French President Nicolas Sarkozy before a joint session of Congress, November 7, 2007, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Robert Byrd looking on approvingly. (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)
by Matthew Hay Brown
Thirty-seven hundred words, and not one of them the four-letter one that has divided France and the United States.
In his address to Congress this morning, French President Nicolas Sarkozy led lawmakers on a tour of the Greater Middle East that spanned from Afghanistan through Iran and Lebanon to Israel. But the unabashedly pro-American conservative tiptoed right past Iraq, where French officials and citizens alike have opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation.
“We may have differences, we may disagree on things, we may even have arguments, as in any family, but in times of difficulty, in times of hardship, one stands true to one’s friends, one stands shoulder to shoulder with them, one supports them, and one helps them,” Sarkozy told the joint session, as rendered in the official translation.
Thus dispensing with any allusion to the war – which Sarkozy also has opposed, although not as vocally as his predecessor, Jacques Chirac – he focused his remarks on the historical friendship between the two nations, and areas for future cooperation.
Among these, he named Afghanistan, where he said France would “remain engaged … for as long as it takes;” Iran, whose development of nuclear arms he called “unacceptable;” and the Holy Land, where he said France “wants security for Israel” and “demands that there be a state for the Palestinians.”
Sarkozy called on the United States to join Europe in “leading the fight against global warming that threatens the destruction of our planet.
“I know that the American people and its cities and states are increasingly aware of the stakes and determined to act,” he said. “Allow me to say with all the friendship that I feel for America that this fight is essential for the future of humanity, and we will not be able to achieve the results that we must achieve without America leading this fight for the safeguarding of our planet, of humankind, of the human species.
“We need America in order to protect our planet and its environment.”
And he pledged continued cooperation against terrorism.
“Terrorism will not prevail,” he said. “For democracies are not entitled to be weak, and because we, the free world, are not afraid of this new barbarism. And because of that America can count on France in its battle on terror.”
America might also be able to count on France as a full partner in NATO. Forty-one years after Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the integrated military command, Sarkozy spoke of his desire to see France “resume its full role” in the treaty organization.
“[France] should allow its relations with the alliance to evolve just as European defense should grow and evolve,” he said. “There is no time for theological quarrels. … We need to come up with pragmatic responses in order to make our security tools and instruments more effective and operational in the face of crises.”
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Derided by French critics as l’americain, Sarkozy is visiting Washington largely to mend relations rendered chilly by differences over Iraq. In an address interrupted by applause more than two dozen times, he touched on all the traditional talking points of the Franco-American axis: Lafayette, Normandy and jazz.
“My generation, without even coming to America, shared all of your dreams,” he said. “And the imaginations of my generation were fueled by Hollywood, by the great conquest of the western territories, by Elvis Presley – you’ve often probably not heard his name quoted here, but for my generation, he is universal. It was Duke Ellington, Hemingway, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayward.
“But also Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, who fulfilled mankind’s oldest dream on the day when Americans walked on the moon. That day, America was universal. And each one of us wanted to be part of this great adventure.”