Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

[Armenian]

Sarkozy: Friend or Foe?



In my opinion, Armenians who are applauding Sarkozy's win in France because of his anti-Turkish rhetoric are being somewhat shortsighted and naive.

It is quite natural to assume that Sarkozy's J-e-w-ish roots would have helped shape his overall outlook on life and his approach to politics. It is also obvious that this man in question seems to be very fond of the criminal "Neoconservative" Kabal running the show in Washington DC. Moreover, his anti-Russian, anti-Iranian sentiments are quite pronounced within his political rhetoric. There is also a danger that he might eventually drag France into the bogus "War on Terror" as well.

Take a close look at his recent comment about Russia and America:

In an interview ahead of the May 6 runoff, Sarkozy said, "If you asked me which of the [two] countries France will have closer relations with - the United States or Russia, known to us for its Chechen war -'the U.S.' would be my answer."

After the global chaos and destruction that has been created by the bloodthirsty Kabal in Washington DC how dare this Sarkozy character complain about Russian's actions within Chechnya? Besides, informed people know that the bloody insurgency within Chechnya has been sponsored, at least in part, by European, Turkish, Israeli and Pakistani intelligence services. Nevertheless, does anyone else see how absurd of a comment this is by him, especially coming from a man that is to lead France?

As a result, I fear that his political rhetoric and his foreign policy formulations may in the longterm be actually harmful to Armenia's interests. So, let's not be surprised if in the future Sarkozy "moderates" his anti-Turkish stance - due his greater fears/paranoia over the Arab/Persian Muslim world and his very warm sentiment towards the Kabal in Washington DC.

Sarkozy or no Sarkozy Turks would have never been admitted into the European Union. Thus, in the big picture, Sarkozy's win is a potential setback for European politics, not to mention Russian, Iranian and Armenian interests.

I hope I'm wrong but only time will tell.

In related news from Moscow:

Russian analysts warily optimistic over Sarkozy win

Nicolas Sarkozy's victory in France's presidential polls Sunday is unlikely to influence the country's traditionally amicable relations with Russia, but they may lack warmth, Russian analysts said in post-election comments. Conservative Sarkozy won 53% of the vote, against 47% for Socialist Segolene Royal. Sarkozy, who served as finance and interior minister in Jacques Chirac's outgoing government, is an advocate of liberal economic reforms and tough policies on crime and immigration. He opposes further European Union expansion, but is a staunch champion of trans-Atlantic integration. His vision for France's policy regarding Russia is not immediately clear.

In an interview ahead of the May 6 runoff, Sarkozy said, "If you asked me which of the [two] countries France will have closer relations with - the United States or Russia, known to us for its Chechen war -'the U.S.' would be my answer."

Speaking to Europe 1 radio, he said that if elected France's next president, he would raise the issue with President Vladimir Putin, as "Russian democracy has progress to make."

The remarks alerted France watchers in Russia, making some predict a chill in the relations with the Kremlin, accused by human rights organizations of abuses in Chechnya, where Moscow has been intermittently waging a war against separatist militants since 1994. Leonid xxxxsky, second in charge of the international relations committee in parliament's State Duma lower house, described Sarkozy's pronouncements on Russia as "dubious."

Strategic Analysis Institute Director Alexander Konovalov, however, downplayed their possible impact on relations between the two countries: "Both Sarkozy and Royal have taken issue with Russia on human rights and European values. But we'll remain among France's major partners, as has historically been the case."

Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika think tank, said that under Sarkozy, relations will, perhaps, lack the warmth of his predecessor, Chirac.

"Unlike Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy has no close personal relations with the Russian leadership," Nikonov said. "There is no reason therefore to expect a quick rapprochement between Russia and France, especially given that Russia's relations with NATO and the European Union, of which France is part, are far from brilliant."

Chirac has been friends with Putin, and both were allied in their opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. But Sarkozy, belonging to the same Conservative UMP party as Chirac, seeks to repair the trans-Atlantic rift caused by the Iraq war, and has already signaled to President George W. Bush that Washington could rely on the friendship of France. According to International Security Center Director Alexei Arbatov, "France will be pursuing closer cooperation between the European Union and the U.S., and will support the U.S. in its increasingly aggressive, heavy handed global policies."

Bernard Owen, the head of France's Comparative Elections Study Center, whose own political science research focuses on Russia, said major changes in French-Russian relations are unlikely as "Russia is an important country and one to be reckoned with."

He put Sarkozy's comments on Chechnya down to his lack of knowledge of the real situation.

"Me personally, I think he is not informed well enough about developments in Chechnya," Owen said in a RIA Novosti interview. Senior Russian lawmakers also said French-Russian relations are unlikely to suffer under Sarkozy, but predicted his pro-American stance would make France less independent in its international policies.

"Sarkozy's victory gives reason to believe relations between Russia and France will be at least as steady, but I hope they will develop further," said the speaker of Russia's lower house, Boris Gryzlov. He is the leader of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, with which Sarkozy's Union pour un Mouvement Populaire has long-standing ties. UMP representatives attended United Russia's national congress last December, at which Gryzlov's party approved an action plan in the lead up to a legislative election set for late 2007.

In France, however, quite a few people seem concerned about where Sarkozy's tough style may leave them. His Socialist rival warned ahead of the runoff ballot that the 52-year-old hardliner would bring in a climate of brutality if elected. Indeed, France's new leader has been hugely unpopular with North African immigrants since he ordered the violent suppression of riots in the fall of 2005 when serving as interior minister.

Following Sarkozy's election this Sunday, youths from immigrant communities torched cars and clashed with police in protest. Overnight, about 35 cars were reportedly set on fire in Paris alone, and 79 people were detained for taking part in the protests. According to official French statistics, a total of 172 automobiles were set alight in the central Ile de France province.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070507/65039060.html

[Armenian]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

Sarkozy Elects Top Diplomat: A Pro-Turkish J-e-w Who Fully Supports the Illegal War Being Waged by Neocons in Iraq and Afghanistan

To thank the blind idiots in the Armenian community who were kissing his ass for a long time the newly elected French president just appointed a strongly pro-Turkish xxx as Foreign Minister of France. Time will only tell how damaging this election was for France and Western Europe in general.

These strange turn of events in Paris also makes me wonder the following: it is well known that the riots that occurred in France during the past couple of years essentially helped Sarkozy win this election. THus, I ask: Were these riots incited by the authorities (lead by Sarkozy of course) for this very purpose, namely to help elect the current leadership.

Nonetheless, the current Neocon friendly leadership has boldly emerged within the very heartland of Europe - especially at a time when Europe is desperately trying to define itself and set the foundations of its future?

This Kouchner garbage supposedly became a "humanitarian" as a result of what happened to his relatives in Auschwitz. Nevertheless, this so-called humanitarian fully supports the illegal wars currently being waged by his Washington DC based Neocon ideologues. Needless to say, as a result of the Kouchners of this world, Iraq today is the epicenter of one of the bloodiest man-made humanitarian disasters in the world. This Kouchner character also wants to increase France's role in Afghanistan conflict, clearly signaling that he would willing join the bogus "war on terror" circus orchestrated by Neocons. And last but not least, this so-called humanitarian also considers the state of Turkey to be fully worthy of being called a European nation, of course this is most probably due to Turkey's exemplary "humanitarian" record that which the humanitarian Kouchner seems to champion.

I never expected this type of a situation occurring within France, especially at a very crucial time period such at this. Even from the start, however, I somehow felt uneasy about this Sarkozy character. And I could not understand how shallow and shortsighted his Armenian supporters were being. I fear that this new political environment within Paris will in the longterm prove harmful to Armenian national interests and to the national interests of Armenia's closest regional partners, Russia and Iran.

Therefore, let's not be surprised if in the near future Sarkozy "moderates" his anti-Turkish stance. Let's not be surprised if Paris begins to actively support the attacks against Russia and Iran by Washington DC, Tel Aviv and London. And let's not be surprised if Paris willingly enters the greater Neocon agenda.

Armenian

Sarkozy’s Top Diplomat: Undiplomatic Opposite

BERNARD KOUCHNER, France’s new top diplomat, would never describe himself as diplomatic. Named as foreign minister, Mr. Kouchner is in many ways the political opposite of his new boss, President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both are pro-American, but Mr. Sarkozy is conservative while Mr. Kouchner is a man of the left. Mr. Sarkozy opposed the American invasion of Iraq, while Mr. Kouchner, unlike most of the political elite on both the right and the left here, believed that military intervention was justified to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sarkozy opposes Turkey’s entry into the European Union; Mr. Kouchner supports it.

“It’s an amazing appointment, a stunning event in French foreign policy,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and one of Mr. Kouchner’s closest friends. “He’s motivated by an antitotalitarian drive, whether he sees injustice from the left or the right. It will be very positive for U.S.-French relations because he does not come with a visceral anger towards the American ‘hyperpower.’ ”

Mr. Kouchner, a 67-year-old gastroenterologist, earned his reputation as the star of humanitarian relief by challenging authority, destroying convention, insulting opponents and making up rules along the way. “To change the law, you sometimes have to break the law,” he likes to say. “An unguided missile,” is how Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former United Nations secretary general, once described him. But Mr. Kouchner, who has served as France’s health minister and the United Nations’ administrator for Kosovo, has also been the country’s most popular politician on the left over the years.

Elegant, dapper, with movie-star looks despite his age, Mr. Kouchner is half of one of France’s leading power couples. His longtime partner, Christine Ockrent, is probably France’s best-known female television journalist. They entertain regularly from their grand duplex apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Garden; they always get the best restaurant tables. They have been tarred by their critics with the label “gauche caviar,” Champagne-and-caviar socialism at its worst. Mr. Kouchner intimately addresses women — and men — as “my dear.” His passion and confidence in speaking English help compensate for his charming but sometimes excruciating mistakes.

By naming him and three other leftists to his conservative government, Mr. Sarkozy fulfilled his promise that his tenure would be one of “openness,” while stripping the Socialist Party of one of its icons just weeks before French voters choose an entirely new Parliament. (Accepting the job of foreign minister got him drummed out of the Socialist Party on Friday.) Mr. Sarkozy is also signaling that he is serious about putting both human rights and outreach to the United States at the core of his foreign policy. Mr. Kouchner is as close as a Frenchman comes to being pro-American.

EVEN Mr. Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning relief organization Doctors Without Borders, appreciates the novelty of his appointment. “This is a bit unusual,” he confessed Friday in his first remarks at the Foreign Ministry. He added that he “would not have done it” had he not felt the conviction “to serve our country.”

Contrary to long-held Gaullist French policy, which evaluates crises through the lens of France’s national interests, Mr. Kouchner sees things through a humanitarian perspective. He was an effective early advocate of “humanitarian intervention” — the right to interfere in another country’s affairs if human rights are being abused.

Mr. Kouchner defended military intervention against Mr. Hussein on humanitarian grounds, not because Iraq might be seeking unconventional weapons. “It was a question of overthrowing an evil dictator, and it was right to intervene,” Mr. Kouchner said in 2004.

He has said that Turkey is part of Europe and deserves to join the European Union; Mr. Sarkozy has said that Turkey is part of Asia, not Europe, and should never become a member.

Mr. Kouchner appears to support the maintenance of a strong international — and French — presence in Afghanistan to bring stability to the country; Mr. Sarkozy has promised that French troops will not stay there forever.

“On Turkey, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the third world and Africa, we’re not close,” Mr. Kouchner acknowledged in a telephone interview. “I’m against his idea of selective immigration. On other issues — the Middle East, on the need for an alliance with America, on the role of France in Europe — we’re very close.”

But it is no secret that Mr. Kouchner has been restless to get back onto the global stage in a starring role, particularly after he was passed over for the job of director of the World Health Organization and as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He said he turned down the chance to head a new Ministry of Immigration and National Identity when Mr. Sarkozy floated the idea earlier this year. “I refused completely because I am against this idea,” Mr. Kouchner said in the interview.

CHARMING, outspoken, impulsive and at times egotistical, Mr. Kouchner even once thought of running for president himself. Asked in an interview in 2004 whether anyone could beat Mr. Sarkozy, he replied in English, “Me, I believe.” He added, “I am not so arrogant to say I’m serious, but I’m more popular than he is!”

But like his new boss, Mr. Kouchner is hard-charging, impatient, abrasive, media-shrewd and immune to verbal attack. “I have no recipe except one in politics: to continue, to continue, to be obstinate, to be obstinate, to never abandon an issue as long as there remains a small shred of hope,” he said. During the political campaign, the Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, largely ignored Mr. Kouchner, but Mr. Sarkozy did not. The two men talked regularly, even though Mr. Kouchner openly criticized the candidate. At one point, he called Mr. Sarkozy a “man who feels no shame,” for his courting of the extreme right. When Mr. Sarkozy said that pedophilia was most likely a genetic flaw, Mr. Kouchner said the statement was “extraordinarily dangerous, entirely irresponsible.”

Mr. Kouchner has always dismissed criticism that his publicity-grabbing techniques can be both unseemly and laughable. In the early 1990s, for example, when he was filmed wading ashore in Somalia carrying sacks of rice provided by French schoolchildren for the starving, he justified the stunt, saying, “I prefer cameras to bazookas.”

BOTH Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Kouchner in a sense are outsiders. Mr. Sarkozy, who is 15 years his junior, is the son of a Hungarian immigrant; one of his grandparents was xxxish. Mr. Kouchner’s paternal grandparents were Russian-born xxxs who escaped the pogroms by emigrating to France, but perished decades later in Auschwitz. He has said that their deaths contributed to his passion for intervention in humanitarian crises and the promotion of human rights.

“I can’t stand the fact that a man is assassinated, that a woman is abused, that a child is beaten up,” he wrote in his 1995 memoir, “What I Believe.”

“Why am I getting indignant? My grandparents died in Auschwitz, and for years no one dared or wanted to tell me. I found out.” He continued: “In a mixed family that is not religious it is even worse: you are either twice as xxxish, or half xxxish. As a result, you react like a tormented soul in the face of oppression.”

Longtime friends of Mr. Kouchner are delighted for him, but worried that his blunt-speaking, off-the-cuff style may clash with that of his new boss. “Sarkozy’s views are totally different from those of Bernard,” said Max Recamier, one of the doctors with whom Mr. Kouchner founded Doctors Without Borders. “He hesitated a lot before accepting. But what drives him is not a hunger for power but a passion for promoting justice and easing suffering in the world. And let’s face it, he’s 67 now. He’s mellowed — like a good wine.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/wo...9kouchner.html

[Armenian]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

Sarkozy to visit Azerbaijan

President of France Nikolas Sarkozy will pay an official visit to Azerbaijan. As a REGNUM correspondent informs, the French embassy has not called a certain date for arrival of the president. The French embassy said that Sarkozy’s visit will be a response to Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Paris in January 2007. The Azerbaijani president paid a three-day visit to France was paid on January 29-31. During the visit, Aliyev was received by the president, the prime minister, the Senate president, the chair of the National Assembly and other French officials.

Source: http://www.regnum.ru/english/833240.html

[Armenian]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

Sarkozy's U-turn on Franco-Arab ties



The defensive and guarded Arab reaction to the self-pronounced and reported pro-Israel and pro-America statements of Nicolas Paul Stephane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa, who was sworn in as the new President of France on May 16, as well as his J-e-w-ish connection and that of his foreign policy team, have alerted Arab capitals and public opinion to a possibly imminent break with his country's more than a five-decade old balanced approach to Arab conflicts and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular. Acting on a campaign pledge to a clean break with France's political past, Sarkozy's declared aim to change France could yet prove easier said than done, but nonetheless Sarkozy has grouped together a foreign policy team that could vindicate Arab fears; however Sarkozy's pragmatism could not but take French huge interests in the Arab world into consideration, which might still prove his Arab critics wrong.

Next month marks the fortieth anniversary of the June 5, 1967 Arab - Israeli war, which changed the face of the West Asia. France's West Asia policy made a sharp reversal soon thereafter. Franco-Israeli relations have seen their "Golden Age" in the 1950s, when France was Israel's main ally, weapons supplier and nuclear capability provider. The low point came after the 1967 war, during the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, when France imposed an almost complete arms embargo, left Israel to its strategic alliance with the United States and embarked since then on her balanced approach to the Arab - Israeli conflict. French - Arab relations were reinforced further after the Arab - Israeli war and the oil crisis of 1973.

Just three days after the shooting stopped, late President de Gaulle instructed his foreign minister to denounce Israel before the French National Assembly and the United Nations General Assembly. A month later, he said that, "we told Israel is not to start a conflict. Now, France does not recognise her conquests." In the following November he elaborated further: "Israel, having attacked, seized, in six days of combat, objectives that she wanted to attain. Now she is organising, on the territories she has taken, an occupation that cannot but involve oppression, repression, expropriation, and there has appeared against her a resistance that she, in turn, describes as terrorism."

Sarkozy is promising a 180-degree turnabout on de Gaulle's legacy. His pro-Israeli views have prompted a flurry of contacts between Arab capitals and Paris, with Arabs seeking a reassurance of continuity. President Mubarak of Egypt was so worried about a French shift that he sought a meeting to ask Sarkozy about his "Israeli bias" during his recent visit to Paris to bid farewell to his predecessor Jacque Chirac. Arab defensive reaction to his presidency was alerted by several factors.

J-e-w-ish connection

The Arab defensive reaction to his presidency was alerted by several factors, but his J-e-w-ish connection in particular was interpreted as the reason behind his pro-Israel statements. Within this context, Sarkozy's emerging team on foreign policy is being watched with concern by Arab capitals.

Sarkozy's election was hailed by Israel and J-e-w-ish organisations worldwide, including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the umbrella group of French J-e-w-ish communal organisations (CRIF), AIPAC in the United States, the Rabbinical Center of Europe, to name a few. They should, and they did, feel relieved with the new Sarkozy-led pro-Israel French administration with a strong J-e-w-ish and US connections. Sarko, as his supporters call him, has openly and repeatedly called himself a friend of Israel in good times and in bad, the Israeli French edition of the Jerusalem Post reported on May 3, quoting him as saying that "makes me an 'Atlantist,' pro-Israeli and pro-American". They hope that Sarkozy will adopt a policy more in coordination with the US and in line with that of Britain and Germany than with what they see as a traditional "politique arabe de la France" of recent decades.

In 2002, the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French J-e-w-s to immigrate en masse to Israel after a spate of anti-J-e-w attacks. Sarkozy, as interior minister, responded: "France is not a racist country. France is not an anti-Semitic country". Israelis and J-e-w-s also could still remember the reference a few years ago by French ambassador to England, Daniel Bernard, to Israel as a "xxxxty little country".

Now, Sarkozy is undoubtedly the most Israel-friendly president since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, The J-e-w-ish News Weekly of Northern California, reported on May 11. He is an admirer of the J-e-w-ish state and has warm ties with the French J-e-w-ish community. His maternal grandfather, Aron Mallah, nicknamed Benkio, was a Greek J-e-w from Salonika who migrated to France before the Second World War and converted to Catholicism but nevertheless had to hide during World War II because of his J-e-w-ish roots. In total, 57 of Sarkozy's family members were murdered by the Nazis. His wife Cecilia is also of J-e-w-ish ancestry. He is a 2003 laureate of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Humanitarian Award.

However, neither his J-e-w-ish family background nor his fervent opposition to anti-Semitism would alienate Arabs, but the family's active role in the Zionist movement certainly would alert them to a potential effect on his politics as much as would his personal Israeli friends like former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Beniko's uncle Moshe was a devoted Zionist who, in 1898 published and edited El Avenir, the leading paper of the Zionist movement in Greece at the time. His cousin, Asher, in 1912 helped guarantee the establishment of the J-e-w-ish Technion in Haifa, Palestine and in 1919 he was elected as the first President of the Zionist Federation of Greece and he headed the Zionist Council for several years; in the 1930s Asher helped J-e-w-ish immigration to and colonisation of Palestine, to which he himself immigrated in 1934. After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 another of Beniko's cousins, Peppo Mallah, became the country's first diplomatic envoy to Greece. Sarkozy says he admired his grandfather, who bequeathed to Nicolas his political convictions.

His pro-US and pro-Israel sympathies and his J-e-w-ish connection are reinforced by similar sympathies of his governing team. His close confident and Prime Minister, François Fillon's Anglo-Saxon connection is customised by his British-born wife, the first of a French head of government. His foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who made several visits to Israel and received an honorary degree from Ben-Gurion University in Beershebaat the height of the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) was born to a J-e-w-ish father and a Protestant mother; in a January 2004 interview, Kouchner lamented that the French had become "America-haters". Kouchner is also close to UMP MP and France's ambassador in Washington, Pierre Lellouche, who is Sarkozy's advisor on international issues. Levitte will head a diplomatic team in the presidential administration modelled on the US National Security Council; he is another J-e-w-ish figure in Sarkozy's foreign policy team.

The New culture minister, Christine Albanel, 51, is a former member of the board of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust. In an interview Sarkozy gave in 2004, The J-e-w-ish Journal online on May 11 quoted him as saying: "Should I remind you the visceral attachment of every J-e-w to Israel, as a second mother homeland? There is nothing outrageous about it. Every J-e-w carries within him a fear passed down through generations, and he knows that if one day he will not feel safe in his country, there will always be a place that would welcome him. And this is Israel."

How could Arabs interpret this other than being a direct encouragement of a dual loyalty and an indirect call for immigration to Israel in contradiction with his insistence on loyalty by the mostly Arab and Muslim French immigrant citizens to "French identity," for which he created the new ministry of immigration and national identity? Sarkozy visited Israel several times, but never the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. He has repeatedly said that he would not legitimise Hamas or Hizbullah by entering into dialogue with them, a statement that would politically translate into exacerbation of the Palestinian and Lebanese national divides by not recognising the democratically elected Hamas-led national unity government, thus perpetuating the siege on the Palestinians, and by blocking Hizbullah's partnership in Lebanon's decision-making.

Coordination with the US

He stunned a group of Arab ambassadors by telling them "his foreign policy priority as president would be to forge a closer relationship with Israel," The Washington Times on May 12 cited a report by The New York Times as saying. His pledged "friendship" with the US is viewed by Arabs as heralding a new unbalanced approach that will give impetus to Washington's strategic plans for the West Asia and would perpetuate the regional Arab - Israeli, Iraqi, Darfur and Lebanon-Syria conflicts in particular. His foreign minister agrees: "On … the West Asia, on the need for an alliance with America, on the role of France in Europe - we're very close," Kouchner said on record.

Sarkozy's pro-American views have added to Arab concerns that he would break with France's traditionally independent policy in their region, dashing as wishful thinking Arab hopes of an independent European approach that might develop a counter balance in resolving Arab conflicts to the US Israeli-biased approach. Sarkozy's warm relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the expected accession of British Chancellor Gordon Brown to the premiership signal the rise of a relatively pro-American trio of European leaders.

In his first speech after his election, Sarkozy warned Iran, Syria, and Libya that they could no longer play Europe off against America. Like his predecessor Chirac, Sarkozy is determined to disengage Syria from Lebanon in coordination with the US, but it will not be as "personal" as it was with Chirac, but unlike him he openly called Hizbullah a terrorist organisation, which would clear the way for the main Lebanese anti-Israel resistance group to be included in the EU list of terrorist organisations, thus bringing France closer to the US classification of Hizbullah.

His foreign minister's visit of support to Beirut at the height of fighting between the Lebanese army and a suspiciously Al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Islam group in a northern one square kilometer Palestinian refugee camp was seen by some as playing into the hands of a US strategy to exacerbate Lebanon's internal political crisis into a violent one.

US-French coordination in Lebanon and vis-à-vis Syria was unveiled following the Israeli war on Lebanon last summer, but was recently confirmed further at the UN Security Council by the joint US-British-French draft resolution to create an international tribunal for Lebanon under chapter 7 of the United Nation Charter. Sarkozy is expected to be more aggressive as he is also gearing towards more coordination with Washington in the Sudanese region of Darfur; he has called for "urgent" action there, warning that Khartoum would be made to face international justice for its actions. Kouchner, his maverick top diplomat, considers the Sudan's war-torn region his top priority. On May 9, the US State Department said it wants the new elected French president to play an important role in Darfur peacekeeping mission, particularly in the no-fly zone.

On Iraq, Sarkozy's choice of Kouchner, the co-founder of the Nobel Prize winner "Doctors Without Borders," as his foreign minister could send a message to Arabs that priority will go to "humanitarianism" in foreign policy, contrary to the long-held Gaullist French policy, which evaluates crises through the lens of France's national interests. Kouchner is famous for developing the theory of "humanitarian intervention" to justify international military adventures according to which he believes that the US-led invasion was justified to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Sarkozy's declared hopes to forge closer ties with the NATO could mean a greater role for France in training the new Iraqi police and army based on quotas already set by NATO. It could also mean greater involvement in the Arab section of the alliance's southern flank in Lebanon, where French peacekeepers already play a leading role.

On the humanitarian crises in the occupied Palestinian territories and Iraq, Sarkozy's top diplomat is silently passive, more in line with the US deafening silence, revealing a politically selective approach in his humanitarian concerns that took him to Africa, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Darfur and even led him to endorse a boycott of the Olympic Games in Peking in order to force China to break its trade relations with Sudan on Darfur. Sarkozy's attitude and planned policies for alien immigrants have also a lot in common with those of US President George W Bush, and will undoubtedly be watched as a test case to judge his cultural and political approach to Arabs and Muslims in general. His view of "radical Islamists" could place him in line with US-led world war on "Islamic terrorism". Leading British writer on the West Asia, Patrick Seale, on April 27 quoted him as saying: "Algeria was very brave to interrupt the democratic process. If the army had not acted, one could have had a Taliban regime in Algeria".

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking forward to visiting France and having cooperation with her new French counterpart, the State Department said last week. "There's a lot on the table for the US and France in terms of being able to address issues of mutual concern around the globe, whether that's Iran or the West Asia or dealing with poverty alleviation in Africa or climate change," State Department spokesman Sean McComack told a news briefing...

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryP...3-cd3699b395e4

[Lucin]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

LOL, he seems to be consoling Turks.

France's Sarkozy sends envoy to Turkey


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched an envoy to Ankara last weekend to try to calm tensions over his adamant opposition to Turkey entering the European Union, Le Figaro newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The paper also said Sarkozy would not prevent the EU next month opening three new policy "chapters" in Turkey's membership negotiations because he has other priorities at present.

Sarkozy's top diplomatic adviser, Jean-David Levitte, a former French ambassador to Washington, visited Ankara on Sunday to explain France's position, Le Figaro said.

"It is a question of finding a way forward which does not break Europe- or Franco-Turkish relations in two," an unnamed presidential official was quoted as saying.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official confirmed the Ankara talks had taken place. "Bilateral and regional issues were discussed," the official said, declining to give more details.

Since taking office earlier this month, Sarkozy has repeated his long-standing opposition to Turkey's EU membership bid. But he has also indicated he is in no hurry to confront the issue.

Sarkozy told a news conference on Monday that Turkey would not move to the top of the EU agenda until December. His immediate priority was to find a deal on institutional reform at a June summit of EU leaders, he said.

Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan phoned Sarkozy to congratulate him on his election victory and to suggest they work directly with each other, not via the media.

Commenting on Levitte's visit, a French diplomat in Ankara said: "The fact this visit took place so soon after the telephone call shows the importance France attaches to preserving a direct dialogue and to French-Turkish relations." [...]

Source:http://www.reuters.com/article/world...48253020070529

[Armenian]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

Jean David Levitte



Defender of France

J-ewishjournal.com, by Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief

Jean David Levitte, France’s ambassador to the United States, is arguably its most effective defender against charges of anti-Semitism, in no small part because he himself is J-e-w-ish. I met Levitte at the Beverly Hills residence of the French consul general, Phillipe Larrieu. It’s a sprawling, modernist home near the Beverly Hills Hotel, the walls lined with contemporary art, the small streetside drawing room furnished in ... French Regency. Silver coffee service and a plate of petits fours appear.

Levitte, 60, is youthful, patient and polished. He is used to contradicting accusations that France is anti-Semitic, in no small part because of all the anti-Semitism French J-e-w-s have suffered over the past few years. The worst incident occurred just last February, when kidnappers tortured and killed 23-year-old Ilan Halimi, taunting his parents with anti-Semitic slurs during phone calls. The heinous crime led to an uptick in French J-e-w-ish immigration to Israel, according to the J-e-w-ish Agency, and renewed concern that French J-e-wry’s days were numbered.

I began my interview by mentioning that exactly a year ago, I traveled to Paris to interview French officials and J-e-w-ish leaders, all of whom agreed the government had been taking anti-Semitic attacks seriously and that the frequency and severity were in decline. This is what I reported, so my first question to the ambassador was, in so many words: Am I a chump? Levitte said no. French anti-Semitism continues to be a problem among a disaffected Muslim population egged on by extremist imans, exposed to anti-Israel Arab media and frustrated by its status at the fringes of French society. “If we have a problem with racism,” he said, “it is not anti-Semitism, it is anti-Arab.”

Anti-Semitic attacks, he said — reinforcing what the philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy told our reporter Marc Ballon (see Page 16) — are the smoke from the Israeli-Palestinian fire. “The problem is the connection to the Middle East,” Levitte told me. Levitte reiterated what I learned last year. The French government has responded to anti-Semitic acts with forthrightness: harsher penalties, better coordination with prosecutors, widespread educational reforms, a crackdown on hate-spewing Iranian and Arab media and ongoing public statements from the president on down.

“When a J-e-w is attacked in France,” said President Jacques Chirac on Nov. 17, 2003, “it is an attack against the whole of France.”

These steps all contributed to a 48 percent decline in anti-Semitic acts in the first six months of 2005. Then came the brutal Halimi murder, which obliterated these achievements in the public eye. Halimi’s parents claimed the French police botched the investigation by, in part, refusing to see it as anti-Semitic in nature. Initial statements by government officials downplayed the role J-e-w-hatred might have played.

But to Levitte, the official and popular reaction only supports his contention that France is intolerant of intolerance. Tens of thousands of citoyens took to the streets of Paris to express their outrage at the murder. French officials quickly identified 21 suspects. Fourteen are under arrest and 11 are being charged with kidnapping and murder with the aggravating circumstance of anti-Semitism. The perpetrators, Levitte pointed out, were not all Muslim. They were inhabitants of the often lawless, neglected neighborhoods surrounding Paris and other large cities. (In the French movie, “La Haine,” (“Hate”), the youthful criminal gang from one Parisian slum includes a J-e-w. “Hate,” in fact, released in 1995, is a cinematic tarot card of what would be in store for France). Many of France’s 10 percent Muslim population live in these banlieux. Most are law-abiding and loyal.

“The problem is the 10 percent who are not well-integrated,” Levitte said. He pointed out that the racial unrest that broke out in Paris this winter (not to be confused with the anti-labor law reform riots of the spring) were not in the “new cities” with large Muslim populations, There were no riots in Marseilles, for example, whose Algerian population is second only to that of Algiers. The rioters also did not take to the streets waving Algerian flags. What they wanted was not separation but belonging.

“Islam is not the demand of these teenagers,” said the ambassador. “They feel excluded.”

Levitte reiterated his government’s approach to the problem: better schools, stricter law enforcement, more work incentives and the creation of tax exempt zones to spur business investment in the worst areas. Nevertheless, Levitte acknowledged, isolated attacks against J-e-w-s have, “triggered feelings of insecurity” among the country’s 600,000 J-e-ws. But Levitte said the claims of a French J-e-w-ish exodus to Israel are overstated. Many J-e-w-s will buy apartments or homes in Israel, but they remain in France. Those who go for good, he said, often come back. Meanwhile, Israelis themselves seem to harbor less ill will toward the French than American J-e-w-s. France is the No. 1 tourist destination among Israelis.

And the feeling appears to be mutual. Levitte quoted (correctly) a 2005 poll by the Israeli newspaper, Ma’ariv, which asked citizens in more than 12 countries their feelings about J-e-w-s. The Dutch came in first, at 85 percent, and France placed second, with 82 percent of French citizens checking off “positive feelings” about J-e-w-s. (The United States scored fifth at 77 percent, and Jordan and Lebanon tied for last, at 0 percent). Indeed, for Levitte, the (wine) glass of French J-e-w-ry is perennially half full: The Dreyfuss Affair? It showed how the republic stood up to an insidious cabal of anti-Semitic army officers.

“Today it is Dreyfuss who is our hero, not them,” Levitte said.

The Holocaust? Seventy-five percent of the nation’s J-e-w-s were saved, and many Frenchmen risked their lives to save them. The government of Israel has recognized 2,500 of them with the distinction of “Righteous Among the Nations.”

Levitte’s own grandparents were sent to Auschwitz. His father and uncle joined the resistance, and his father later became the leader of the American J-e-w-ish Committee in France for 30 years.

“We will not accept anti-Semitism in France,” the ambassador said, with finality. “We will fight this disease.”

Source: http://www.xxxishjournal.com/home/print.php?id=15773

[Mos]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

can really say for sure now, but we all know for sure Chirac was a big friend with us and hopefully Sarkozy will show the same friendship to us

[Otto3]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

go cuddle together. sarkozy is our friend. he is gonna save us from EU

[Siamanto]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

go cuddle together. sarkozy is our friend. he is gonna save us from EU

Blame it on the rain? It is not Sarkozy but your medieval mindset of a Central Asian thief, your uncivilized manners, your barbarian ways that will "save you from [the] EU."
No need to look for excuses; there's no place for once thieves, now beggars sly provincials in the EU.

[Siamanto]

Re: Sarkozy - Friend or Foe?

can really say for sure now, but we all know for sure Chirac was a big friend with us and hopefully Sarkozy will show the same friendship to us

Mos, Yes, it is true that it's hard to predict the future dynamics of political games; but, Sarkozy is more of a friend than Chirac was when first elected. I would not worry much! Please keep in mind that, at times, our friend "Armenian" has a certain taste for what may be - and many would call - a "Conspiracy Theory."