FRANCE/UNITED STATES

Remarks of Jean-David Levitte, French ambassador to the United at the Elliot School of International affairs, Georges Washington University.

Washington, October 10, 2003

AMB. LEVITTE: Thank you, Dean Feigenbaum and thank you Dean William Furley (ph). I have the impression that everybody understands French here -- (laughter) -- but I'll do my best to speak in English. It is indeed a real privilege to be at the George Washington University, and not really in Georgetown. (Laughter.) This is for the serviette part. (Laughter.) In fact, I have been very impressed by the menu that you have proposed when I heard that I was speaking after the Secretary of State Colin Powell, a man I admire very much, after the former vice president, Al Gore, I feel very much challenged.

Let me start maybe with a personal note. On 9/11, as you said, Mr. Dean, I was the French ambassador to the United Nations, and so I saw the destruction of the Twin Towers from my office -- 44th floor of one of these tall buildings of Manhattan. And this will stay in my heart for the rest of my life. It happens that during this month of September of 2001 I was the president of the Security Council, and of course we couldn't be in touch with Paris or even my colleagues, but we were stuck in our offices at the French mission, and my first reaction was this is worse than Pearl Harbor. What can we do? It's obvious that the United States will have to react forcefully. There are two possibilities: either the United States do it alone or we are in a position to build a kind of global coalition. And of course as president of the Security Council it seemed to me that we had to propose to our American friends in such tragic circumstances the possibility of building a coalition. And when the doors of the United Nations building reopened the day after, on the 12th, I proposed to my colleagues of the Security Council a draft resolution which of course condemned the acts, but transformed international law on two significant parts. First, in this text we proposed to decide that such an act of international terrorism should be considered as an act of war. It was the first time that an act of international terrorism was considered as an act of war, and it has in legal terms very specific consequences. Because then you are in a position to exact an application of the U.N. Charter the right of self-defense, either alone or with your partners and allies. And, second, I proposed that in this text we would say that this right of self-defense could be not only targeted against those who committed these acts, but also against the states which offered hospitality, financed, equipped, trained the networks. The next was proposed at 11:00 in the morning, and adopted one hour later at 12:00. And it's still the basis on which the U.N. is working. And to pay our respect and express our solidarity with the American people, I proposed that we could adopt this text not by raising our hands but by standing -- standing in respect and solidarity with the American people. I say that because it was a happy moment for the international community. Of course it was a tragedy. But confronted with this tragedy, the whole world was united with the United States. And of course we did participate in the war in Afghanistan, with 5,000 French troops, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and so on. So it shows that a that global coalition against terrorism not only is possible, but should be maintained.

Of course there are differences, and from my experience I would say if you look at the United States on one side, the Europeans on the other side, there are two important differences. The first one is the word "war" against terrorism -- because of course America is at war, and really at war. In Europe, there was solidarity -- there still is solidarity -- but we don't use the word "war." We most of the time say it's a fight -- a fight not against "terrorism" with an "m," but against "terrorists." It is more than a nuance. The choice of words is never meaningless. Living in the United States I see that the people of America is really at war. When you travel in Europe, you don't have the same feeling. And it explains a lot when you consider Iraq.

The second important difference in my view is this question of sovereignty. Building on the lessons we learned from two world wars, we decided in Europe to build a common destiny, and we share our sovereignty on a daily basis on everything. The euro is the perfect symbol of shared sovereignty. In this country, the United States, you don't share sovereignty. You protect the U.S. against any intrusion which could limit your sovereignty. And the U.N. in that sense is considered as a kind of government above Congress and the U.S. administration. Those who have the experience of the U.N. know that it is not exactly that situation. But it's important. And I think that these two nuances, these two differences, explain a lot when you come to Iraq. You know the French position on the war in Iraq: We thought that this war was not necessary. It was not necessary, because we didn't see an imminent threat. We didn't see a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. But let's turn this bitter page. The war now is past, and as I learned in New York, think positive. (Laughter.) And "think positive" -- that is exactly the mood in Paris, and I think it's important to understand that for the French people we consider that what is at stake in Iraq is enormous for the future of the Iraqi people, for the future of the whole Middle East at a moment when there is no peace process. And also I would say maybe even more important for the future of the relations between the Muslim world and the Western world.

So having this in mind, we have considered the proposal made by the U.S. administration in the Security Council of another resolution on Iraq. And we have considered that this resolution is a good basis. We approve the idea to transform what is, according to the U.N. words, "an occupying force," into a multinational force, with a mandate of the Security Council, but under U.S. leadership. Not only we don't have any problem with that, but we support this proposal. We also support what is the second important message of the American draft, the idea to ask the Iraqi authorities to propose a timetable for the political reconstruction of Iraq.

But we have ideas. And we have said basically that what is necessary at that moment is to send to the Iraqi people a powerful political message of empowerment. That's why we have proposed the early transfer of sovereignty in the hands of Iraqi leadership; and, as expeditiously as possible, the transfer of responsibilities, for instance if the minister in charge of education has a good team, and is ready to start working, why not transfer the responsibilities from the hands of the American or coalition authority in the hands of the minister and his team? Same for the minister in charge of finance, and so on and so forth. As soon as a minister can really take over the responsibilities, let's give the responsibilities to this minister. Is it impossible? We don't think so, and for one good reason: that's exactly what we've done in Afghanistan at the initiative of the U.S. and the Europeans together. We have put in the hands of President Karzai and his government the sovereignty of Afghanistan, and they exert the responsibilities of power. Of course America is very powerful in Afghanistan. Of course the U.N. is very present. But no Afghan citizen has a feeling that he lives in a kind of occupied country. All Afghans consider that their leaders and their sovereignty are represented by Hamid Karzai. So why not in Iraq?

And why do we propose that idea? Because we say never underestimate Iraq nationalism. The sooner we can give the Iraqi people a feeling of empowerment, the better. Now, it doesn't mean that we will vote no if the text is put to a vote and our ideas are not taken on board, because what is at stake has nothing to do with the debate we had during spring. In spring what was at stake was war or the disarmament of Iraq with the U.N. inspections. Here everybody is trying to find the best way forward to help the Iraqi people. So we propose ideas. If they can be taken on board somewhat, we will be more than happy to vote in favor of the text. If not, maybe we will abstain. But certainly we will not vote no, because we want to help. We want to help because, as I said, what is at stake is enormous, and because the Middle East in a way is for the Europeans our back yard, and what is happening in the Middle East has consequences at home in all European countries, and especially in France. We will help. We will participate in the Madrid donors conference in two weeks' time, and if our ideas are somewhat taken on board, we will be more than happy to participate in the training of the new Iraqi army -- training of the officers. We have a wonderful experience in Afghanistan where only two countries are now training the new Afghan army: the U.S. and France. So we could participate in the same program in Iraq. So that is the mood in Paris. And I think it's very important to underline that we want to help. President Chirac said that we want the U.S. to succeed in Iraq.

Beyond Iraq, I see only reason to celebrate our cooperation. I mentioned Afghanistan. I could also mention the Balkan region, where France is now the number one contributor of troops from NATO countries. But I could also mention Africa, or a number of other areas where side by side the U.S. and France are working to build a better world.

One word on Europe, because here, and more and more I see on papers or see on programs that France is trying to build Europe as a counterweight to the United States. Frankly this is not my view. And you mentioned that I was for five years the senior diplomatic advisor of President Chirac. I can say that this is not the view of the French president. We started the construction of Europe, as I said, because we wanted to make war impossible in Europe. And it has been an amazing success, and we started by building a common economy, a common market. Having done that we discovered that we needed a common currency, and we have now the euro. And now we want a constitution. But all this has nothing to do to build a counterweight. It is the logic in which we are engaged for more than 50 years now, and we will continue. I don't know if we will succeed with the constitution, but it is a necessity now because our institutions are too complex and most people in Europe don't understand how it works. We need more efficient institutions. It has nothing to do with our relations with the United States.

More treaty maybe -- we also would like to slowly build a common foreign policy and have something in the area of defense. I think it will take time, but I think it's also necessary. And in my view it's good for the U.S. When the Europeans are split, divided, important, where is your important partner? When you want troops to help you, where do you find these troops? In Europe? Not in China or Brazil or South Africa or whatever -- in Europe. And if you could have in this dangerous world where we are a strong partner, an efficient partner, organized with a real foreign policy, then I think we would be together in a better position.

Now, defense. We don't want to compete with the United States. First, our taxpayers are not ready to put much money in our defense, and that's a big problem for all Europeans. But, second, what we want to achieve is simply to build a common force which would be in a position to act when you don't want to act, either with NATO or without NATO. That's exactly what we did in Macedonia. That's exactly what we did in the last few months in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where for the first time a small European force has been sent in a remote place called Bunya to maintain calm and reestablish a peaceful cooperation between different tribes. This is the kind of missions that we have in mind. And frankly I don't see any danger for the U.S. in these ambitions. On the contrary, I consider that it would be an asset for the U.S. if we could succeed to develop all these ideas into projects and actions.

Let me conclude with one word about the French-American relations. I consider that these relations are a real pleasure. And as I said, we live in a dangerous world. We are under the threat of chaos. My view is that on 9/11 we were an inch from world chaos. If Wall Street had been destroyed together with the Twin Towers, you can imagine in what shape would have been the economy. And this could happen in Europe, in Asia, anyplace. We are confronted with the threat of chaos. In this dangerous world we have to stay together. We worked together in the early days of your independence. You saved us twice last century. And we will never forget. We will never forget. We will commemorate on the 6th of June next year the 60th anniversary of D-Day. And, believe me, it will be a wonderful opportunity to say again, Thank you, America. But at the same time you wanted France to be a free people. And as a free people we express our views -- (laughter) -- maybe in a visible way. But we consider that a true friend is a friend who says what he thinks, and we will continue to do it as true friends and faithful allies. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

MR. FEIGENBAUM: Ambassador Levitte has told me that the part he's really looking forward to is question-and-answer period. So I am delighted to turn the floor over to him to field his own questions, and to answer yours. And I look forward to the answer and response.
Ambassador Levitte, I was very moved and intrigued by your comment on the importance of united Europe. I think I lost the mike. How do you feel this united Europe, this marvelous goal of avoiding intercontinental war, can do this and achieve these other larger aims of a united constitution, a united currency, even perhaps a united defense, and still maintain the unique cultural flavor of each of the member countries, which based on some of the reading I've done some people feel it might be in danger of being homogenized?

AMB. LEVITTE: I don't think so. We are not building the "United States of Europe," as you have been for more than 200 years building the United States of America. Because you started with one language and from scratch, if I may say so. We are trying to build a common destiny, but with hundreds of years of different hatreds, with many different languages, and as many cultures. And, believe me, there will be no merging of the cultures into something which could be called a European culture. On the contrary, we consider that it's very important to maintain all our cultures from each country and inside each country the different cultures. Because we consider it a real asset for our future to maintain these cultures. So our construction is somewhat different with yours.

And this explains also the difficulties and the slow process. when we are discussing the constitution, for instance, we start from different traditions. On the Anglo-Saxon side the British and few others have in mind the common law. On the continent it's more Roman, German law, the Romano Germanique. These are two different legal perspectives, and we have to invent a way forward. If you look at the political systems you have federal states. Of course this is an inspiration for the terrorist states for the European level. France is the country of the federal state -- maybe too much. But to invent a model is really difficult. But a miracle happened. We had a convention of one hundred or so members, representing the 25 countries, and they adopted unanimously a text, and now we'll start the last phase of this constitution, that is the intergovernmental conference. My hope -- cross fingers -- is that in a few months time the people of the 25 countries of Europe will be invited to approve a text which probably will not be very different from the one which has been adopted in June this year.

Thank you very much.

Hi, ambassador. My name is Mike Korea (ph). I'm actually a president of a student organization at GW called ISEC (ph), and it was interesting because you were talking about the European Union being started as trying to promote peace between Europe. And actually ISEC (ph) was started the same way between France and Germany after World War II, and we are now in over 80 countries as well as at GW. So, my question is, because a lot of us here are students, what do you think the role is of international exchange between students -- and not just between Europe and America -- because we have that already, but between our countries and outside Europe?

AMB. LEVITTE: You may be surprised, but my first priority as the French ambassador is the cooperation between universities. Why? Because we are also building the European Union of the students and the professors. In the Middle Ages the tradition in Europe was for the students and the professors to go from Sorbonne in Paris to Italy or Germany or Spain or England. And this disappeared. We are rebuilding that, and we are organizing the convergence of our diploma on a European basis. And we are financing heavily the possibility for each European student to spend one year abroad in one other European university in a different country. And it is an application for each European now to speak three languages -- mother tongue plus two foreign languages. That's how you build Europe in respect of the different cultures. But with the sense of common destiny. And in my view it would be a disaster for our world if you would have emerging kind of integrated system in Europe with all European universities organized as a pillar, and then the powerful pillar of the American universities with not many breaches. We have to think about that. This is very important. We have to organize and develop and reinforce the partnerships between European universities and American universities, exchange of students and professors and so on. And that's exactly what I am trying to do with American universities and French universities, but in the context of this process of organizing the European universities as a pillar.

I'm Carol -- (inaudible) -- with Reuters. Iran is another one of the -- (inaudible) -- issues facing France and the United States. With an October 31st deadline looming for Iran to comply with the IAEA demands, do you have any reasonable expectation that Iran will fully comply? And, if not, is France prepared to go along with the United States in declaring Iran in noncompliance and sending the issue to the U.N.? And, finally, what's the status of your proposal with the British and the Germans to trade technologies in Iran, it's enrichment cycle?

AMB. LEVITTE: We consider that the two dangers in this world are terrorism and the proliferation of arms of mass destruction, and the connection between these two. So you see on the analysis of the problem we don't have any difference, even a nuance, with our American friends. And on North Korea as well as on Iran I don't see any difference of substance between the U.S. and France. When President Chirac met President Bush in New York, they discussed Iran, and they agreed that they had the same view about the problem and our goal.
Where we have the nuance is on the use of electro-nuclear electricity -- that is, the possibility for Iran to maintain a program to produce nuclear electricity. That is a nuance. It is an important one. And we consider together with our European partners -- and you mention rightly the U.K. and Germany -- that, yes, we must curb any program which could have military consequences. But, no, we should not stop the ambition of Iran to build nuclear plants, provided that there is a kind of firewall established between the military side and the civilian side. Is it impossible? We don't think so. We think it's possible through cooperation with the Iranian authorities and of course with the help of the IEAE, the nuclear agency in Vienna. What will be the situation at the end of October we don't know yet. But we are determined to do whatever possible to solve the issue in a peaceful way. And let me say in passing that if we reach an agreement together, then we need to implement it. And to implement it we need to have IAEA inspectors and U.N. inspectors deployed in Iran in a rather intrusive way. I say that because one of our regrets about what happened in spring was the situation of the U.N. and IAEA inspections. It is very important to maintain the credibility of these two, because we'll need the U.N. inspections in the future for Iran, and maybe for North Korea. Thank you.

Hi, my name is -- (off mike). My question is you mentioned the very important issues concerning Europe that the Americans don't understand the nationalism of the Middle Eastern. So you also mention that the Middle East is the back yard for Europe. So do these reasons puts a duty on France in building more awareness in America about the Middle East culture and all related issues. So why isn't France working on this aspect and building awareness about the Middle East which will accordingly help the American public understand the opinion and division of France regarding the issue of Iraq? Thank you very much.

AMB. LEVITTE: Well, you have excellent specialists on the Middle East in the State Department, and we work extensively with them. We have a permanent dialogue on all Middle East issues with our partners in this city. And just to give you an example, the roadmap on the peace process has been negotiated, discussed, for months between the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. So it's a joint ambition that we have proposed to the Israeli and Palestinian partners.

This dialogue exists. Now, what you have in mind is in a broader sense how can you spread the message coast to coast to the people of America? Well, I read the newspapers and I am full of admiration on the quality of the descriptions of the situation, be it in Iraq or in the Middle East, the peace process or the United States of the Iraq societies or Islam and so on. So I don't think we have anything to teach to the American people or media, or whatever. But certainly we have a lot to do in exchanging our experiences and thinking of how to help our partners in the Arab world. And when I say "how to help," I mean to develop a partnership.

What is very important for us as Europeans is to have a growing integration of the Arab world in the global world where we live -- a sense of openness. But you will not get that in our view immediately or rapidly. It is a process. It is a process. And you have to be prepared to accept that idea. It will take years, because so far it has evolved slowly. And if you want to push too fast, then you get in trouble. That it is our lesson from experiences. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you very much for coming today. I had a question about Stability Pact and it's becoming a little bit less stable, shall we say, at the moment, and especially considering the important economic relation between the U.S. and the EU. Should the U.S. be worried about this?

AMB. LEVITTE: I will not compare the U.S. deficit, the French or German deficits. (Laughter.) So I focus on the stability part. This Stability Pact was established when we were creating the euro, because again we were 15 at that moment -- 12 decided to build the euro together, and we needed rules for the game, because we were coming from very different traditions, practices. And the miracle is that at the same moment we organized the perfect convergence of our inflation rate -- not debt, because the ceiling was not respected by everybody -- but deficits, yes. So the rules are there.

The question is terms of nearly a recession -- and Germany and France are at the limit of a recession -- should we implement very strictly the pact -- that is, the ceiling at 3 percent of deficit maximum -- or not? That is a debate. And I think it is a useful debate. Here you don't have this kind of limits. But you have a debate -- what is reasonable, and what is not. And it is a fair debate. The debate is should we inject more money to give a boost to the economy and the growth, or should we maintain the rule very strictly so that the rule is respected and the treaty is not interpreted in a way which could be a danger for all the partners? This debate is going on between democratic partners. It's a very lively debate. And I think it's a healthy debate. And when I discuss this issue with American specialists, with Alan Greenspan or the best bankers in New York, they are more on our side, I must say, of this debate that is. It is obvious that when you are near depression, near recession, you need to inject enough flexibility in the system so that the economy will rebound. And then the deficit will be reduced, because the economy will inject more money from the taxes in the budget, and the deficit will be disappearing fast. So the debate is there.

We are doing our best in France to limit our deficits. Our hope is that we'll be back around three percent and less in the next two years. And I think it is possible if the economic growth is back soon.

Q (Speaks in French.)

AMB. LEVITTE: See, this is Europe. (Laughter.)

(Off mike) -- George Washington University. Just last week we have seen European defense ministers, together with American defense ministers, gathering here in the U.S. to discuss the implementation of NATO's rapid reaction force. At the same time we have the efforts within the European Union to establish its own rapid reaction force. And you mention that in your speech. There is a great discussion on whether to implement this rapid reaction force independent from NATO or in an integrated way. Don't we have an Europeans a great opportunity now as we strengthen our common foreign policy to give a more important contribution to the transatlantic alliance and not to separate ourselves from this alliance? Thank you.

AMB. LEVITTE: I fully agree with you, as I always agree with my German friends. (Laughter.) First, NATO is and will remain the cornerstone of our security for decades to come. That is the French view and the German view. Second, we need to adapt NATO to the new dangers of its work. Third, during the Prague Summit we have adopted unanimously -- the U.S., Canada and European countries -- a transformation of NATO to adapt it to the new threats. And this transformation leads us to creating a NATO reaction force. Before that we had the idea to create a European reaction force. This is not a new idea. We started with Germany probably 20 years ago, with a Franco-German brigade, slowing transformed into a EuroCorps -- Germany, France, but also Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, together. And the Europeans rapid reaction force is the expansion of this EuroCorps at the level of all those who want to participate in Europe.

Now, you have to understand that when we speak of a NATO reaction force and an EU reaction force we are not building two separate armies. But we are speaking of the same thing. We have not enough troops to build one integrated reaction force for NATO and then another one which could be used by the EU. It is the same thing. That is, the troops are identified, and then they are ready to be used either by NATO or by the EU. And we say that is called Berlin-Plus agreement, that most of the time when an important operation is started it will be within the context of NATO, because we need the assets -- logistics, common structures of NATO.

But from time to time our American friends will say we are not part of this operation -- we have other priorities -- please do it. Then we have a choice. Either we do it with NATO assets but without American participation, or because of the size of the operation we don't need NATO assets and we have to be ready to do it on our own as the EU, Europe. And that's exactly what I mentioned -- Macedonia and this operation in Africa -- where we were Europe without NATO under the flag of the United Nations.

And so you see we have to have some flexible approach of all this. We are not any more under one threat, Soviet Union. We are in a very complex world where the threats are very different -- very different and this means very different responses. Flexibility is the key word for the transformation of NATO, but also for the construction of the tools of a European defense within the context of NATO. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

MR. FEIGENBAUM: Mr. Ambassador, I just want to thank you for an extremely free-wheeling and instructive interchange here at the university. And on behalf of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and the Elliott School of International Affairs, we are delighted that we could come visit with us, and we want to thank you for your visit. And we have a small souvenir for you.

AMB. LEVITTE: Before that, let me say that, Mr. Dean, you said I'm always very interested by the exchange. And for me the lesson from this exchange is that you are very interested, but what we are trying to do in Europe as the European Union. And this is a great encouragement for me, because I think for all Europeans our future is in this construction of the European Union as a strong, friendly partner for the United States. And it seems that you share this view. Thank you for that. (Applause.)

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