Today's Date:

Introduction by the Consul General of France in Miami, Mr. Christophe Bouchard.

" Thank you Christophe for this wonderful introduction and the priviledge of being with you. Thank you to Jean-Michel Caffin, President of the French American Chamber of Commerce in Miami, Florida. Thank you Christophe Bouchard and Nathalie Bouchard. They represent France as Consul General in Miami and beyond Florida, in many States with distinction and I want to express my gratitude to them. Thank you also Mr. Mayor, thank you Don Slesnick, Mayor of Coral Gables, 'the city beautiful' and the sister city of Aix-en-Provence, one of our most beautiful cities. And thank you Mr. Mayor also for your friendship for my country.

I would like to express gratitude to those who have prepared this beautiful event. First, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, second the Association of Bi-national Chambers of Commerce of Florida and third, the International Affairs coordinating Council of Coral Gables.

With Marie-Cécile, we are delighted, really delighted to be with you in Florida, the key state, and not only for political reasons, as Florida represents the new South where the future of the United States of America is being built, and we are indeed delighted to be in Miami, the capital of the Americas in a way. Most people say, I am told, that Miami is a good place to do business because it is not far away from the United States. The French community discovered that and I am proud to say that now the French business community is the first foreign investor in Florida, before Canada, before Germany, before the UK, so it means that we have great confidence in the future of Florida and espacially of Miami.

Let me say one word about the relation between the US and France. As Christophe said I was the French Ambassador to the UN for three years. I was in my office on 9/11. My office was in New York, 44th floor, with a beautiful view on downtown. I saw from my office the attacks and the destruction of the Twin Towers and on that day I felt and reacted as an American and I immediatly considered that America was under attack, and indeed America was at war. At the same time, I was at that moment the President of the Security Council of the UN. The day after, on the 12th of September, I introduced a resolution which paved the way for the military action of the US in Afghanistan and this resolution was adopted after only one hour of debate, we were together, unanimous in our expression of solidarity with the US. And at the same time I must say that today the situation is somewhat different. And maybe I should explain as a European how we see the situation of transatlantic relation. In my view, there are two differences between Europe and the US today. The first one is precisely about 9/11. We have difficulty in Europe to understand that America is really at war. Of course we are together in this war against the scourge of terrorism. But I would say that in Europe, it's a kind of low-intensity war. We suffered a lot from acts of islamist terror in our streets or elsewhere, we are also suffering from attacks of Al Qaida. But in Europe we didn't suffer the huge shock that 9/11 represents for the American people, and we have difficulties, and part of my difficulties is to explain to French people that Yes, America is fully at war and that the shock of 9/11 is even more important that was the shock of Pearl Harbor. Because Pearl Harbor in a way was far away from the mainland territory of the US. 9/11 was in the heart of the heart of the US and the victims were civilians. So part of my duty is to explain that to French people and to European audiences.

Now, the other way round my difficulty as French ambassador to the US is to explain the differences on one issue which is important, the issue of sovereignty. 50 years ago, the Europeans, Germany and France, decided that after centuries of war, it was time to build a common future and to do it peacefully in Europe. And for the first time in History, we have decided slowly to build our common destiny. And it's an amazing success! And for us, sovereignty is something that we share, and we do it on a daily basis. In the pockets of 300 millions Europeans now you have the euro, and the euro is the best symbol of shared sovereignty. There's not one day in Europe without a Ministers' council to decide the price of agricutural products or our future for justice and so on… So shared sovereignty is a kind of way of life for the Europeans and in this country it's the contrary: sovereignty is something that you want to protect, not to share. And when we think on global issues in Europe, we think of the UN, the IMF, multilateral institutions… In this country, when you think about global problems, you think about actions by the US with partners but not, or not enough maybe, with the UN, with European Union at the whole or NATO. These are, in my view, the key-differences which exists now as we speak between Europe and the US.

Now, a word on Iraq. We strongly disagreed, we all know that, on the necessity of this war. We think, and we still consider, that it was not necessary. (… ) But that is past, the war is over now. It's always good news for democracy to see a dictatorship falling. And now, we have to rebuild Iraq. We have to do it together. Iraq, in our view, is not a pie to be shared. Iraq, in our view, is a burden, and it will be a costly burden, because reconstruction of Iraq will probably mean 20 billion dollars a year, for many years, of investments coming from the international community. So either it comes from the US, that is the burden is for the American taxpayers or it comes from the whole international community and the burden will be spread among many countries - basically between the US, Europe and Japan. So the choice is yours and it's good news that, in fact, the choice has been made. We will be together. We adopted unanimously a few days ago the resolution which, in the Security Council, has decided that we will work together to rebuild Iraq. That is good news, because we need a success story in Iraq, and we need a success story for one obvious reasons: if we failed in Iraq, it means that the relations, not only between Iraq and the US, but more globaly between the Muslim world, the Arab world and the Western world will be in jeopardy, and we will have a kind of collision between the Arab world and the Western world. So we have, together, to make Iraq a great success story, and we are, as France, ready to participate.

Beyond Iraq, let me say one word about the Transatlantic relations. I think it is important to recognize that together, the European Union on one side, the United States on the other side, we are the two pillars representing the same shared values: democracy, market economy, freedom. So either we are together, and we succeed together, or we will fail you and us. So it's very important that we keep it in mind, and beyond that, let's think about the military operations that must be conducted in the coming months. Afghanistan, Iraq: when the US needs troops, where do you find them? Where are your allies? Do you find troops in China? Or in Russia? Or in Brazil? Or in India? No. You find your friends and allies and these troops in Europe. In Europe, well, you have French troops, side by side with US troops today in Afghanistan, and only two countries are, right now, training the new Afghan army: the US and France. And is it better to get your friends and allies separated or together? My answer is that is your interest to have in Europe an organized capacity. It would be much better for you if in Iraq you could say: "Well, Europeans friends, we would like to get 30 000 or 40 000 troops. Could you provide them?", and if we were in position to say: "Yes, of course!" and send them in one-month time.

So my view is that it is in your interest to have Europe as a pole, organized, prepared to help the US in this dangerous world. And that's why we think as French that it is in the interest of the US that the European Union is not only organized as an economic power but also as a military power, partner of the US within the context of NATO. In economic terms, it's even more impressive if you look at our partnership. It's amazing: together, the US and Europe represent 62% of the world GDP, 62%! And day after day, as we speak, 3 billion dollars of goods, investments, services are crossing the Atlantic both ways.

But the last figure I'd like to mention is our population: together we represent only 11% of the world population, 5% for the US and 6% for EU. We are the small minority of the world population. So we represent the wealth of the world, we represent the democratic values, we represent the military power of the world. But if we are not together, we can't succeed. It's obvious. So we have to stay together, we have to rebuild what has been damaged because of the Iraqi problem, and we have also to remember, and always remember, that in this world against the scourge of terrorism, we are on the same side, we are together in the Middle East to build peace, we are together in Afghanistan to rebuild the country, we are together to try to convince Iran or North Korea to adopt different policies and so on, and so forth.

And my last word will be about the relations between the US and France. These relations were born during the early days of your independence. We were side by side during these important moments and we have always remained together. Strangely enough, France is the only big European country the US has never been at war with. You've been at war with England for your war of Independence, you've been at war with Spain for the independence of Spanish colonies, you've been at war with Italy and Germany but you've never been at war with France; and you saved us twice last century. And two days before the D-Day anniversary, let me say that we will never forget, we will never forget, what you did for us. You wanted France and the French people to be a free people and indeed we express our views on world affairs as a free people, and sometimes we disagree. That's life of democracy!

The US is a great democracy, the greatest democracy on earth and you have a lively debate among the American people on peace and war, and we have this lively debate between France and US on war and peace. Now the war is over and let's build together our common future and let's not forget that our friendship is a treasure and this treasure must be protected, must be enhanced.

Thank you very much./.