For the moment, François Hollande is one of the luckiest politicians in the history of the Fifth Republic. It remains to be seen whether he may turn out to be one the most skillful.
The UN mandate to achieve a political solution that will afford Western Sahara its long denied right to self-determination is a farce and everyone knows it.
As he approaches four years at the helm of France and of France’s foreign policy, three things come to mind with respect to an evaluation of Nicolas Sarkozy’s foreign policy. His ambition remains unchecked; he remains unceasingly on the top of his dossier; and he has calmed down somewhat, not only in his gesticulations and verbal excesses, but also in terms of what he expects to get out of foreign leader.
Kroslak contests that France was not only involved in events through passivity, but actually enabled the genocide through its support for the Hutu regime before, during and after the killing. Overall, this study represents an estimable and rigorously researched contribution to the subject, though, as this essay will unearth, there are some problematic elements to the book.
From the beginning of the twentieth century France’s foreign and defence policy has been impaled on the horns of a dilemma: whether to seek a European or a transatlantic solution to her security problems. Since coming to power in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy appears to wish to embrace both routes in equal measure. If French history is anything to go by he may not be able to sustain that position for long.
The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly brought a change in the style of French foreign policy, but has it altered the substance? The answer, I will argue, is a qualified yes, not least because it is characteristic of the new French president to blend style and substance until the two become indistinguishable.
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