French chivalry is turning chauvinistic! What made President Jacques Chirac drop his recent bombshell? Was it part of the center-right government’s new chicanery or a sense of bravado?
Something obviously has rattled the French president, and very strongly indeed!
At first one thought the 73-year-old French leader was perhaps turning senile. Then again the remarks could have been made in a moment of inebriation. But no, the president was sober and had made the threat of nuclear deterrence while visiting the country’s main nuclear submarine base in the northwestern region of Brittany last week.
For the first time Chirac had raised the threat of a nuclear strike on any state that launched terrorist attacks against France. French doctrine of nuclear deterrence had been extended to protect the country’s “strategic supplies“-- taken to mean oil--, he said.
“Leaders of any state that use terrorist means against us, as well as envisaging to use WMDs would expose themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our behalf, which could be conventional and also of another nature,“ the president said, without mentioning any country that France sees as a threat to its national interests.
This has led to analysts of various hues jumping to their own conclusions that Paris sees Iran and some of the Arab states as a danger, at a time when the Islamic Republic’s nuclear issue is in the global spotlight with the US desperately trying to drag it to the UN Security Council for sanctions and Tehran rightly refusing to submit to the dictates of the West on its nuclear rights.
Surprisingly, international condemnation of Chirac’s irresponsible remarks has been subdued, unlike a few months back when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his anti-Israel remarks and practically the entire western world verbally bombarded the Islamic leadership, in a wholly unfair manner.
France is a member of the elitist nuclear club and Chirac’s remarks should have drawn a great deal of flak from the global community. But it appears that when western leaders cross international norms of behavior, it becomes inconsequential or justified.
Chirac’s remarks should partly be seen in light of his leadership failures on the domestic front or in the context of the “deep national malaise“ and “identity crisis“ that France faces, as the president himself said, following the civil unrest and race riots that rocked the country last November.
His popularity is on the decline and the two-week spell of racism and rebellion by disillusioned Arab and African sections of the population, who were also joined by lower-income white youth, has done nothing to boost his government’s ratings.
The rioting followed by declaration of a state of emergency for three months till mid-February has given the government more policing tools and unpopularity.
His interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s handling of the incidents also added fuel to the fire after the racist language he used against the protesters.
As a rule when political leaders cannot deliver on the home front they turn to bombastic slogans for hyperbolic effect, so as to rally public support behind them.
It must be remembered that France is holding presidential elections in 2007 and the opposition socialist and leftists have already accused the government of being in disarray over its poor record in office.