The Chirac Festival
Chirac by shattering the consensual diplomatic speech imposes itself as the patriarch, leaves a yellow card to the candidate countries. Tasty revenge on our British "friends". Analysis
(B2) When Jacques Chirac arrives at the Justius Lipsius, the seat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels, he takes a few strides across the red carpet that adorns the courtyard, it is with the firm intention of completing his revenge on the Atlanticists, Blair and Aznar. Arrived one of the first, the French president is firing on all cylinders. He holds successive meetings with several Heads of State. Especially with Simitis, the Greek Prime Minister.
Very relaxed, talkative, interspersing these remarks with forceful gestures and many jokes, he is attentive to everyone, even managing to make his interlocutors smile, those who are less committed to his cause. He congratulates, in passing, his Belgian ally, Guy Verhofstadt, finds the means - a glass in the hand - to place a word with José-Maria Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, and another with Wolfgang Schlüssel, the Austrian Chancellor, who has just refused the passage of American troops through his country. With the Germans, the contact is colder. The time is no longer for big hugs, at least in public. Never mind… The dinner, which isn't extraordinary – scallops roasted with truffles, monkfish osso-bucco and pineapple carpaccio – is swallowed up as quickly as a quickly put together compromise.
The Chirac festival can begin. Around 22 p.m., the president tumbles into the press room. There in front of the cameras and the international press, faithful to the ancestral "Gentlemen the English shoot first", he delivers his secret weapon. Barely the first questions asked, he lets go, tell their four truths to the candidate countries. An exit calculated to the extreme, with the point of excess and slippage necessary, to achieve a triple objective. First, show the yellow card: the candidate countries made a strategic mistake by signing separate declarations with the English. A statement shared by many delegations, and by the European Commission. Then, occupy the media field.
In the corridors of the Justus Lipsius, the meeting organized by the Greek presidency with the heads of government of the candidate countries rustled only with comments, tense or hilarious, on the exit of the "patriarch". Finally, pull the rug out from under Blair, who yesterday Tuesday was about to repeat his letter of support to the Americans, by circulating a new missive among the candidate countries. If the missile has reached its goal, it is not without collateral danger. France has forgotten, once again, to reach out to the candidate countries. Forgiveness will come later...
Nicolas Gros-Verheyde, in Brussels
Published in France-Soir, February 2003