The bitter standoff between the Bush administration and three longtime European allies over Iraq war plans continued for a third day Wednesday, as France, Germany and Belgium rejected the United States’ scaled-down request that NATO prepare to defend Turkey from an attack by Saddam Hussein.
The argument is largely symbolic, and the U.S. has promised to bolster Turkish defenses without the blessing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if necessary. But the division over Iraq is so stark and so deep that some analysts say it could precipitate the rise of a new world order in which Europe acts as an independent power to check and contain the U.S.
Stresses in the alliance have been growing since last fall, when European leaders and Bush administration moderates prevailed in getting the U.S. to take its case against Iraq to the United Nations. The latest conflict, however, is widely seen as the worst in the 53-year history of NATO and a defining moment in the post-Cold War era.
Europe and the U.S. have weathered past conflicts, and no one expects the alliance to end anytime soon. For now, European governments remain divided on the war. But grassroots opposition to the war is so strong that it is endangering leaders who back the U.S. effort — British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for instance, and Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar. And in the longer term, some analysts say, opposition to the U.S. as a solo superpower could create favorable conditions for a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis that would reshape global relations for years to come.
“For a long time, only France was proposing to use the European Union as a counterweight to the United States,” says Georgetown University professor Charles Kupchan, who served as a foreign policy advisor in the Clinton administration. “Today, that idea has been adopted by virtually everyone … This generation [of Europeans] believes it’s important to have a European voice on the global stage.”
And, Kupchan warns, “if America is perceived less and less as a munificent power, and more and more as a predatory power, the risks of ‘hard’ competition will increase.”
The immediate crisis was provoked Monday, when the three countries — with strong backing from Russia — charged that the U.S. move on Turkey’s behalf was designed to undermine peace efforts. It has been exacerbated by a new French-led effort to triple the number of weapons inspectors in Iraq and, according to some reports, to put peace-keeping troops in the country. The argument has featured an unusual display of public acrimony among leaders whose countries have been allied since the end of World War II.
“It’s clear that if NATO had accepted the American demands, we would already have entered a logic of war without a U.N. mandate,” Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt declared on Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell answered that the decision by France, Germany and Belgium to veto NATO deployment in Turkey was “inexcusable,” and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the opposition a “disgrace.”
To many in Europe, the Bush administration seems to care little — or not at all — if it is perceived as a Wild West Lone Ranger who has morphed into an insensitive 21st century hyper-power. In fact, many signals suggest that the U.S. recognizes the divisions within modern Europe and will not hesitate to exploit them.
Emerging victorious from the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and galvanized into action by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has made clear that it will act unilaterally and preemptively, if need be, to protect and advance American interests. But from the European grass roots to its halls of power, that position has frightened and incensed those who believe that working within multilateral governing bodies like the United Nations or the European Union is essential to resolving global disputes.
Robert Kagan, a journalist, author and former U.S. diplomat, makes the case that U.S.-Europe relations are dictated by one fundamental principle: Europeans, he argues in his new book “Of Paradise and Power,” are guided by the ideal of perpetual peace, which implies a desire to settle disputes not by military power but by law, consensual politics, negotiation and cooperation. The United States, on the other hand, sees a chaotic, more Hobbesian world, in which it imposes a liberal order by the threat — and sometimes by the use — of blunt force. Europe may indeed want a more multilateral world, Kagan says, but isn’t attempting to create a “countervailing power.”
Conservative pundits in the U.S. have generally embraced that view; so has much of the Bush administration, no doubt reinforced by the Republicans’ midterm electoral sweep. But that means they’ve failed to see, or have ignored, the desire of a growing segment of Western European society to break from the U.S. sphere of influence.
On issues ranging from the death penalty to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, from the creation of the International Criminal Court to the imminent invasion of Iraq, the European establishment is at odds with Washington. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have been marching through the streets of European cities in a popular upwelling against a new war with Iraq — the most visible manifestation of a massive grassroots phenomenon that has been gaining momentum. European leaders, no matter what their views on Iraq, are increasingly concerned that they are being perceived by a new generation of constituents as subordinated to U.S. imperatives.
Concerned about their own loss of international clout and fearful of an eroding political base at home, European leaders like German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have pulled away from the superpower that helped restore Europe after World War II and protected the continent during the Cold War. France and many of the other core E.U. states have begun to radically rethink their military dependence on the United States and their commitment to NATO as the organization best suited to defend Europe. That revolutionary notion, while probably latent even before the election of George W. Bush, has gained widespread acceptance in recent months.
In September, France officially declared itself “the defining power” behind the yet-to-be-created European Rapid Reaction Force (it will provide 20 percent of the funding). The European force would be able to mobilize 60,000 troops, hundreds of fighter jets, and dozens of battleships. The French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, the only one of its class in Europe, would serve as an operational and logistical platform.
In November, France used its position as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to leverage the U.S. into acceptance of Resolution 1441. The resolution established a two-step process for any military action against Iraq, though the two sides disagree over whether a second vote by the council is ultimately needed.
French historian Patrice Higonnet, now a Harvard professor, has never been known for anti-American views. But in a Op-Ed piece published recently in the left-leaning French daily Liberation, he expressed a withering frustration with the Bush administration and suggested Europe had no choice but to step out of the U.S. sphere. “Europe, sooner or later, will have to separate from this new America,” he wrote. “It would be best to do it audaciously, firmly, and with dignity.”
Failure to do so, he suggested, meant that France must “collaborate” with a “gun-toting, arrogant, imperial, racist, opportunistic, politically manipulative, conspiratorial” United States epitomized by the Bush administration.
But while the confrontational methods of the Bush administration have squandered much, if not all, of the sympathy engendered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there is still no universal opposition to a U.S.-led war against Iraq, even in France. Instead, many critics expressly oppose only a war dictated by the United States outside the bounds of the United Nations. Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of the prestigious newspaper Le Monde, has argued that the “Bush factor” is merely contextual and shouldn’t erase the long history of cooperation between France and the United States.
“We cannot remain prisoners of the ‘war-antiwar’ dilemma,” he wrote in an editorial last week. “And for that to occur, we must rise above a simplistic negative reaction to the American attitude. That’s the basic problem of Europe in general, and France in particular. What is the strategic doctrine the Europeans would oppose to the preventive war America is calling for?”
The Franco-German plan of beefing up inspections, while giving inspectors more time to determine whether Iraq actually possesses weapons of mass destruction, seems to answer that question. Unlike Germany, France has never said it opposed a war on principle, and there has been no effort by any mainstream media outlet or politician to paint Saddam Hussein in anything but a negative light.
But the United States, pushing an urgent timetable for war, seems uninterested in such subtleties. If France and Germany will not support the coalition, White House hawks suggest, then the U.S. will isolate them and undermine their heavyweight status within the E.U. by turning to other European allies. The eight-nation declaration of support for the Euro-U.S. bond is seen as illustrative of this strategy — and has made French President Jacques Chirac furious. He considered the statement a machination of the Bush administration, and a personal affront.
“Chirac thought he could well have signed that letter, as it did not explicitly mention war,” a source close to the French leader told Salon. “He wasn’t consulted and felt the administration was deliberately attempting to isolate France. He was not amused.”
White House hawks did not seem especially concerned about his pique. Richard Perle, interviewed Sunday night on CNN, stated that “overreaching by France” and “German pacifism” would lead to a strengthening of U.S. ties with other European countries that are “unsatisfied” with the Franco-German tandem — and particularly with the new Eastern bloc members of NATO. Currently, the U.S. has the backing of the U.K., Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Within Europe, there has always existed a split between nations who think of European unity basically in terms of the traditional transatlantic alliance with the United States, and the federalists who want to increase the degree of European unity as well as the degree of autonomy with regard to America. Traditionally, the balance has been in favor of the federalist faction, but with the E.U. spreading eastward, the balance could tip in favor of the “Atlantists,” who have yet to adhere to the concept of strong Europe independent from the United States. The Eastern European nations look to America for leadership rather than to France or Germany.
The Bush administration seems to be assuming that the divisions in Europe will grow deeper before they get begin to close. The letter signed by the “European 8″ in favor of strong cooperation with Washington could undermine the development of the E.U. as a political entity. The new European constitution will call, in particular, for the election of a European foreign minister who will present a “common position” on issues of diplomacy and defense, based on a majority vote. But with countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic now E.U. members or about to become E.U. members, that prospect seems increasingly illusory. The Franco-German tandem is going to find it more challenging to mold the E.U. into a more federalist entity with a coherent foreign policy and an independent military.
“It’s going to take a while for these countries to feel part of the European family, and not Euro-Atlantic,” one French diplomat conceded in an interview.
One result of the emerging split within Europe could be the consolidation of an axis among Bonn, Paris, and Moscow. If that were a reliable alliance, it would exert a powerful gravity on the rest of Europe, perhaps extending all the way to China. Such a coalition would prove a formidable challenge to any U.S. administration.
In the near term, however, conditions within the alliance will be volatile, with the scales tipping tentatively toward Europe. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has called on Europe, and France in particular, to start playing a bigger role in the Middle East. That could breed more conflict with the U.S., which is generally more pro-Israel than Europe. Saudi Arabia this month signaled that it wants U.S. troops out after the Iraq campaign is completed. Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., announced during a trip to Europe last Friday that U.S. troops stationed in Germany would probably be deployed elsewhere, perhaps permanently.
The major problem with the current White House gambit is that popular opposition to a U.S.-led strike against Iraq outside the aegis of a new U.N. resolution has become overwhelming in virtually all of Western Europe. In Great Britain, Spain and Italy, opposition fluctuates between 77 percent and 98 percent. Saturday’s scheduled antiwar demonstrations, which observers predict will dwarf anything previously seen in Europe, are likely to provide Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with the strongest indication yet that granting unconditional support to America will likely have significant long-term political ramifications.
Within his own Labour Party, Tony Blair is facing potentially crippling opposition over his policy of open support for the United States. Two high-ranking officials from his government have threatened to resign if the Blair goes to war without a second U.N. resolution. Clare Short, the International Development secretary, has stated that waging war without another resolution would be unacceptable.
According to Hans-Ulrich Joerges, a prominent German political analyst, Chancellor Schroeder likewise sees popular revolt as the force behind Europe’s declaration of independence. This, Joerges says, is Schroeder’s hope: “The most important allies, Tony Blair included, spurn the United States because people would otherwise turn their backs on them. The conflict becomes the birthing hour of European unity. NATO and the United Nations are democratized. The Old Continent becomes a world power.”
Because of financial considerations and internal divisions, it is doubtful that Europe will become a powerhouse anytime soon. France’s military ambitions are already creating a huge national deficit, putting it at odds with official E.U. dictates to achieve a balanced budget by 2004. Whether or not the present crisis is resolved, though, George Bush’s brand of power politics has clearly convinced much of Europe that it must set off on a different course, however uncertain.
Here’s a startling news item: “The Intouchables,” a lively if largely predictable Parisian comedy about a wealthy quadriplegic and his ne’er-do-well immigrant caretaker, has become the biggest international success in the history of French cinema. Indeed, according to some sources — and these things are notoriously difficult to measure on a global and historical scale — “The Intouchables” is now the biggest non-Anglophone film of all time, with a worldwide gross approaching $300 million.
But beyond the business headlines, what’s really fascinating about “The Intouchables” is the way it exposes the gulf in racial attitudes between France and the United States, along with another gulf that’s just as wide, the one that has film critics and cinephiles on one side and popular audiences on the other. Viewers in numerous countries have eagerly devoured this feel-good fable about two men of different races and classes who forge an improbable friendship (dubbed by some wags “Driving Monsieur Daisy”). While the audience for foreign-language film is inherently limited in America, there’s no reason to believe it won’t do well here also. At the same time, heated transatlantic debate has erupted over whether “The Intouchables” traffics in offensive racial stereotypes, with Variety critic Jay Weissberg writing an uncharacteristically angry review that accused the film of “Uncle Tom racism” and compared the Senegalese caretaker character to a “performing monkey.”
When Harvey Weinstein first acquired “The Intouchables” in the wake of its smash success in France, he clearly imagined another dark-horse Oscar contender, in the wake of “The Artist.” The film has racked up audience awards at film festival after film festival, and currently stands at No. 93 on IMDb’s user-generated “Top 250″ list. Omar Sy, the charismatic Afro-French actor who plays Driss, the caretaker, won this year’s César award (the French Oscar equivalent) for best actor, beating out actual Oscar winner Jean Dujardin. But with the looming possibility that “The Intouchables” could spark a divisive, soul-searching racial debate — which was precisely what squelched the Oscar hopes of “The Help” — those expectations have been downplayed. (That isn’t why “The Intouchables” is being released this week, with Weinstein and most of the film-biz aristocracy in Cannes, but the coincidence is oddly useful.)
Let me come clean right now and tell you that I enjoyed “The Intouchables” quite a bit. If you’re looking for a lightweight summer change of pace, with just a smidgen of Continental flair, here it is. Both Sy and co-star François Cluzet (of the hit thriller “Tell No One”) are marvelous, the former playing a guy who’s constantly in motion, both physically and psychologically, and the latter playing a depressed and repressed guy who literally can’t move, but whose real imprisonment has more to do with his spirit than his spinal cord. Don’t go expecting serious French art cinema, please; those who have described this movie as something like a mid-’80s Eddie Murphy comedy dressed up with classy Parisian settings are correct. But here’s the question, and I can’t answer it for you: Is that such a bad thing, in itself?
Once is not enough for a movie that’s made this much money, of course, and Weinstein already has an American remake in the works, possibly to star Colin Firth as stick-up-butt wheelchair dude. The real Eddie Murphy has gotten too old to play the loosey-goosey, pot-smoking sidekick, but there’s no shortage of guys who could do it: Jamie Foxx is the default setting these days, but I’d go for the suddenly hot Kevin Hart from “Think Like a Man.” I’m not claiming it’s aesthetically or sociologically valid to remake a French movie that already feels like a reheated Hollywood throwback, by the way. I’m saying it’s a cruel reality, like Dutch elm disease or Adam Sandler, and there’s no way to stop it.
To get back to the case at hand, I do understand what the haters find so offensive about “The Intouchables.” (The infelicitous English title, by the way, reflects the fact that they couldn’t really get away with calling it “The Untouchables,” could they?) I was pretty taken aback by Weissberg’s vituperative review, and I tend to believe that “Uncle Tom” is one of those expressions that white people should pretty much never use. On the other hand, I can only applaud him for abandoning the balanced, analytical mode of trade-magazine criticism and saying exactly what he damn well thinks. (As for comparing a black man to a monkey — well, I understand what Weissberg was getting at, but it’s an error of rhetoric, the sort of comment that makes nuance and context disappear.) And I know for sure, from hearing friends and acquaintances in and around the movie business complain about this film, that Weissberg is not alone.
I believe that Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, the writing-directing duo who made “The Intouchables,” are innocent of any bad intentions. In fact, “innocent” isn’t a bad word overall, for this movie and the worldview it represents. The French may pride themselves on being the most worldly and sophisticated of all people, but the debate in France about race and immigration and multiculturalism — which ramped up sharply after the suburban riots of 2005 — can sometimes sound strikingly naive to American ears. Until very recently, mainstream French opinion has resisted thinking about the nation in anything except homogeneous terms, despite growing Arab and black minorities (both immigrant and native-born) and evident social problems with segregation and discrimination. (The French census, for instance, is prohibited from collecting data on race or religion, so no one really knows how many French people are black or Islamic.)
There can be no question that the characters in “The Intouchables” are stereotypes, in the broad sense. Cluzet’s character, Philippe, is an aristocratic zillionaire who lives in an astonishingly luxurious flat in central Paris. Since being injured in a paragliding accident, he’s lived inside a cocoon of money and privilege, surrounded by antiques and modern art and a bevy of assistants. Sy’s character, Driss, is easygoing, good-hearted, lustful and uncultured, and his passions run toward pretty girls, getting high and vintage American R&B. Philippe hires Driss specifically because Driss doesn’t particularly want the job — he only shows up to get a signature for his benefits card — and feels no pity for Philippe.
Which is actually a pretty good reason. You get where this is going, most likely: Driss is a pretty inept caretaker, at least at first, but is the only person Philippe knows who will relate to him man to man. There’s a bit of borderline-homophobic humor about their enforced intimacy; there are interludes with hookers and fast cars and late-night conversations fueled by booze and marijuana. Driss learns to like Mozart and modern art; Philippe learns to get down with Earth Wind & Fire and gets some valuable tips about chicks. It’s probably fair to summarize this movie as being the story of a paralyzed white man who needs the help of a younger, stronger, more virile black man to reconnect with his own masculinity, and if you want to say that narrative reflects an underlying latticework of racist attitudes, I won’t argue with you. Then there’s the complicating factor that in the real-life story on which “The Intouchables” is based, the caretaker was of Algerian origin, and hence Arab rather than black. (The filmmakers have said they wanted to cast Sy, and built the story around him, but it’s certainly possible to render other interpretations.)
But one can concede all of that while still agreeing with French historian and multicultural activist François Durpaire, who has responded to Weissberg by arguing that the huge success of “The Intouchables” is likely to have positive effects in Europe’s emerging discussion of race and culture, even if the movie relies on crude generalizations. (Durpaire adds that if “The Intouchables” is offensive, so were the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies.) Movies are not meant to be seminars in sociology, after all, and most viewers will receive “The Intouchables” as an upbeat story about two guys from vastly different circumstances who turn out to have a lot in common and help each other, etc., rather than a lesson in racial semiotics.
Perhaps the strongest endorsement for “The Intouchables” has come from aging French ultra-nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has described it as an allegory about how the future of his nation depends on disenfranchised young immigrants from the suburbs. He thinks that’s a “dreadful” vision, mind you — but, seriously, who knew that guy was so smart?
“The Intouchables” opens this week in New York and Los Angeles, with wider national release to follow.
BERLIN, Germany – It started with a handshake, not a kiss. When Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Francois Hollande finally met in person on Tuesday evening, there was little of the warmth that marked her meetings with Nicolas Sarkozy in recent years.
Aides had downplayed the rendezvous as simply aimed at getting to know one another rather than about hammering out any policy. Yet the future of Europe could hinge on whether these two leaders find a way to work well together.
Rarely have two people met for the first time with so much baggage. Merkel refused to meet with Hollande during his election campaign, and made the highly unusual step of publicly backing his rival, fellow conservative Sarkozy. Hollande for his part seemed to be campaigning as much against Merkel as the incumbent, pledging to renegotiate the fiscal pact that she had championed.
Now the two have finally met face-to-face and the encounter seemed cordial if hardly warm. Following the ceremonial reviewing of the guard of honor – during which Merkel had to gently nudge Hollande in the right direction on the red carpet – the two held an hour -long meeting. They then addressed the throng of international journalists in a joint press conference during which Merkel remained stony-faced during much of Hollande’s comments, interspersed with the odd smile.
The pair did seek to downplay their differences and strike a friendly tone with Merkel even joking that the lightning that had struck Hollande’s plane on his way to Berlin was perhaps a “good omen.”
“I’m not sure whether there is sometimes more divergence perceived in the public realm than there really is,” the chancellor told the press conference. “We are aware of our responsibility, as Germany and France, for a positive development in Europe. Carried by this spirit I believe we will of course find solutions for the different problems.”
Both tried to show a united front on Greece, which risks ejection from the euro zone if it backs anti-austerity parties in the fresh elections likely after the parties failed to form a government. “Just like Frau Merkel,” Hollande said, he wanted Greece to remain in the euro zone while insisting that Athens meet the terms of the bailout agreement.
Yet when it came to the crux of the differences between the two, on austerity versus growth, it was obvious that the only thing that had been agreed so far was that they disagree.
After all, it remains to be seen how Merkel’s strict stance on rapidly reducing budget deficits can be married with Hollande’s plea for some kind of stimulus package to boost growth.
Hollande reiterated his promise to reopen talks about the fiscal pact, the agreement on strict budget discipline which he has said France will not ratify unless a growth element is also adopted.
“I said in the campaign, and I repeat today, that I want to renegotiate what was established at a certain moment,” Hollande told reporters. “Everything that can contribute to growth must be put on the table. I don’t want growth to be just a word, but tangible measures.”
He mentioned boosting competitiveness, as well as Euro bonds – essentially pooling the debt of euro zone members – something Merkel has so far flatly rejected.
He did not, however, mention tinkering with the European Central Bank’s mandate, surely a red line if ever there was one in Berlin.
For all the inauspicious beginnings, observers predict that the two will eventually hit it off. Both play on their modest, down- to-earth style and exude an air of pragmatism rather than charisma. Hollande depicts himself as “Mr Normal” in contrast to the Bling Bling of his predecessor Sarkozy, while the unassuming Merkel is often seen doing her own grocery shopping. And both are said to have a wry sense of humor in private.
Furthermore, Hollande’s gesture of appointing Germanophile Jean-Marc Ayrault as his prime minister will have gone down well in Berlin.
Yet, it is hardly a meeting of equals. Merkel is an old hand in European politics now, in her seventh year in office, while Hollande’s previous executive experience has been confined to serving as mayor of the small town of Tulle.
Furthermore Germany is the EU’s economic powerhouse, with its export-driven economy keeping the rest of the euro zone out of recession, according to figures released on Tuesday. And Berlin has long been calling the political shots in Europe, with the fiscal compact being dreamed up by Merkel, as a way of preventing EU states from getting into deeper debt in the future.
At the same time Merkel is increasingly isolated in Europe, as there is a growing realization that austerity is choking off growth. Hollande knows that other leaders, including conservatives like Italy’s Mario Monti, also want Berlin to budge on its debt reduction fixation.
Hollande came to Berlin straight from his inauguration ceremony in Paris. After beating Sarkozy on May 6 he will feel he has a mandate from the French people to push for a change of direction in Europe. Yet he also faces a tough economic situation back home, with just 0.1 percent growth in the first quarter and growing unemployment, now at a 13-year high of 10 percent. If the economy were to contract even further, it could make it very difficult to fulfill many of his campaign pledges, such as reversing Sarkozy’s pension reforms.
Merkel has her own problems, despite the strong economy. Her party, the conservative CDU, has just suffered a bruising defeat in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Her coalition is increasingly fractious, with Bavaria’s CSU leader Horst Seehofer publicly slamming the CDU candidate in North Rhine-Westphalia Norbert Roettgen on TV for his campaign, while the FDP is unpredictable due to an ongoing leadership crisis.
The fact that she needs a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag to ratify the fiscal compact means she is dependent on the opposition SPD. And while the party has broadly backed her euro policy, it has been emboldened by Hollande’s victory and the strong showing in NRW. On Tuesday the party’s leaders said that they would delay the vote on the fiscal pact, originally scheduled for late May, saying it wanted to see concrete growth measures as well as austerity.
That would leave time for Merkel and Hollande to agree to some sort of compromise solution.
The pair said they will seek an agreement ahead of the next big summit of EU leaders in June. “It will be very important that Germany and France present their ideas together at this summit, and we have talked about the preparation,” Merkel said.
They will see each other before that, meeting at an informal dinner of EU leaders on May 23, as well as at the forthcoming NATO and G8 summits.
However, Hollande is unlikely to show much willingness for compromise with Berlin just yet. After all his party is facing legislative elections in mid June and he will want to make sure he is not seen to be backsliding on campaign pledges.
Hollande wants his five-year term to start with his Socialist Party securing control of the National Assembly so that he can push through his agenda. Otherwise he faces a frustrating period of “cohabitation” with a prime minister from the opposing camp, such as occurred when conservative Jacques Chirac’s presidency coincided with the premiership of Socialist Lionel Jospin from 1997 to 2002.
As such Merkel cannot expect Hollande to veer from his insistence on growth measures. And for all his unassuming manner, he could well prove to be a more difficult partner than Sarkozy in the long run.
Nevertheless Merkel is also likely to stand firm on many issues. Asked on Tuesday night if she feared Hollande’s campaign promises she replied coolly: “I am seldom afraid, as fear is not a good counselor in politics.”
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The message from France and Greece this weekend was clear. Will President Obama and Republicans listen?
By Robert Reich
Socialist Party candidate for the presidential election Francois Hollande delivers a speech during a meeting in Lorient, western France, Monday, April 23, 2012. (Credit: AP/David Vincent)
Who’s an economy for? Voters in France and Greece have made it clear it’s not for the bond traders.
Referring to his own electoral woes, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote Monday in an article in the conservative Daily Telegraph: “When people think about the economy they don’t see it through the dry numbers of the deficit figures, trade balances or inflation forecasts — but instead the things that make the difference between a life that’s worth living and a daily grind that drags them down.”
Cameron, whose own economic policies have worsened the daily grind dragging down most Brits, may be sobered by what happened over the weekend in France and Greece – as well as his own poll numbers. Britain’s conservatives have been taking a beating.
In truth, the choice isn’t simply between budget-cutting austerity, on the one hand, and growth and jobs on the other.
It’s really a question of timing. And it’s the same issue on this side of the pond. If government slices spending too early, when unemployment is high and growth is slowing, it makes the debt situation far worse.
That’s because public spending is a critical component of total demand. If demand is already lagging, spending cuts further slow the economy – and thereby increase the size of the public debt relative to the size of the overall economy.
You end up with the worst of both worlds – a growing ratio of debt to the gross domestic product, coupled with high unemployment and a public that’s furious about losing safety nets when they’re most needed.
The proper sequence is for government to keep spending until jobs and growth are restored, and only then to take out the budget axe.
If Hollande’s new government pushes Angela Merkel in this direction, he’ll end up saving the euro and, ironically, the jobs of many conservative leaders throughout Europe – including Merkel and Cameron.
But he also has an important audience in the United States, where Republicans are trying to sell a toxic blend of trickle-down supply-side economics (tax cuts on the rich and on corporations) and austerity for everyone else (government spending cuts). That’s exactly the opposite of what’s needed now.
Yes, America has a long-term budget deficit that’s scary. So does Europe. But the first priority in America and in Europe must be growth and jobs. That means rejecting austerity economics for now, while at the same time demanding that corporations and the rich pay their fair share of the cost of keeping everyone else afloat.
President Obama and the Democrats should set a clear trigger — say, 6 percent unemployment and two quarters of growth greater than 3 percent — before whacking the budget deficit.
And they should set that trigger now, during the election, so the public can give them a mandate on Election Day to delay the “sequestration” cuts (now scheduled to begin next year) until that trigger is met.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 2:44 PM UTC
With Hollande poised to win the French election, the EU is finally moving away from destructive austerity measures
By Paul Ames, GlobalPost
Socialist Party candidate for the presidential election Francois Hollande(Credit: AP Photo/David Vincent)
BRUSSELS, Belgium — The ground is shifting in Europe’s debt crisis. The edifice of economic austerity built under the guidance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is starting to wobble.
There’s a new buzz in Brussels about pumping hundreds of billions into a Marshall Plan-inspired fund to get Europeans back to work, devaluing the euro to boost exports or sharing out the euro-zone debt burden.
“This generalized austerity is prolonging the crisis. I can’t accept that. We need growth in Europe,” says Francois Hollande, the Socialist leader tipped to win Sunday’s French presidential election.
“With every day that goes by, I have the feeling that my initiative is more and more understood in Europe,” Hollande said in comments posted on his website Monday.
Hollande is enjoying an eight-point lead over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s vote. His expected victory is the main catalyst behind the emerging pro-growth emphasis in Europe, but there are other factors.
Continuing grim economic news — Spain announced Monday that it had sunk into a second recession in just over two years — is fueling doubts that Europe’s three-year dedication to spending cuts and tax hikes may not be the best way to cure the continent’s economic malaise.
“Europe has misdiagnosed its problems in important respects and set the wrong strategic course,” former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote in a column this weekend. “Only if growth is restored can the euro endure and European financial problems be resolved.”
The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Sunday that the EU was preparing a 200 billion euro “sort of Marshall Plan” to fund infrastructure projects, green energy and advanced technology.
EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said Monday that such figures were “highly speculative.” However, the EU is putting together a plan to boost growth for approval at what is expected to be a highly significant summit of European leaders on June 28-29.
Wary that the new focus risks further spooking markets, Ahrenkilde Hansen told reporters that going for growth did not mean a return to slack finances. “We are not talking about an alternative to fiscal consolidation,” she said. “The issue is not either fiscal correction, or growth. We need both.”
The late June EU summit is likely to be Hollande’s first if he succeeds in unseating Sarkozy.
Much has been made of the Socialist leader’s expected clash with Merkel due to his criticism of the fiscal discipline treaty that is the centerpiece of her response to the treaty.
Both Merkel and Hollande in recent days endorsed two of the key pro-growth ideas expected to be on the summit agenda: fast-tracking the use of remaining money from the EU’s budget for developing its poorest regions, which ran at 360 billion euros from 2007-2013, and boosting the firepower of the EU’s lending arm, the European Investment Bank.
EU Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn has suggested that lifting its capital by just 10 billion euros could enable the EIB to leverage lending of 180 billion euros.
Although they have continued to spar in media comments, Hollande and Merkel have been preparing the ground for non-confrontational relationship. There are signs of a softening of the Frenchman’s demand for a renegotiation of the fiscal discipline treaty.
Defeat for Sarkozy would however be a blow for Merkel, who offered unprecedented support for the incumbent in the early stages of the French campaign.
She also risks losing allies elsewhere.
The Dutch government, one of the strongest supporters of Merkel’s insistence on austerity for southern Europe, fell last week over its own budget-cutting plans and will face a stern challenge from the center left and far right in September elections.
Parties on both political extremes are seen profiting from a wave of discontent in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Greece to find a successor to the technocratic government which has gone along with the tough conditions set by the EU in return for bailout packages.
Adding to the pressure over the past few days, several key players have joined the chorus calling for a growth initiative, including European Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi; top EU financial services official Michel Barnier; and the UN’s International Labor Organization.
“Austerity has, in fact, resulted in weaker economic growth, increased volatility and a worsening of bank’s balance sheets,” said an ILO report released Monday. “It is high time for a move toward a growth- and job-orientated strategy.
Monday, Apr 23, 2012 6:42 PM UTC
France's far-right party leader may help the embattled president win reelection
By Barry Neild, GlobalPost
Marine Le Pen reacts after the first round of French presidential elections on Sunday. (Credit: AP/Jacques Brinon)
LONDON, UK — Campaign strategists for both Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande will be scrambling on Monday to make sense of a first-round presidential vote that left neither with a clear path to victory — and showed a surprise level of support for a far-right candidate.
As many analysts expected, Socialist Hollande scored higher than incumbent Sarkozy in Sunday’s election, but thanks to a surge in the popularity of Marine Le Pen of the anti-immigration National Front party, a easy win is no longer the foregone conclusion that many predicted.
Hollande took 28.8 percent of the vote against Sarkozy’s 26.1 percent, meaning they will face each other in a run-off vote on May 6. But what was expected to be a simple referendum on differing plans to rescue France’s struggling economy has been complicated by Le Pen’s showing of 18.5 percent.
As horse-trading begins for the support of those who voted for the eight lower-polling candidates now eliminated from the race, the problem now facing both Hollande and Sarkozy is how they can capitalize on the far-right turnout.
Some analysts said center-right Sarkozy is most likely to benefit from Le Pen’s success, others argued it could derail him. Meanwhile, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party his daughter now leads, said the result put the National Front on track for big wins in June parliamentary elections.
Le Pen’s success also raises the possibility that French opinion was swayed by a series of shootings in southern France last month involving a 23-year-old terrorist who claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda. At the time, Le Pen said the incident showed that the “Islamic fundamentalist threat has been underestimated in our country.”
That said, Le Pen has doubtlessly attracted considerable support for her protectionist economic policies and for being the only conservative candidate proposing to take France out of the euro.
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A still from "The Intouchables" 
Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande in Berlin on Tuesday, (Credit: Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch) 
