Behind the Headlines the French Connection in the Mideast

At the time of the French President’s recent visit to Spain, a veteran French politician looked at the pictures showing President Volery Giscard a Estaing and King Juan Carlos, standing side by side and commented. “How strange. Here we have a President who would like to be King and a King who would like to be president.”

The French President has given his administration a “royal” tone. At the Elysee Palace, old and off-forgotten customs and protocols have been reintroduced, often after a two-century lapse. Former royal hunting lodges have been brought to life and a coterie of advisors have turned into a royal retinue. In political affairs, the “royal” trend is also felt. Policies are changed or adopted practically overnight and often without consulting or even informing Cabinet members or Parliament.

This trend is especially visible in foreign affairs over which the president maintains solid control. The recent appointment of the former Elysee Secretary General, Jean Francais-Poncet, as France’s new Foreign Minister, replacing former career diplomat Louis de Guiringaud, has removed even the farmer pretense of a normal autonomous department. French diplomats stress that the new minister, who has been working with Giscard for over 10 years, “does not even have to be given orders. He can guess them before they are handed out.”

CHANGES IN FRANCO-ISRAELI RELATIONS

This single-handed control over France’s foreign affairs has enabled Giscard to change and mold French policy in the Middle East, practically at will. For the first few years after his election, this change had been towards a normalization of Franco-Israeli relations.

Both because of his own character he intensely dislikes a situation of stress and animosity and animosity and because of the two major elections which marked the first four years of his administration (municipal and then parliamentary elections with a strong left-wing apposition), the general tone given by the president was towards mending the fences with Israel.

Gone were the former anti-Israel declarations, the “moral” sermons and the diplomatic initiatives launched by Charles de Gaulle and his successor,. Georges Pompidou. French diplomats, acting on clear Presidential orders, kept a discreet silence whenever the Middle East came up for discussion at the United Nations or at the joint meetings of the nine European Economic Community (EEC) member state representatives.

The President and administration members topped talking about a “Palestinian state” and government spokesman used “its” and “buts” when talking, about Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967.

SITUATION CHANGES ABRUPTLY

The situation changed abruptly a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly and without giving any advance notice, France broke the former EEC solidarity during a major UN vote. While all its eight EEC partners, including traditionally pro-Arab Italy and Ireland; voted against a violently pro-Palestinian resolution at the General Assembly France abstained.

At the same time. Giscard encouraged Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in his new demands for a revision of the Camp David agreements. Diplomatic sources in Paris say that Giscard on two different occasions told Sadat presumably either by telephone or through diplomatic representatives, that he advises him not to sign the agreements in their original form.

During Jordan’s King Hussein’s recent visit to Paris, Giscard, according to these same sources, encouraged him to continue refusing to take part in the post-Camp David negotiations and adopt an attitude of “wait and see.” France, according to these usually well-informed-diplomats, was the only West European country to have fully supported Hussein’s policy of non-involvement in the talks and of demands for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. There seem to be several reasons for Giscard’s new Mideast policy.

France continued to believe that no real Middle East settlement can be obtained without the full participation of the Palestinians and without a comprehensive settlement between Israel and all the Arab states. Immediately after Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem in November 1977, France was the only Western country to openly express doubts as to the success of his mission.

The recent difficulties in the negotiations and the failure of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s mission to Jerusalem and Cairo last month, have reportedly further strengthened Giscard’s initial doubts.

PESSIMISTIC ABOUT PEACE PROCESS

The French President is now, according to these sources, almost certain that the current peace process cannot succeed. Even if an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty were to be signed its implementation would be practically impossible and major problems would crop up within weeks making the treaty unapplicable.

Giscard tends to blame Israel for the failure of the peace process. What is worse in his eyes, he tends to regard Israel’s leaders as lacking realism and failing to take advantage of a unique chance to try and reach a global and comprehensive agreement with all their neighbors.

France believes that the Moslem world is slowly being won over by the extremists and that the process which has started in Iran will spread to such other countries as Turkey and Egypt. In accordance with this belief, France has granted political asylum to the Shah’s main opponent Ayatullah Khoumeini and has done nothing to try and prevent him from launching appeals for violence from his French residence.

The tension in Israeli-American relations is generally thought by experts to be deeper and more serious than it is generally assumed. French analysts believe that the current tension is the start of a long range process of cooling relations between America and Israel.

SERIES OF CONSEQUENCES FORESEEN

This new French approach can have serious consequences for Israel. On Jan. 1, France assumed chairmanship of the EEC for a six-month term. French representatives will chair all joint meetings of the nine member states, will prepare the basic files and draw up the agendas for the subjects to be discussed.

The chairmanship, which passes by rotation among the nine, gives the country holding it extra weight in influencing EEC policies. When the country happens to be, as is the case now, the most politically ambitious among the nine it gives the chairmanship still more weight in having its views adopted as joint policy by in eight European partners.

Three more European countries Spain. Portugal and Greece are due to join the EEC in the coming months. All three are known for their anti-Israel stand and two of them, Greece and Spain, have no normal diplomatic relations with Israel. Their entry into the EEC will also jeopardize Israel’s exports to Europe.

All three; especially Spain and Greece, export products similar to Israel’s citrus; citrus byproducts, agricultural products, flowers and light industry. From the date of their admission, all three will enjoy an easing of customs dues which will rapidly disappear as they integrate into the community and thus jeopardize-Israel’s already sick economy. France has advocated their admission into the EEC and is their strongest supporter so far. “Therefore, it appears that difficult days lie ahead for Israel in its relations with France and Western Europe.