France and America. In search of repairs

Both sides of an awkward relationship seek to mend fences

“FORGIVE Russia. Ignore Germany. Punish France.” This dictum was apparently coined by Condoleezza Rice at the height of the transatlantic fall-out over Iraq. Next week, as America's secretary of state, she visits Paris, to prepare the ground for President George Bush's European tour later this month. With Paris off his itinerary, yet German and Russian summits on, is this the promised snub to France?

Officially, the French and Americans insist that nothing symbolic is intended. Mr Bush dropped in on President Jacques Chirac last June. When Mr Chirac sent re-election congratulations to Mr Bush, in a letter that began with a handwritten “Cher George”, the American president invited him to Washington. The French had hoped to fix this visit before Mr Bush's European trip. The difficulty, say the Americans, was finding a date. Yet they plainly had no interest in rolling out the carpet for Mr Chirac ahead of Mr Bush's own “fence-mending” visit. Instead the two presidents will dine together on February 21st on neutral territory: Brussels.

If there is a slight, the French are making light of it. Even before the Iraqi election, they recognised that they had to bury past differences and deal with Mr Bush for four more years. Michel Barnier, the foreign minister, urged “a new start” in Franco-American relations. Mr Chirac said he hoped that Mr Bush's second mandate would create an opportunity “to illustrate the vitality of the transatlantic tie”. On such matters as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Haiti and Cote d'Ivoire, the French and Americans work well together.

Yet the deep distrust over Iraq and general mutual suspicion remain. Only 11% of the French would have voted for Mr Bush, according to a Louis Harris poll; 82% said he had made the world a more dangerous place. “His re-election would be a catastrophe for the world,” declared the cover of Le Nouvel Observateur last September. Even now, there is little public debate in France about Iraq. In private, when asked whether the French should do more to help the Americans in Iraq, one minister snapped: “We wouldn't do it to help the Americans, but to help the Iraqis.”

Which is why the election in Iraq was in some ways so awkward for France. In a telephone conversation with Mr Bush, Mr Chirac called it an “important step” and confirmed “the readiness of France to co-operate with Iraq”. For the first time, there is talk of a rapprochement. Yet France is caught between grudging acceptance of the poll and lingering indignation over how it came about. “It would be difficult, if not indecent,” wrote Le Monde in a vexed editorial, “to reproach him for having offered the Iraqis free elections.”

The bottom line is that the French have not changed their position on Iraq. They will not send troops, not today, not tomorrow, and “the election does not change that”, as one official puts it. They have offered to train Iraqi military police, but only outside the country, possibly in Jordan or Qatar. They argue that they have already made a concession by writing off Iraqi debt, a move they originally resisted.

So what could they bring to the Brussels dining table? The Americans might hope for more robust French public support for the new Iraqi government to resonate in the Arab world. This could help to undermine the legitimacy of the insurgents. Yet the French want to retain the anti-American card on which so much of Mr Chirac's stature in the Arab world depends. They might be persuaded to tone down their calls for American troop withdrawal by the end of the year.

And in return? Above all, the French want Mr Bush to be seen to make a peace effort in the Middle East. This, they have long argued, not democracy in Iraq, is the key to bringing stability to the region. It now looks a more plausible hope. But with so much distrust, it would not take much in the coming weeks - disagreement over Iran, say, or on lifting the EU arms embargo on China, which France has pushed - to upset the relationship again.

Both sides of an awkward relationship seek to mend fences.

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