What kind of welcome can France’s new head of state – its first socialist president in decades and only its second ever – expect in Washington? Le Figaro correspondent Laure Mandeville writes that this time around, no alarm bells have been ringing at the White House, but that on a range of issues having to do with Afghanistan, NATO, the euro and eurozone debt, the election of François Hollande promises some uncomfortable discussions.
For Le Figaro, Laure Mandeville starts out this way:
When [Socialist] François Mitterrand was elected in 1981, America was taken completely by surprise. The press reacted with alarm, asking whether “we could still even trust France.” In Washington, where Secretary of State Alexander Haig had a bet on Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, it too all the influence of National Security Advisor Richard Allen, and his familiarity with the nuances of Mitterrand’s past, to convince Ronald Reagan to adopt a moderate stance vis-à-vis the French head of state, who had just announced the appointment of four communist ministers.
As Richard Allen recounted to Le Figaro today, a few weeks later, Reagan could only congratulate himself on taking a moderate stance when Mitterrand asked to see him in private on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Montebello. The Frenchman offered to hand America the Farewell Dossier on a platter – the spectacular coup by the French secret service that led to the dismantling of a huge Soviet spy ring. “Reagan never developed a privileged, personal relationship with Mitterrand, but he was likely a more reliable ally than any of the Gaullist presidents,” Allen says
Thirty years later, the panic that swept America in 1981 no longer applies, despite the arrival of a socialist president. Barrack Obama was quick to call François Hollande to congratulate him on Sunday night. He also suggested bilateral talks at the White House before the G8 on May 19. But Obama is anxious to raise “difficult issues” that they will have to tackle together. The new French President will not escape contentious issues.
READ ON IN ENGLISH OR FRENCH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US