Background Report the Event of the Year

President Francois Mitterrand’s trip to Israel, where he arrived today, is France’s “event of the year.” Some claim it is the most important development that has happened in France since Charles de Gaulle resigned as President in 1969 and the electoral victory of the Socialist Party last May.

No other presidential visit abroad, no royal wedding, no summit conference with an American President or a top-level meeting with France’s European partners has stirred such deep interest and aroused such passionate emotions.

Last week, for the first time, all French weekly papers devoted their front pages to the visit. The center-right L’Express called it “35 years of passion.” The leftwing Le Nouvel Observateur printed its front page in white and blue with the Hebrew and Arabic words “Shalom” and “Salam” and a banner headline “Mitterrand on a Tightrope.”

The daily press, radio and television devoted thousands of words and hours of program time to a review of Franco-Israeli relations from Israel’s birth in 1948 to the Suez campaign in 1956 and the subsequent souring of relations under de Gaulle and President Valery Giscard d’Estaing.

VISIT WAS CAREFULLY PREPARED

On the official level, at the Elysee Palace and at the Quai D’Orsay, rarely has a presidential visit abroad been so carefully prepared. Mitterrand personally wrote the speech he is to deliver in the Knesset tomorrow and also prepared his responses to toasts, and to press conference questions.

Dozens of officials, including four Cabinet Ministers and four presidential advisors, have been briefed for hours on Franco-Israeli history, Middle East problems, Mitterrand’s own stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the chances for peace.

The excitement over the trip, which is basically a state visit, and over what most French people consider as the “big Franco-Israeli reconciliation,” shows that the flames of the Franco-Israel “love affair,” by now half forgotten in Israel, still simmer in France.

AMBIVALENT FEELINGS AMONG THE FRENCH

But the passionate interest in Israel, and everything connected with it, does not mean that all of France is ardently pro-Israel. Many French people are, but for others Israel is a strange mixture of love, contrition, bad conscience and even animosity. The young are pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian at the same time.

For the older generation, which lived through Vichy and often cooperated with this regime during World War II, there is an admiration for Israel’s “European and even Aryan” achievements. But this admiration is tinged with a spot of anti-Semitism and bad conscience, a relic of the past.

Even within Mitterrand’s ruling Socialist Party, militants and party leaders are torn between pro-Israel sentiments and a sense of “justice for the Palestinian people.”

While international relations are generally based on cold, calculated pragmatic grounds, Franco-Israeli relations are the exception, a microcosm of human passions and emotions. Officially, the French stress that Mitterrand’s trip is intended to demonstrate his support for Israel and to give France a more even-handed approach in order to redress the pro-Arab tilt which had existed since the days of de Gaulle.

THE AIM OF THE TRIP

Presidential aides stress that the trip aims at convincing Israel that Mitterrand is “a genuine and reliable friend.” Once this is ensured, these aides say, France will be able to influence Israel, without provoking any ill-founded suspicions “that Israel’s ultimate security lies in negotiating with the PLO and making a deal with it providing for the creation of a Palestinian state.”

Mitterrand “for Israel’s own sake” plans to promote, in diplomatic terms and veiled references, the idea of negotiations with the Palestinians, or as the French say in vaguer terms, “the recognition of the other side’s rights.”

Nobody in France believes that Mitterrand will be able to convince Israel of the wisdom of this thesis and yet, most French people, ministers, senior government officials, and even journalists who know Israel well and should know better, conclude their conversations by stressing that “he (Mitterrand) might succeed to give Israel and (Premier Menachem) Begin food for thought.”

Mitterrand needs a political success in Israel for internal reasons. The “paradise” promised by his party before the elections has failed to materialize. Unemployment is on a dramatic rise. The Franc is falling, and the balance of payments in January was worse than ever.

MUST SEEK TO MOLLIFY THE ARABS

In foreign affairs, Mitterrand must convince the Arab states that his support for Israel is not contrary to their interests. France depends more than ever before on the Arab states for imported oil and for Arab industrial and arm contracts to maintain employment and the stability of the Franc.

French diplomats and Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson have said repeatedly during the last few weeks, in all the Arab capitals, that France’s pro-Israel policy and Mitterrand’s trip can best serve their own interests. The gist of their message has been that only friendly persuasion can convince Israel to negotiate with the Arab states and the Palestinians and no man is better equipped than Mitterrand, who is considered by the Israelis themselves as their best friend abroad.

Few of the Arabs have been convinced. Only President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia and to a lesser degree King Hassan of Morocco have discreetly welcomed Mitterrand’s trip. Even a partial Israeli response to Mitterrand’s overtures would greatly enhance France’s prestige and interests in the Arab world.

But behind the hard political realities, hopes and aspirations there is another reality, equally strong. The French are like the Israelis, emotional people who respond to symbols and words. Mitterrand’s trip might, after all, turn out to be an impressive and moving symbol but more of a “Latin fiesta” than a concrete political gesture.