WHY CAN'T THE ENGLISH BE MORE LIKE THE FRENCH?

In refusing to toe the Anglo-American line on Saddam, Jacques Chirac

is acting in the interests of France, says Daniel Hannan. Tony Blair

could learn from the French, without betraying the Atlantic alliance

WE all know what 'vigorous exchange of views' means. But rarely can a summit have ended with both sides boasting that their chap managed to get some juicy insults past the other fellow. Reading the press coverage on both sides of the Channel, a cartoon-like picture emerges. One imagines Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac like two Asterix characters, purple with rage, leaning towards each other with their noses squashed together.

This is not the first Anglo-French diplomatic row, of course. Lord Palmerston, on being told by his counterpart that the English had no word equivalent to the French `sensibilite, replied, 'Yes we have: humbug.' And Winston Churchill had furious arguments with Charles de Gaulle, once telling him: Tcoutez-moi. Monsieur le General, et markez mes mots: si vans me double-crosserez, je vous liquidaterai.'

Yet there is something curious about the Blair–Chirac estrangement. Both men have gone out of their way to bring their countries closer together; Blair as the most proEuropean prime minister since Edward Heath, Chirac as the first French leader to talk seriously about rejoining the Nato command. Each is comfortable in the other's language, and they share a pragmatic — or, if you prefer, opportunistic — approach to politics. Why have these two obvious soul mates fallen out?

On one level, the scrap was about farming. Blair, like all British politicians, wants to wind down the Common Agricultural Policy. while Chirac, like all French ones, wants to keep it. Having done a great deal over the years to cosy up to Paris, Blair was rather cross to find that Chirac had gone behind his back and struck a deal to keep the subsidies flowing from British consumers to his own farmers.

In the background, though, is the perennial question of the United Kingdom's place in Europe. De Gaulle vetoed two British applications to the EEC because he believed that we would never be able to turn our faces away from what he liked to call le grand large': the open main. The issue has never really gone away; it keeps being reborn in new shapes. Its current incarnation is France's opposition to 'unilateral' AngloAmerican action against Saddam Hussein.

And here, for all their superficial similarities, Blair's approach could hardly be more different from that of his French homologue. The Prime Minister, at heart, believes in influence. Throughout the Iraq crisis, and at considerable domestic cost, he has gone along with President Bush, calculating that unquestioning support in public will win him a hearing in private.

This, mutatis mutandis, is also his policy towards the EU. Since he came to office, he has done everything he can to placate his fellow heads of government, signing the Social Chapter, going along enthusiastically with the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, even sounding positive about the federal constitution unveiled earlier this week by Valery Giscard d'Estaing. He has been especially solicitous of French goodwill. Cast your mind back to the early days of his leadership: the Canary Wharf summit, his address (in French) to the National Assembly, the St Malo agreement setting up joint Anglo-French military forces.

And what does he have to show for it? Five years on, Chirac treats him with the same disregard that all British prime ministers encounter when the EU sets about truly important business. When it comes to

enlargement, or the budget, or — above all — farm subsidies, the deal is largely done before the Brits turn up.

The fact is that arguing from within, the strategy so cherished by British diplomats, is about as clear a failure as anything in international relations can be. Diplomatic trade-offs are made on the basis of present interest, not past gratitude. Chirac was no doubt genuinely appreciative of Blair's willingness to countenance European armed forces outside Nato; but it would never cross his mind that this should lead him to make concessions over the CAP. George W. Bush is visibly touched by Britain's support over Iraq. But does anyone imagine that he will offer Blair a veto over a unilateral US attack?

Now compare this with Chirac's approach. Under his leadership, France, perhaps more than any other state, is dictating the pace and nature of the military build-up. The Ouai d'Orsay takes the view that there is no point in having a seat on the UN Security Council if you do not use it. Even now, it is by no means impossible that France will eventually agree to join a military coalition in the Gulf; but not before it has squeezed every ounce of advantage from the situation.

Many commentators explain France's opposition to US policy as mere reflexive anti-Americanism. And it is true that there is something splendidly outrageous about the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, demanding 'collective, rather than unilateral' action. This, after all, from the country that sank the Rainbow Warrior in a friendly port, that pushed ahead with nuclear tests in the South Pacific despite global outrage, and that, more recently, invaded Cote d'Ivoire without pausing to ask anyone's permission.

Yet we should be wary of oversimplification. Remember that President Mitterrand ended up supplying a hefty contingent to the coalition that fought the Gulf war. France is not quite the arrogant loner that British and American conservatives like to think. She often comes round in the end — but only on her own terms.

To take two recent examples, the French have finally agreed to close the refugee camp at Sangatte and to accept the import of British beef, On both issues, they have belatedly complied with international law — or, depending on your point of view, caved in to British pressure. But not without first exploiting the situation to the full. The closure of Sarmatte, symbolically important though it is, does nothing to address the main British concern: that France will not readmit illicit migrants who have passed through her territory before entering the United Kingdom. As for beef, the six-year-long ban, combined with new rules on labelling, will make it almost impossible for British exporters to penetrate what used to be their single largest market. In both cases, France acts as though she expects to be rewarded for ceasing to do something that she ought never to have done in the first place.

Which brings us to Iraq. Sly old fox that he is, Chirac knows that he has conflicting pressures to reconcile. On the one hand, the last thing he wants is a unilateral and successful Anglo-American operation, which would leave him with no voice when it comes to reconstruction. On the other, France has her own interests in the region.

For one thing, there are millions of Muslims in France, many of them with the right to vote. We are forever being told about the 'Jewish lobby' on Capitol Hill. But, for some reason, it is almost never mentioned that there are as many Arabs and North Africans in France as there are Jews in America — as a proportion of the population, many more. No French politician, even a re-elected president, can afford to forget them entirely.

Even setting this aside, all French leaders tend to feel that they have a special role in the Middle East. De Gaulle liked to think of Araby as a kind of greater France. Iraq, in particular, was seen as being part of the Gallic sphere of influence. Under Pompi dou and then under Giscard (with Chirac as a minister), France made determined efforts to woo the Ba'athist regime. As well as large quantities of conventional weapons, the French agreed to sell enriched plutonium to Baghdad. Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak — destroyed in a daring Israeli raid in 1981 — was built, in no small measure, with French materials. As prime minister under President Mitterrand, Chirac enthusiastically armed the Iraqi regime. By the end of the Iran–Iraq war, Saddam was France's single largest arms customer.

This helps to explain France's hesitancy before the first Gulf war. Until almost the last minute, President Mitterrand tried to broker a deal with Baghdad. Only when it was clear that the Americans were determined to fight and win did he commit himself to join them (losing his defence minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, in the process). Thus, despite having hung back, he gave himself a say in the final settlement.

My guess is that something similar will happen this time. Once again, the French will hold off for as long as they can, making a virtue of obstreperousness. They will present themselves to the Muslim world as the most reasonable and friendly of all the Western powers, while simultaneously waiting for Bush to make them an offer they can't refuse.

And, in so doing, they will greatly advance their national interest. Certainly the French press is in no doubt. As far as it is concerned. Chirac has cast off the constraints of cohabitation and taken France back to its rightful place at the top table. For all his faults, he can play the world statesman convincingly, forcing France into everyone else's calculations.

Blair, by contrast, showed his cards at the outset. With the approval, no doubt. of his mandarins, he decided that the key thing was his relationship with Bush. This is, in many ways, admirable. But, for all the spin, it is difficult to see how it has made him a bigger player than Chirac.

No buyer would go into a transaction having first informed the salesman that, whatever the terms of their negotiations, he was determined to deal, The same precept should hold true in diplomacy. In Washington, as in Brussels, we have come dangerously close to contracting out our foreign policy to someone else.

Don't get me wrong: I am a great believer in the Atlantic alliance. On almost every vital question of the 20th century, our interests have coincided with those of the United States. I see no reason why this should cease to be the case. All I am saying is that we should be prepared, where necessary, to assert specifically British interests — to behave, in short, more like the French.

France is often a mercurial and infuriating ally. But she is so precisely because she approaches international co-operation on the basis of national interest. That is one of the reasons that France has done so well out of the EU, while Britain has done so badly.

You may feel that this view is outdated, that we are a medium-sized country, and that we have no choice but to combine wholeheartedly with others. But we are the fourth largest economy, and the fourth military power, on the planet. Consider this statistic: if we spent the same proportion of our GDP on defence as does Israel, we would be spending almost as much in absolute terms as the United States, while still taking about the same share of national wealth in taxation as does France. It makes you think.

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for South-east England.