Contenu du sommaire

France in the World, 1979-2000, by Stanley Hoffmann When analysing the last twenty years of French foreign policy, Stanley Hoffmann emphasizes, first of ail, its great continuity, centred on two concerns: reaching a stable relationship with Germany; and combatting decline. But the world is changing. The collapse of the Communist bloc and the winding up of the Soviet Union in 1989-1991 caused a diplomatie earthquake. These are difficult times for France. She has to behave more modestly, and in particular more flexibly with the great American protector. Yet, without any continuity of her diplomacy, France has undergone a major transformation. Europe is now the great plan. The purely national chapter in her history is nearly over, or at least reaching its limits. Is the European chapter beginning?

The Aims of French Foreign Policy, by Henri Froment-Meurice Starting with what was the grand plan of France's foreign policy at the end of the Second World War (building of Europe, solidarity with the United States, resistance to Soviet expansion in the hope of co-existence), Henri Froment-Meurice considers the way it has evolved over the past twenty years and the changes undergone by the instruments of power that France still wields at a time when a new, highly unpredictable international landscape is emerging. He concludes that in any event it is more necessary than ever to continue with the building of Europe.

France and Empire, by Philippe Moreau Defarges France's history is dominated by a contradictory relationship with the European empire: at some periods France has dreamed of being the imperial unifier of Europe; at the sarae time, in the name of the nation, she has obstinately combated se-veral empire-building attempts, especially those made by Germany. Would the European Union not be this empire that France has both wanted and rejected? For France, the building of Europe does constitute a break: she is no longer a totally sovereign country, she belongs to a team. This implies that France has to radically reinvent herself. But in the end, are not all great nations today — even the United States — discovering themselves to be some countries among many others?

Is France an Unbelieving Believer? The True Challenges of a Modest Presidency, by Sylvie Goulard As from July 1 of this year France will have the presidency of the European Union. The intergovernmental conference that began in February 2000 its work of reforming the Union before the next new members join will therefore constitute the main challenge facing this presidency. The French authorities have chosen to restrict the agenda to the difficult issues that were left in abeyance at Amsterdam: size and composition of the Commission, weighting of votes on the Council and scope of use of a qualified majority and to a reform of reinforced cooperation. This technical agenda does not measure up to the political challenge that enlargement represents. It squares ill with the determination that France is still showing to build a "powerful Europe", a political Europe. Will France remain, along with Germany, in the vanguard of the building of the Union, or will she slip back to the rearguard in the name of a form of pragmatism bordering on resignation?

U.S.-French Relations After Kosovo, by Steven Kramer U.S.-French relations suffer from a lack of mutual trust based on two centuries of difficult history. In addition, U.S-French security interests do not coincide. Although both nations believe in the importance of playing an active role in global security and cooperate effectively in specifie cases like Kosovo, their long term goals are different. The United States wishes to perpetuate an Atlanticist security System; France advocates greater European independence. No solution to the debate over ESDI will occur without a breakthrough in U.S.-French relations, but past expérience indicates that no such breakthrough is likely to take place. The future of U.S.-French relations will probably resemble the past, conflict over doctrine, cooperation over concrete issues.

The UN and Global Security, by Maurice Bertrand The présent collective security System suffers from the United States' hégémonie ambitions. Although the Europeans reject the UN being controlled by the United States, no initiative has been taken to remedy the situation. In particular, Europe's position is confused by a number of misconceptions about the UN as an institution: it is thought to be an inescapable player and to be reformable from within... but above ail, Europe reasons on the basis of an archaic concept of the collective security System, which sees the latter as being based on the notions of unpredictability of crises and use of force. Hence the aim for Europeans should be to define a new, more preventive and pragmatic security System.

A Review of Ten Years of Peacekeeping Opérations, by Thierry Tardy The peacekeeping operations that were set up in the 1990s were to a certain extent a reflection or the state of international relations during that period. Initially ambitious, ill-defined and conducted by a hope-bringing UN, they were subsequently taken over by States that kept the UN out and withdrew from the dangers of crisis management. In these two movements, peacekeeping operations do not form part of well-defined strategic vision, and despite the realignments made following the failures of Somalia and Bosnia, they remain ill-suited to the situations which they are supposed to manage, and continue to suffer from a traditional vagueness and an overestimation of their own capabilities.

The Security Council in the 1990's: Boom and Bust?, by David Malone In this article, David Malone reviews key cross-cutting issues in Security Council decision-making throughout the 1990s. These include the growing focus on internai conflicts, a related increase in recourse to coercive measures (sanctions, naval blockades, authorization of the use of force) and often difficult partnership with regional organizations in addressing challenges to the peace. He examines humanitarian concerns, human right violations and democratization as an instrument for stabilization of war-torn sociaties as factors driving many Council decisions. The article also addresses institutional issues, including the CounciFs creation of international criminal tribunals, its relationship with the international criminal court (the Statute of which was agreed in Rome in 1998) and the slow-moving debate over Security Council reform. The author argues that Council decisions in the 1990s undermined fundamentally absolute conceptions of State sovereignty, but identifies several major challenges facing the Council (relations between the UN and the USA; Russia's role within the Council; and the UN's poor record at grappling effectively with African conflicts) at the turn of the millenium.

The Future of Political Authority, by Pierre S. Pettigrew The nation-state emerged as a vertical political authority operating on a spécifie territory in relation to a relatively homogenous group. Internationalization builds on this momentum on the basis of the interdependence of states. Globalization imposes a new relationship between economies and politics: the horizontal power of the market is increasingly replacing the vertical power of the state. Political and economie spaces no longer coincide; and the pace of politics, slowed by consultations, has little in common with the pace of economies, accelerated by new technology. This new situation may resuit in greater exclusion of populations or even of increasingly marginalized states. This is the source of the problem of values and cultural diversity. With regard to culture, variety concerns France as it concerns Canada, which — through the mosaic model — serves as an inspiration for many societies. With regard to values, a moral renewal is emerging that will take us from an ethics of justice to an ethics of otherness; the contributions of women and of NGOs will be decisive here. Seattle will be remembered mainly as the first place of confrontation between the old order, which must adapt, and the new order, which is striving to emerge. The century just beginning will be marked by their coexistence.

Waiting for the Cycle. What Should Be Done After Seattle?, by Alex Kouvéje The WTO Ministerial Conference held in Seattle in early December 1999 was powerless to launch the millennium cycle owing to the appearances of new players who had previously not been at the negotiating table — non-governmen- tal organizations and developing countries — and to the difficulty that the advocates of trade liberalization had in mobilizing their traditional support. The conference also marked the exhaustion of the model of globalization conducted under America's control and the inability of the European Union to replace it with its own model of far-reaching integration. Developing countries are seeking to lay the foundations of a trading system whose procedures are more egalitarian and whose objectives are more equitable. The interlude that has been imposed by the December failure should allow answers to be found to the questions asked by the Seattle "dissident".

What Is the Future of Reinforced Co-operation?, by Françoise de La Serre The opening of the new Intergovernmental Conference could be an opportunity to revive the debate about reinforced co-operation among the European Union's Member States. The Union has always endeavoured to reconcile the desire for ever-deeper integration with most States' désire to préserve a form of flexibility that takes account of their differences. Seen from this perspective, although the Treaty of Amsterdam has allowed closer cooperation to make significant but still inadéquate progress, certain core issues such as CFSP remain shelved. If it were to be implemented, this reinforced co-operation could take two forms: a juxtaposition of isolated co-operation activities that would risk giving rise to an à-la-carte Europe, or a breakaway by a vanguard of States which would participate in the most important forms of co-operation and which would constitute, de facto, the Union's centre of gravity.

2+4 or Atypical Negotiation, by Bertrand Dufourcq The special feature of the 2+4 negotiations on settling the external aspects of German unification was that they only concerned the substantive issues in exceptionnal cases, focussing invariably on finding a consistent format for decisions resulting from bilateral negotiations, or taken in multilateral fora (Atlantic Alliance, CSCE, disarmament).

Europe's Ambitions: From After-Kosovo to Cohérence Indicators, by André Dumoulin Europe's voluntarist security and défense policy during the post-Kosovo period reveals a number of institutional, operational and doctrinal dilemmas for the Union, while ill-concealing the numerous underlying divergences that will flow from this ambition in the Transatlantic arena. The apparent soundness of the foundation on which Europe's pragmatic new security and defense policy is based will certainly require quite a number of adjustments between the US and its allies.

The Beginning of Political Change in the Maghreb?, by Rémy Leveau In North Africa the year 1999 was marked by the arrivai in power of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria and by the death of the king of Morocco, Hassan II. These events occurred in region beset by a number of social and institutional bottlenecks, such as bipolarization of the political scene between the military and the Islamists or the persistence of an increasingly challenged authoritarianism. Nonetheless a change in the situation is perceptible : thus the Islamists' fresh willingness to move towards a compromise with the political authorities, along with the Maghreb's geopolitical shift towards the United States and the major international organizations, testify to the region's evolution towards more political liberalization and opening-up of its economy. In this new context the men who recently came to power will still have to take up the two great challenges of stabilizing the domestic situation in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia and improving regional integration in North Africa.