AMBASSADOR'S MEETING WITH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 006576

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2015
TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR GM SOCI PINR ECON
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S MEETING WITH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
PRESIDENT JEAN-LOUIS DEBRE -- AN UNRECONSTRUCTED GAULLIST
AND WRY OBSERVER OF THE CURRENT DOMESTIC POLITICAL SCENE


Classified By: Ambassador Craig Stapleton for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: At a September 21 meeting with Ambassador
Stapleton, President of the National Assembly and leader of
the Gaullist faction in the ruling Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP) party Jean-Louis Debre brushed aside
assertions that U.S.-French relations are on the mend and
foresaw, instead of increasing cooperation in the Middle East
and Africa, growing tensions over the putative U.S.
intentions -- he had in mind more U.S. corporations than the
USG -- to supplant French (and European) influence. In the
same vein, he insinuated that U.S. supplanting of French
economic interests in Turkey was sapping French support for
Turkish EU membership and described an enlarged EU as one
that no one (in France) wanted. In general, Debre warned
that French economic woes and loss of markets were reducing
its political options.


2. (C) Turning to the recent elections in Germany, Debre
suggested that the gridlocked election results were of less
concern to the French than the stagnation of the German
economy. He interpreted Merkel's slim victory as a rejection
of "ultraliberalism" that would not be lost on the French
domestic political players, while worrying that a grand
coalition would produce ever more radical opposition in
Germany on the extreme left and extreme right. Debre called
France's upcoming 2007 presidential election "the end of a
cycle" for the country, but cautioned that disarray and
divisions across the board on the political scene made it
difficult to foresee how the transition from one political
era to another would play out, or who would win the next
elections. He explained the bitter competition to succeed
President Chirac largely as an older generation of
politicians' last and desperate chance -- given Chirac's long
domination of the political scene -- to run for high office.
End Summary.

Worried about Putative U.S. Inroads
--------------


3. (C) The Ambassador commenced the meeting by noting that
U.S.-French relations appeared to be back on track following
past differences over Iraq. Debre commented that he had
studied carefully A/S Fried's recent interview in Le Monde
but -- in what set the tone for the remainder of the
discussion -- responded that the bilateral relationship
historically had always been difficult and no doubt would be
so again soon, although France had always stood by the U.S.
in times of true need. It remained to be seen, he said,
whether the recent terrorist attacks in the UK would also be
repeated in France. He noted that terrorists were using
their opposition to the Iraq war to justify their attacks,
and predicted that any attack in France would make use of
similar slogans, notwithstanding GOF opposition to the Iraq
war.


4. (C) Broadening his sights, Debre posited a "struggle for
influence" between the U.S. and Europe in the Mediterranean
and Africa and complained that Africans were increasingly
citing what the U.S. was doing to try to exact more
concessions from France. Terming the Mediterranean region
essential to French interests, he warned of growing
U.S.-French tensions over Morocco and Tunisia. Under
questioning by a skeptical Ambassador, Debre complained in
particular that U.S. businesses were supplanting their French
counterparts in these two key regions, which he said was
leading also to increased competition for political
influence. Debre focused on Turkey in particular, stating
that France had long had a privileged situation there that
was being undermined by the U.S.; this partly explained
declining French support for eventual Turkish EU membership.


5. (C) Debre cautioned that "economic competition, while
natural," risked leading to serious political tensions unless
kept in check. Confronted with the argument that the U.S.
and France needed to work together in the Middle East and
Africa to address the larger challenges of promoting
democratization, good governance, and prosperity, and
confronting the threat of terrorism, Debre responded that
these were "reasonable" arguments, but that political
considerations needed to take economic concerns more into
account. Otherwise, he warned, politics would yield to
emotionalism and demagogy.


6. (C) The Ambassador questioned Debre's depiction of the
extent and nature of U.S. influence and wondered aloud why
Debre was more focused on the Mediterranean than on Europe,
where its traditional interests lay. Debre disagreed, saying
that France's future challenges were in the Mediterranean,
given the demographics of the region (especially among the
young) and Europe's declining energy. Europe was essential,
he said, but its historical dynamism had ended with the fall
of the Soviet Union. It had lost its raison d'etre and
changed in essence. No one (in France) wanted the enlarged
Europe that had emerged in recent years; Europe had worked
well only when its members were small in number. It was now
too difficult to come to common understandings on foreign
policy and other issues. Only France, Spain, Germany, and
Italy thought alike. When the Ambassador cited his
experience in the Czech Republic to argue that Europe's new
members were very attached to the EU, Debre complained that
they had taken advantage of others' largesse only to join the
ranks of France's economic competitors.
German Elections and the "End of Ideology"
--------------


7. (C) Asked for his assessment of the inconclusive results
of the German elections, Debre described the Franco-German
entente in familiar terms as of critical importance and as
the indispensable engine of the European project. He viewed
CDU leader Merkel as someone perhaps less dedicated to the
centrality of the France-Germany alliance, who favored a
vision of Europe "closer to that of the British." That said,
he judged that the ideological differences between left and
right had, as a practical matter, disappeared in Germany and
in France, citing the French government's current emphasis on
reducing unemployment "socially."


8. (C) Contending that the French were much more conscious
of German economic performance than political orientation (he
said the French were "obsessed" with German economic
performance),Debre drew the conclusion that what will
ultimately carry the day in France are German economic
policies that work, not whether it is a free-market or
statist oriented party that implements the policies.
However, Debre said that Merkel's failure to win a clear-cut
victory represented a clear rejection of "ultra-liberalism",
the importance of which would not be lost on French
politicians. He expressed concern that a grand coalition
between the center-left and center-right in Germany could
encourage the growth of radicalism on both wings.

The Domestic Political Scene
--------------


9. (C) Asked how French politicians were interpreting the
results of the German elections, Debre explained that, "we
have arrived at the end of a cycle." In Debre's view, the
political era dominated by Francois Mitterrand and Jacques
Chirac -- and the kind of left/right differences they stood
for -- was coming to an end. Moreover, "the only important
election in France is the presidential election; all the
others are merely trivial commentary." This, in Debre's
view, explained why so much was being invested by so many in
pursuing the presidency so far ahead of time (the first round
of the election is in April 2007). "Many ambitions were
emerging" as a result of divisions in the political parties,
a changing electorate, and what Debre called "the coming to
an end" of Chirac's leading role in French politics (although
he later denied that he was ruling out a third term for
Chirac). In addition, France's two-round electoral system
(the first round of which, in effect, is an election with two
winners),was tempting even fairly marginal candidates to
believe that under the right circumstances, they could be
winners.


10. (C) Debre also noted that the successor generation was
relatively old. The all-or-nothing intensity of rivalries on
both the left (for example, Fabius vs. Strauss-Kahn) and the
right (for example, Sarkozy vs. Villepin) were exacerbated by
the fact that "it's their last shot, or second to the last at
best". (Comment: This is particularly true on the
center-left; almost all the heirs to Mitterrand (former prime
minister Laurent Fabius, former Finance Minister Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, and former Culture Minister Jacques Lang) are
approaching sixty. On the center-right, Villepin and Sarkozy
are both only in their early fifties. Sarkozy, however, has
thirty years of experience in politics and has already served
three times in key ministries and sees no reason why he
should have to "wait his turn" any longer. End Comment.)


11. (C) Finally, Debre commented that real ideological
debate was a thing of the past. Returning to his theme that
policy results were more important to voters than a political
credo, Debre lamented the demise of ideological clarity --
left vs. right, Socialists vs. Gaullists -- that had
structured French politics during the cycle now reaching its
end. He said that "things were much simpler then," adding
that the disintegration of this ideological structuring of
the political landscape made it very difficult to foresee how
the current transition would play out over the longer term.

Comment
--------------


12. (C) We have reported Debre's remarks in detail not
because they represent official GOF policy, but because they
are typical of the persistence of a certain strain of
traditional French thinking and because Debre is so close to
Chirac and now PM de Villepin. That Debre would come across
as an unreconstructed Gaullist, as evidenced by giant
cardboard caricatures of Charles de Gaulle and Chirac
standing in the corner of his office (after all, his father
-- de Gaulle's first Prime Minister, also wrote the 1958
French constitution) was hardly surprising. But his
unvarnished, zero-sum portrayal of U.S.-French relations was
sobering, and illustrates the difficulties the U.S. often
faces in overcoming reflexive French suspicions about U.S.
intentions. His focus on market share as the measure of
international influence and, indeed, politics in general, was
also striking.


13. (C) Debre might have added that his observation about
"many ambitions emerging" applies equally to himself and to
his tireless behind-the-scenes efforts in support of
Villepin's goal of displacing Sarkozy as leader of
center-right and the successor to Chirac in 2007. Debre
seemed buoyant and energetic -- a seasoned politician who was
relishing the prospect of upcoming political battles --
specifically, the factional infighting for control of the UMP
between "Gaullists and "Liberals" which is the intra-party
dimension of the Villepin vs. Sarkozy rivalry.

Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm
STAPLETON