Arab policy of France under Sarkozy and the Arab Spring 2010

Arab policy of France under Sarkozy and the Arab Spring 2010

Introduction

The democratic maelstrom engulfing the Arab countries in the first months of 2011 has revealed to the world and the European Union alike the bankruptcy of Europe's strategy towards the region. The continent's political leadership shares with the United States an overriding obsession with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, embodied variously by Osama bin Laden and by the prospect of mass immigration from the southern Mediterranean.

The failure here is not merely intellectual and moral, but practical: for Europe's inability to foresee or champion the Arab peoples' deep urge for freedom means that they have seen their closest “friends” overthrown and their policies of decades blown apart. Instead of being at the forefront of support for the changes, Europe is searching in confusion for a new direction among them. (Zhang and Rao 2010)

It is all the more regrettable as the Arab democratic movement is driven by values and technologies (from human rights to the internet) that the west has sought to project as instruments of freedom. But rather than being identified with these achievements, Europe's association with the Arab uprisings is more via the business and arms deals it has conducted with the region's dictatorships - and indeed the unsavoury behaviour of some politicians. The ties that bind France's close historical and political links with the middle east mean that it tends in this context to receive especial scrutiny.

At the same time, there has already been a great retreat from past engagements: the days when the region was a primary concern for French leaders (Charlemagne in the 8th century, Francis I in the 16th, Napoleon in the 18th) have long gone; even under the fifth republic, the line from Charles de Gaulle's Algerian policy and Jacques Chirac's opposition to the US invasion of Iraq has reached a point where for Nicolas Sarkozy the Arab world is a mere appendage to his domestic (if not electoral) policy.

The absence here is not one of a long-gone “grandeur” but of any semblance of long-term strategic thinking. When “Sarko” was elected president in 2007, he had spent five years as interior minister building the image of a hardline opponent of crime and immigration (both areas linked, and both identified with people of Muslim origin). This law-and-order focus was then transferred to his foreign policy. (Horn 2010)

His main goal in relation to north Africa was to stop immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean reaching French territory; his focus with regard to Gulf states was to seek immediate financial rewards for French business. His key partners were Morocco's king, Egypt's now-deposed president Hosni Mubarak (who after resigning was lauded for his “courage” by prime minister François Fillon), and Tunisia's ex-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (whose success in upholding “freedoms” in his country was praised by Sarkozy during an official visit in 2008). The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - still clawing on to power - was also welcomed and ...