Sarkozy's Devalued "Diplomacy of Values"

During last year's presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy made a lot of noise about the new course he intended to steer; a course based on a "diplomacy of values". Since his election, however, the credibility of his concept has been eroded by a series of events. A commentary by Michaela Wiegel

France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, demonstrated an astonishing dilettantism in his dealings with Libya's Brother Leader of the Revolution, Moammar Gadhafi . He is, of course, perfectly entitled to act as France's most senior sales representative and to do business with the desert dictator – and Sarkozy is certainly not the first European leader to run to Gadhafi, chequebook in hand, since the lifting of the embargo against Libya; Blair, Schröder, and Prodi all got there before him.

However, what is disturbing about his behaviour is the way that he has allowed the boundaries between democrats and despots to be blurred. Sarkozy courted Gadhafi as if his guest were an elder statesman and not a former terrorist paymaster. Protocol did not oblige the French president to grant the capricious guest's every wish, yet he did so. Every single time the values and traditions of the Republic should have been defended, Sarkozy caved in.

Human rights? Not an issue!

It all began with the rather hilarious episode of the Bedouin-style tent near the Elysée palace and continued with Sarkozy's decision not to comment on Gadhafi's offensive remarks about the way immigrants are treated in France. Sarkozy even tolerated being embarrassed by the Libyan leader on French television: Gadhafi claimed not to have discussed the issue of human rights with Sarkozy just moments after the president had said that they had.

The Brother Leader's unpredictability seemed to paralyze Sarkozy, who wasted his energy defending his state visitor instead of establishing clear boundaries that his guest should not cross. Moreover, the French president's attempt to limit damage by demonstratively inviting the families of the victims of the Libyan bomb attack on the French UTA aircraft to the Elysée Palace came very late in the day.

Doubt has been cast on Sarkozy's credibility as the "president of human rights". Within the space of a week, the president has eroded faith in the foreign policy doctrine he spent months promoting. Never again, he had said, should France effect compromises with dictators, "even if they are friends of France."

Against relativism?

The aim of this break with his predecessor's method of diplomacy was to raise the status of human rights and make it the guiding principle for all of France's foreign policy decisions. Sarkozy roundly rejected the notion of "cultural relativism", which considers some peoples unsuitable for democracy.

In the run-up to last year's presidential elections, he was not afraid to refer to developments in Russia as "worrying" and to call on China to allow "questions about the respect of the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly". He also referred to cronyism in former African colonies as "networks from another age" that should be abolished.

Since taking office, however, Sarkozy has spent more time using the international stage for front page-grabbing rescue operations than for his diplomacy of values. He shaped his image as a man with foreign policy at heart by "liberating" Bulgarian nurses from a Libyan prison and by flying home French journalists and Spanish stewardesses from Chad in his presidential jet.

If everything goes according to plan, Sarkozy will rescue the French-Columbian Ingrid Betancourt from the jungle by Christmas. High-profile rescue operations of this kind are smoke screens that hide the fact that the president has sacrificed his "diplomacy of values" on the altar of a business pragmatism that avoids all confrontation about democratic principles.

Lowering democratic standards

No-one forced Sarkozy to flatter Russia's President Putin by sending him over-hasty congratulations on his election victory. No-one stopped him showing solidarity with the American president and the German chancellor on the issue of Tibet; he chose not to do so. He received Venezuela's President Chávez without once distancing himself from his guest's pro-Iranian tirades. Moreover, like his predecessor, he waited upon Africa's oldest potentate, President Bongo, in Gabon.

He tolerated the anti-Semitic attacks of an Algerian minister, words from which the Algerian president only half-heartedly distanced himself. Wherever he goes, Sarkozy lowers the bar for democratic standards. It is now so low that even heads of state like Bouteflika can jump over it with ease. Sarkozy does not hope that the Mediterranean Union will promote the principles of the rule of law and democracy in the Maghreb, but that it will facilitate trade.

It must be said that the reason for Sarkozy's return to the traditional foreign policy of the Fifth Republic is not the much cited "arrogance" of the president; his concessions to the leaders of states that are rich in oil and raw materials would appear to be the result of a lack of faith in the competitiveness of France's foreign trade.

Sarkozy subscribes to the dirigistic belief that companies cannot do business without him. In short, his foreign policy is much more deeply rooted in traditional French foreign policy than he had the electorate believe during his presidential campaign.

Michaela Wiegel

Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan

Qantara.de

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