FRENCH: COESPU SUPPORT WILL TAKE TIME

UNCLAS PARIS 005490 SIPDIS PLEASE PASS TO RACHEL FEATHERSTONE, PM/PPA. E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KPKO MARR MASS FR SUBJECT: FRENCH: COESPU SUPPORT WILL TAKE TIME REF: SECSTATE 139663 ¶1. SUMMARY. MFA contacts stress that the GoF needs time to consider the U.S.-Italian request for support to the Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (COESPU). Local Italian embassy contacts do not expect a French contribution, but were encouraged that the GoF did not reject their request outright. END SUMMARY. ¶2. On August 1 poloff spoke with Italian Charge d'Affairs, Piergiorgio Cherubini, in an effort to coordinate reftel demarche with the Italian Embassy in Paris. Cherubini explained that his embassy had delivered a demarche to the MFA Office of Strategic Affairs DAS equivalent Xavier Carrel-Billiard on July 22. Cherubini said that Italian expectations were low that the French would act on their request to help with the COESPU in Vicenza, Italy; however, he said he was encouraged to learn that the French were not opposed outright to cooperating. According to Cherubini, Carrel-Billiard said he would pass the matter on to those responsible for the gendarmerie for their consideration. ¶3. On August 9 and 12 poloff spoke with Elisabeth Claverie de Saint-Martin, who works under Carrel-Billiard and is responsible for matters concerning the gendarmerie, in the MFA's office of Strategic Affairs. Saint-Martin said that the GoF was considering the U.S.-Italian request, but that the French needed time to work on the issue. She said that involving the gendarmerie required coordination across a spectrum of intergovernmental agencies and offices. Furthermore, she added, French participation would involve doctrinal changes to the gendarmerie. Similar changes, she noted, would need to be examined in light of establishing a common European gendarmerie (also to be headquartered in Italy). Therefore, she explained, to make a hasty change in response to an immediate need could be counter-productive to their longer-term goals. She assured poloff that the French understood what the U.S. and Italy would like from France as regards the COESPU, and that the GoF was busy examining what changes were necessary in order to accommodate these needs- a time-consuming process. ¶4. Poloff gave Saint-Martin a copy of instructions for accessing the France Country web page of the G-8 Africa Peace Support Operations (PSO) Website which she said she would forward to the appropriate GoF personnel. Hofmann