Something rotten?
FRANCE MARC ULLMANN
Paris—Except in the event of a world war the French nation is not to be disturbed between 14 July and 1 September, as more than half of it is away on holiday for more than half of the time. It is thus difficult to gauge whether the dis- contents stirred up by General de Gaulle's personal diplomacy during the Middle East war and its aftermath will drain safely away in the sands of the Riviera. What is indisputable is that at no time since the end of the war in Algeria has the General had to face such a crisis of confidence as now besets him.
Out of France's twenty-eight Cabinet ministers only four are known to express them- selves in private as entirely happy about their master's behaviour. The rest can be divided into two groups: those, like the Prime Minister, M Pompidou, who have mixed feelings; and those, like the Minister of Defence, M Mess- mer, or the Minister of Technology, M Maurice Schumann, who have only managed to stifle their repugnance with a great effort of loyalty or prudence.
The General's response recalls the great days of his career: 'As usual,' he comments, 'I have ranged against me the bourgeoisie, the officer class, and the diplomats: my only supporters are those who travel on the Metro.' But here he may be wrong. The latest public opinion polls are contradictory. Fifty-four per cent of all those questioned approve the attitude adopted by France (i.e., the General) against 18 per cent who disapprove. Yet the proposition that the Israelis should hold on to the ground they have captured until they have reached a general settlement with the Arabs is supported by 49 per cent to 20 per cent—and this, of course, is precisely the reverse of the official French line.
But this in any case is not the real problem.
The most striking thing about the malaise of recent weeks has been the way in which—and here the General is perfectly right—those most closely connected with the Presidency have been the most afflicted. Surprising though it may seem, the decision to cast France's vote at the United Nations on the same side as that of the Soviet Union shook the entourage far more than the decision to take France out of NATO in 1965. That was the logical consequence of a line of policy which they could follow; whereas this suggests the start of a new trail and they don't know where it is leading.
But whether they agree with the General or not the cognoscenti are agreed on one thing: at seventy-six the General has become a man obsessed with a single idea. This is that the disequilibrium between the might of the United States and the relative weakness of both western Europe and the Soviet Union is grow- ing. But instead of trying therefore to close the 'technology gap' by building as wide a western European community as possible, his reaction is that France must become the nucleus of (to coin a phrase) a tightly knit group of countries motivated by the determination to resist the plans of the American policymakers all over the globe.
'Face to face with the strength of the United States,' he confided to a recent visitor, 'one can only say yes, or no.' The General says 'no,' and this was the dominant consideration in his mind throughout the Middle East crisis. He was in his element: serene, imperturbable, secret. Thus M Herve Alhpand, Permanent head of the French Foreign Service (Foreign Secretary Couve de Murville was at the uN at the time) was given precisely a quarter of an hour's warn- ing of the General's announcement that all the troubles of the world could be traced back to the American intervention in Vietnam. -And at no time during the crisis did the General assemble his staff. There was a series of tete-a- tete meetings, and various officials were asked for various notes, but none of them had any clear idea as to where they personally fitted into the pattern.
To take one example: immediately before the outbreak of hostilities the General received at least four separate estimates of the relative military strength of the two sides, and their conclusions differed. So when he told Mr Eban, the Israeli foreign minister, that his country could not hope to get away with a quick and sweeping victory it is an open question whether he really believed his argument or whether it was simply a device to maintain the peace. What is indisputable, however, is that when the Israelis proved him wrong, he was highly dis- pleased. Not only had they failed to listen to his advice but also in so doing they had given the United States another success.
From then on his attitude changed. Having flatly opposed any intervention by the United Nations, he promptly switched sides and backed the Russian call for an emergency session of the General Assembly. As he explained to several callers, once the Russians had suffered the humiliation of seeing their proteges crushed it was essential to try and correct the world power balance as quickly as possible by any means available.
Even before Mr Kosygin's visit to Paris, therefore, the French permanent representative at the UN. M Seydoux, was told to vote for the Yugoslav resolution calling for the uncon- ditional withdrawal of Israeli forces. The defeat of this resolution was expected: but the fact that the Latin American counter-proposal, sup-
ported by the United States, gained more votes was treated by de Gaulle as a personal insult, which made the need for some effective counter- poise to the transcendant influence of the United States all the more self-evident.
Last week he drew the lesson of the Middle Eastern affair for the benefit of his German allies in Bonn. 'One fact dominates the con- temporary scene: the enormous power of the United States. . . . This leaves us with two alternatives. We can accept things as they are. That is the easy way out. It means that we accept a place in a company dominated by the United States. And then there is the second alternative . . . which consists in safeguarding our national identity.'
Now the British, in the General's eyes, are ineluctably committed to the first solution. But the Germans could, just possibly, one day (be- cause of their desire for reunification) be brought to adopt a policy similar to that of France. To the majority of what might be called responsible Frenchmen, this seems a doubly dangerous approach. It would deprive western Europe of the chance of building up a genuine industrial strategy for the future; and it might push the Germans not so much into cooperation with France as into pure old- fashioned nationalism, or even a direct entente with the Soviet Union.
This is what lies at the root of the unease of recent weeks. The anxiety is real: for it con- cerns the whole global strategy of France under General de Gaulle.
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