WHY THE FRENCH BACK SOVEREIGNTY FOR IRAQUIS
by JeanBenoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow

International Herald Tribune
October 14, 2003

MONTREAL The latest United Nations meeting on Iraq has sparked another wave of France-bashing in the United States. The better-informed argue that the French are acting out of self-interest. The less-informed accuse the French of trying to thwart U.S. plans in Iraq. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Yet one thing is certain: France's stance on Iraq is more the product of its own experience and history than rivalry with the United States.

In the events leading up to the war in Iraq, the French disagreement with the United States was over the means being taken to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction, not the end in itself. In the present controversy over rebuilding Iraq, it is again the means that France is questioning. Americans may wonder why the means are so important to the French.

The answer is in history. Occupation is a sore spot for the French.

When President Jacques Chirac of France argues that Iraqi sovereignty should be re-established as quickly as possible, his position is at least partly the product of France's own experience as an occupied country during World War II. After its humiliating defeat by Germany in May and June 1940, France was occupied for four years before the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944.

When the Allies liberated France from German occupation, their intention was not to give France back to the French. Instead, they planned to install an Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory, or Amgot. This scheme for postwar transition would give Allies control over currency, transport, the appointment of civil servants and war tribunals in formerly occupied countries. They assumed that the French would accept Amgot, given the shape the country was in. When the liberators landed, the paper money had already been printed.

But while Belgium and the Netherlands were put under Amgot, France never accepted it. General Charles de Gaulle, who led the Resistance, suspected that even though they were allies, the United States and Britain would use Amgot to force their values and customs on France. He also knew that after being occupied for four years, the French would never accept anything resembling another occupation, even if in the name of aid and reconstruction.

So eight days after D-Day, De Gaulle returned to France as head of a self-declared provisional government against the will of the Allies and began appointing his own government officials in liberated areas. He demanded that the Allies answer to civilian power in liberated areas. By mid-August, the Allies realized they wouldn't be able to apply the Amgot with French cooperation, so they dropped it.

France was the only German-occupied country of Western Europe that cleared up the mess of the war on its own. It might not seem like a comparable situation to what Iraq is facing, but it's worth recalling that after the war the French economy had shrunk 80 percent, the country was on the brink of civil war and had no democratic institutions. And still, France showed the United States the limits of American postwar hegemony, and French capacity to meet the challenge.

There's no doubt that De Gaulle's stance in 1944 was motivated by pride. And national pride certainly continues to shape France's stance on Iraq. But it would be narcissistic of Americans to think that pride is directly exclusively at them. Chirac can certainly read the same hurt pride in the Iraqi people that the French experienced. No wonder he persists in arguing for the re-establishment of Iraqi sovereignty, even if Iraq doesn't have a constitution or elected representatives.

In France's experience of liberation, the exercise of sovereignty came first, then reconstruction, a new constitution and elections. De Gaulle took charge of postwar France without an elected mandate. He was an authoritarian leader, but he got results. Using autocratic means, De Gaulle averted the threat of civil war and kept the Communist resistance at bay. Two years after the war ended, France had a new constitution and held elections, though it took the French 15 more years to stabilize their democratic institutions.

Since the Iraqi crisis began, many Americans have criticized the French for not showing gratitude to the United States for having liberated them from German occupation. This is nonsense. France is full of memorials commemorating the sacrifices of Allied soldiers during the Liberation.

The French are suspicious of any country they see pushing the "gratitude" button to further their own interests. To this day, the French resent the fact that the U.S. government, in 1948, attached conditions to the Marshall Plan aid, such as allowing American movies to circulate in France.

Given France's history, it should come as no surprise that the French are pushing to re-establish Iraqi sovereignty. What's surprising is that Americans think it's all about them.

The writers are Montreal-based journalists and authors of "Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong."

Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune