking about globalization—any crisis situation, regardless of its nature and where it might occur, concerns the entire international community. And consequently, there has to be a rule, a morality, an ethic, which can only be that of the UN—that is, an organization of the international community—even if it means making changes to the UN if that’s what’s wanted, and I’m not against it. But there has to be a rule. Unilateralism, i.e., the ability of one country to make decisions alone, at its convenience, is no longer possible in today’s world, or at any rate the way I see it and the way I think it should be. We need a rule of law that fosters peace above all else. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—we wanted to disarm Iraq and we were right to do so. I don’t know where the weapons of mass destruction are, but in any case, they could have existed.

I have no idea. France had nothing to do with it, I can tell you that right away. It’s very easy to say things after the event.

It’s very easy to say things after the event. I personally said one thing. There are or there aren’t weapons of mass destruction…

There is a process to find out, and that is the process of the UN inspectors. They began their work, to public acclaim, in an extremely positive and capable way. They needed time to finish and they weren’t allowed that time. That’s why I am staying out of this business, in the name of principles and laws, not out of like or dislike for this person or that.

It’s not up to me to pass judgment. I said I didn’t know if there were weapons of mass destruction or not, that I had no evidence. That’s what I reiterated at the time, and that’s why the UN inspectors should have been given the opportunity to answer the question, which they alone were capable of doing.

There’s been a lot of talk about that. I can tell you that difficulties between France and the United States were essentially superficial and magnified by certain media organizations.

There are always politicians who are a little excessive in their remarks. But that isn’t what alters the true nature of a relationship. My relationship with the president of the United States has always been what it should be, that is to say, a relationship of cooperation, and certainly not one of subordination.

I am very pleased, in fact, but I’m not very optimistic. But the Mideast situation is indeed intolerable, and I recognize that the United States has a special vocation, given its relationship with Israel and its means, to make a decisive contribution to the evolution of this conflict. It cannot work alone, however, and I continue to believe that Europe still has a lot to do.

The very notion of “policemen of the world” is one that belongs to the past. We too, at one time, were accused of being the policemen of the world, or at least of part of the world. That’s over. I told you before: In today’s world, if you want to respect others, if you want to resolve fundamental problems—poverty, development, the environment—well then, you need a world authority. I mention these but the whole world has problems, alas—poverty, hunger, AIDS—and we’re trying to get things moving.

Notably in Paris. I will soon be receiving Mr. Mandela, who made a superb contribution to rallying the necessary means to defeat AIDS. But there’s another problem in the world we aren’t hearing enough about, and that’s the environment. Since the industrial revolution—and not just in France but throughout the world—we have taken a path that hasn’t been sufficiently responsible and which is leading to the eventual destruction of our planet. I won’t go into detail, but it’s extraordinarily dangerous and totally irresponsible, and it is high time to make the necessary effort to chance our model of development, which can no longer be the same as during the industrial revolution. We must change it to integrate environmental elements. In this spirit, France is striving to set an example. I am pleased to say we were just warmly congratulated by the UN director-general of the program for the environment for presenting the Charter on the Environment adopted by the Council of Ministers, which will be finalized, I hope, by the end of the year. Its objectives are the preservation of our environment, but perhaps even more than that, it seeks to change our own culture in order to integrate a greater respect for what our environment is; that is, nature in the broadest sense of the term. It is an absolutely capital reform and I want to thank all those who worked hard for it, the environment minister and Mr. Coppens…

Don’t expect me to make any comments on remarks by the current president of the European Union. I have no comments to make. On the other hand, I would like to say something about Europe. The Convention was led by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing for 15 or 20 months. We have achieved a result that I would say is exemplary in its balance, vision of the future and intelligence. We now have the basis for our reform, which will be discussed and adopted at the intergovernmental conference, that is, by the heads of State and government. I have great admiration for the result. Naturally, not everything France wanted was included, but I have great admiration for what was done and naturally am very concerned to see it become the basis of the reform that will be adopted by the government…

That has to be looked at. I’ve already brought up the question; it will depend, of course, on the results of this conference. (…)