Today's Date:

French American relations

Dean, you are a real friend and it is a pleasure to be again with you today. It is my sixth visit to Los Angeles, my second to USC, it is a privilege to be with you but I had another moment which was really a privilege for me. On Saturday night at the invitation of our excellent Consul General Philippe Larrieu who is with us today, we had a big event at the Residence of the Consul General for the French community living in Los Angeles, 30,000 French live in Los Angeles, only a few of them were attending. But if I mention that evening it is because I had the privilege of bestowing upon two veterans of World War II, two American veterans of World War II from the area of Los Angeles our highest award, the Legion of Honor, to express the gratitude of the people of France for the sacrifices of so many American heroes of the greatest American generation. We do remember all over France that if today we are a free country leaving in peace and democracy in a united bureau, it is thanks to the sacrifices of these heroes. I wanted to say that as a starting point.

America wanted France to be a free country. As a free country, we express our views and thank God for the French Ambassador in Washington, most of the time we do agree. And from time to time we disagree. And as a free country we express our difference of views in candid tones, like in all families. You see what I mean, I am alluding to the Iraq problem, the different views and I think it is a good starting point because we have expressed the view that there were better ways with the inspectors of the United Nations to clarify the situation on the possible stocks of arms of mass destruction. We expressed the view that there were no link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. I say that today but thank God, this bitter page has been turned when President Chirac and President Bush met on the 21st of February last year in Brussels and then decided to let the historians decide who was right and who was wrong about the necessity of this war. And now we do agree that failure is not an option because it would have disastrous consequences, not only of course for the Iraqi people but for the whole region. Just imagine what would be the situation if there was chaos or a civil war in Iraq, if the Shiites supported by Iran from the Sunnis supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It would have consequences for the whole region. And of course the Kurds would take advantage of the situation to proclaim independence on the region and then Turkey could object to that development and so on.

But even more important may be for Europeans if there was civil war chaos. It would be a disaster for the relations between Arab Muslim world and the West. Not only because Al-Qaeda would be at home in Baghdad and could launch actions against the neighboring states and beyond into our countries, but also because we just saw recently through what I would call the tragedy of the caricatures. From a rather unknown Danish paper the caricatures of the Prophet triggered a wave of emotion from Indonesia to Nigeria. So that is a very crucial moment, a very sensitive period and we have to be cautious, to be tolerant, to be open-minded but also to do whatever possible to stop the slow movement of the Iraqi society towards chaos and civil war.

Is it still possible? Who knows. Remember what happened to Yugoslavia. After Tito died, slowly you have seen a kind of divorce and now we have Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia. But the future of these new countries is in the European Union in peace and democracy. The war has been stopped. The problem is that Iraq has neighbors like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and you can’t imagine a divorce of the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds without consequences for the whole region. So that is why we have together to make Iraq a success story. It is easy to say what should be done.

First, an inclusive government, Condi Rice and Jack Straw are in Baghdad for that. Second, revisit the Constitution because the text as it has been adopted organizes the kind of region in the Middle East. That is a rather minimalist central government and powerful regional entities. The problem is that the Shiites want to form one entity controlling their oil in the South. In the North the Kurds want their own entity controlling their oil resources in the North and in between you have a Sunni region which is poor, without oil resources and so now the Sunnis have been frustrated of the role of leaders of a nation they exerted for decades and decades and the future that the Constitution is presenting them is certainly not attractive. So number two: revisit the Constitution.

Number three: make sure that the Army and the Police will not be a collection of militias but really the army of a nation of Iraq and the Police of the nation of Iraq and recognized as such by the Iraqi people as a whole. Easy to say, very difficult to achieve and that is why we have to join forces. We have a very courageous Ambassador speaking Arabic as well as Dean Aoun, leaving in the middle of Baghdad, not in the green zone, our whole team is living outside the green zone among the Iraqis. All of them speak Arabic, all of them are in touch with all the leaders of Iraq, whatever their position, to try to convince them to implement and reach the three objectives that I mentioned.

I say that to show that if we had differences in the past over Iraq it is old and now we have to work together to make Iraq a possible success story. That is number one. Beyond Iraq, I see only reasons to celebrate our friendship and cooperation.

Number one is the fight against terror. Judge Bruguière, our leading judge in the fight against terror in France, will be again in a few days time in Washington. He comes nearly once a month to exchange intelligence because if we have to win this so-called war of the 21st century. The number one thing we have to do is to exchange intelligence, we do it on a daily basis and we have suffered from terrorism in France in the 80’s and 90’s, we have lot of experience, we have a lot of intelligence and we work hand in hand with the American agencies to make sure to make sure that we will win this so-called war of the 21st century.

We are together in Afghanistan. We participated in this war right from the beginning with thousands of troops. We will increase by 50% the number of troops in the coming weeks because we will have growing responsibilities. You know that now it is becoming a totally NATO operation, that is the world’s two operations: OEF and the NATO operation side by side. In the coming months it will be NATO operation only. European countries will have growing responsibilities, including the French. We will be in charge of the capital city Kabul and the whole region around Kabul and for that will we increase our troops by 50%. Only two countries have Special Forces on the border with Pakistan to try to get Bin Laden: the United States and France. Only two countries are training the new Afghan army: the United States and France.

Number three may be my dear Dean, Lebanon. I do think it is a perfect example of what the United States and France can achieve when we work together. You remember that on the 14th of February last year, Rafic Hariri, the former Prime Minister was assassinated, twenty people were killed. It was a huge shock for the Lebanese people. One third of the country demonstrated in the streets to express their outrage. The United States and France have decided to help the Lebanese people. The reasons are that: first, the withdrawal of the Syrian troops. For twenty-nine years Syrian troops were present in Lebanon more and more as an occupying force. Now they have left back to Syria. Most of the secret services of Syria have left too.

Number two the most democratic and free election in this case could be organized in Lebanon.

Number three the Lebanese people after the elections were in a position to organize the most inclusive government in the case Hezbollah is part of this government and we consider it a positive development.

Number four, a UN commission has been established to get the truth about who assassinated Rafic Hariri and the people who died with him. You have seen in the report to the Security Council that the first report, second report were achieving a lot of progress in this inquiry. It is not over. We are, the United States, France, the United Nations as a whole, determined to get the truth. So you see when we work together it makes a difference.

Number four: the Middle East peace process.

We are at a turning point. We have a new Palestinian government, we have a new or we will have soon a new Israeli government. Needless to say, the situation will be very difficult. And we know that again the United States, the European partners, France, Russia, the UN will have to work together to decide what should be done. What will be done for instance with the financial aid which was, so far, until now, given to the Palestinian people. We had a debate on that and Condi Rice was in the office of President Chirac last Thursday to discuss extensively all these issues, plus the future of our relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, other regions where we work very well together : in Darfur, in Ivory Coast, in Liberia and in Haiti. I mention all that to tell you that I am a happy Ambassador in Washington now.

I have been through a challenging period, the different Consul Generals had the same kind of challenging experience. We are still alive and well. We are still alive simply because America is a great democracy and even if we had to express the views of the French government in candid tones, we were always greeted with respect, courteously and it was a privilege to engage in so many discussions, to explain our views.

The Ambassador of France is in relatively strange situation. There is for more than two hundred years a lot of passion between the United States and France. We have always been together with few exceptions, I mentioned one: Iraq. What is amazing for me is to see the coverage of French events by American media. If you are the Ambassador of another great European democracy, you have to go deep in the pages of your favorite paper to get some coverage of what is happening in your country. If you are the Ambassador of France, you don’t need to go deep in the papers, most of the time we are on the front page. These days because of our strikes. It is very strange. Last Tuesday we had a massive strike in France and in the United Kingdom. Exactly the same number of people went on strike. Have you noticed that in the papers? Not at all, it was not covered. Strange situation. I don’t complain, I prefer to have too much coverage than not enough but it is true that maybe we should draw some lessons from the past experience of the last three years.

The first one, well, Colin Powell gave me the lesson. I was visiting him at the peak of the French bashing campaign and I visited him with three pages of insults delivered by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. He looked at the insults and said: “The United States and France have been in marriage counseling for 220 years but the marriage is still strong”. And Colin Powell was right. The second lesson is very easy to express. Let’s agree to disagree without being disagreeable. That is the message I convey to Bill O’Reilly. I am not sure he got it. But we will see.

I think that among members of adult democracies, members of the same family, members of great democracies, we should accept from time to time to have differences of views without going to the extreme of French bashing, or in France, America bashing. We should accept those differences, they are part of the lives of all families without creating treasons or divorce. So maybe my dear Dean, I should stop at that.

I am available for any question you may have and I accept candid tough questions.

Thank you very much.