When Gordon Meets Sarko

We are sitting by lake Geneva under a gentle Alpine sun. Three military helicopters have just landed on the lawn of the grand hotel next-door. They were bringing in Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, but we won't see him until we are escorted into a press conference at the Royal Palace Evian.

[End of summit story here]

In case anyone thinks there is anything glamorous about summit meetings, especially minor ones, here's a little snapshot from Evian, the lakeside watering place where the French President decided to hold this year's formal get-together with the British.

These events follow a ritual. The host chooses somewhere pleasant and the machinery cranks into action. When the day arrives, the hotels and the public are cleared out, battalions of police are deployed along with interpreters and staff. I have just counted 26 buses and vans of the CRS riot police parked by us in the garden. Communications are installed, along with a media centre and a press conference stage.  Sarkozy's meeting with Gordon Brown and six cabinet ministers is small beer compared with US summits  (like President Obama's today's in Moscow) or G8s and other multilateral events, so there are only about two dozen reporters here.

But we are well watered and fed by the Elysée as we wait and wait and wait under parasols. We tap on laptops, gossip and read the papers. In the old days you milled around with the participants and picked up information, but media are now always the other side of a sterile perimeter.  We have flown down from Paris and taken a bus for an hour along the lake but our only contact with the leaders will be a carefully staged 30-minute press conference [watch it below]. The outside world will see the key quotes on television plus some picturesque shots of the great men against the Alpine lake.  After lunch and a total of three hours on site, everyone leaves town and Evian is given back to the summer tourists.

Without being too cynical, it is hard to avoid the contrast between, on one side,  the talk at the summit of recession and the new age of frugality, and on the other the piles of money and carbon expended on staging the event. Everyone could have got together in a conference room in Paris for a fraction of the effort.  

Perhaps that is little unfair. Set-piece summits between the European powers serve two purposes. They act as a little theatre for reaffirming the relationship and playing statesman on TV. More importantly, they provide deadlines for the bureaucracy.  Governments have a list of projects that they announce or tie up at summits. Brown and Sarkozy see one-another all the time so there is little business to be done.   All is of course presented as perfect harmony. The pair get on quite well. Brown is grateful for Sarkozy's support at a time when, politically, he needs every friend he can find. At the moment, the testy ancestral rivalry between Britain and France is in one of its lulls.  Sarkozy's people like quoting Gordon Brown's talk of a new  "entente formidable" which has replaced the boring old cordiale version. In an hour or so we will be reporting "joint calls" and common plans for the G8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, later this week. Summits are always more interesting when we can get to work on a good row.   

Carbon update after the press conference. Sarkozy and Brown spent most of their session talking about climate change and carbon taxes. They were asked at their press conference about the message they were sending with their mass jaunt to Evian. Sarkozy waxed indignant and pretended to misunderstand the question. "You don't think we could get anything done just by sitting in the Elysée and Downing street and talking on the phone do you?" said Sarkozy. Brown, who has problems prnouncing the word Evian, tried to make a joke, saying: "I was wondering if I shouldn't just stay here for a couple of days and then go on to Italy and save some carbon.." And Brown, whose pallor contrasted with Sarkozy's Berlusconi-level suntan, produced another rather lame variant on his entente theme. "This time, it's l'entente formidable au soleil," he said.   

Comments

[Peter Owen]

Two of the funniest clowns on earth performing together - well worth a laugh!

[Anthony]

Re: Carbon footprints and taxes

You didn't expect the politicians to think that these would also apply to them surely? Hypocrisy is the name of the game just the same with the jetsetting enviromentalists. They have their summits in nice places like Bali. How about they have the next one in Siberia to highlight the permafrost? No i didn't think so.

The EU has been reported on this site today as supporting Brown because they are terrified he may be forced out before the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. If the Tories get in before then they will have a referendum. Everyone knows the answer will be a resounding NO so they can not let that happen. We wouldn't want democracy to happen now would we!

[boulay]

not sure which "gentle alpine sun" you are under (or whether perhaps you have just returned from the sahara) but i am down the road in geneva and the sun is certainly not gentle!

if it was this hot in blighty we would be having the same hysteria as last week over "heat wave" and dogs in cars and newspapers with an excuse to have women in bikinis on the front pages!

[It's a bit cloudy in Evian compared to Geneva today. CB]

[boulay]

thanks CB - nice to know that some people read their comments!

[graeme]

As usual all thought of setting a frugal example out the window.
Global warming, carbon footprint, perhaps they know it is all a lot of spin anyway. Still one is said to lead by example, these two couldn't lead a kindegarten crocodile on a signposted nature trail.

[Julio]

Anthony : It shouldn't matter.

Cameron once elected will organised a referendum about Europe and the British people will vote NO and therefore take the UK out of the EU, won't he ? (being the truth telling politician he clearly is)

Or once in power the perpetual whining about everything Europe will not be a reason imortant enough to have a referendum and let the Great British people have their say after all ?

I'm joking of course.

[Daisy]

Do we really need another glorified photo op? Didn't we just have the G20?

[Anthony]

Anthony : It shouldn't matter.

Cameron once elected will organised a referendum about Europe and the British people will vote NO and therefore take the UK out of the EU, won't he ? (being the truth telling politician he clearly is)

Or once in power the perpetual whining about everything Europe will not be a reason imortant enough to have a referendum and let the Great British people have their say after all ?

I'm joking of course.

Posted by: Julio | 6 Jul 2009 16:21:04

Unfortunately you're quite correct. If Cameron was being perfectly honest he would say that not only could he have a referendum to reject the Treaty regardless of whether its been ratified or not, he would admit that we could pull out of the EU quite easily by repealing the European Communities Act 1972 that allows directly applicable directives authority in UK courts.

But he won't because they are all as bad as each other. But at least we are only speculating Cameron will break his promises, whereas we know that Brown has broken his.

[Dominique II]

Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy get on famously, and you Brits are not running around in abject terror?

Unless you have realized that Sarkozy's friendship is like a cameleon's tongue, as quickly retracted as it was extended...

[rocket]

"You don't think we could get anything done just by sitting in the Elysée and Downing street and talking on the phone do you?" said Sarkozy

What is this habit to always answer a question with a question?
[It's a typical Sarkozy technique. He shifts the sense of the original question and asks a rhetorical one based on the false premise. When he is reproahced for reducing taxes on the well-off, he always replies by saying: Do you think I was elected to raise taxes ? CB]

[do-ré-mi]

Sarkosi has that lovely smitten look ( easy to pull as a sauter, that can also mean " I feel for you mate, you are in a worst position than I am and I will be talking to someone else next year) on the picture from the end of the summit.
Must be the water they are drinking.

http://www.evian.com/us/

Then again Brown is shorter than Obama and the look is easier to pull off at an easy angle.

[john gregory flinn]

I must say Charles, in my opinion, your light-hearted tone of the irony of this summit is a pleasure to read.
It should be enough to prick the illusions of those self-inflated gasbags present, but probably not.
Their instinct for collective self-preservation is obvious as ANTHONY posts; and including the German Constitutional Court's questioning of the initial ratification by the German parliament of the Lisbon Treaty as “negligent”, and the arguments about a Protocol for another Irish referendum, this "instinct" becomes an embarassment for democracy.

[Rick]

So Sarko and Gordo, plus respective press-packs and entourages, wasted hours and aviation fuel going over to Evian... the things one does for a ‘photo-op’ and to avoid such an obvious alternatives as Hénin-Beaumont! Or Calais where, fairly enough, the Brits are to help France out to the tune of £15 million. (It seems the locals are having a problem implementing EU immigration policy.) And what a ‘plug’ it would have been for eco-tourism and ‘Eurostar’.

Using Switzerland as a backdrop for a French meeting seems not exactly fair, transparent. How much worse, though the damage done to the reputation or memory of Messrs Armstrong and Jackson, thanks to sloppy journalism. But then simpler-the-better issues of basic truth and falsehood stop being such in culturally ‘Catholic’ nations. Take the rampant ‘denial-ism’ within the Irish Catholic Church over child abuse: they’ll sooner hand over a cheque for 350 thousand euro that admit fault. Take buffoon Berlusconi, who’s unerringly in the right. Or the chances for ‘truth and reconciliation’ in Spain. Catholic countries have problems with truth, simple and unadorned.

The tittle-tattle in the ‘serious’ French press about Armstrong and Jackson suggests that ‘truth’ French-style is elastic too. (Though myth or dogma remain emphatically in-elastic!) For instance, the ‘ad hominem’ smear is acceptable, even if irrelevant. (This same ‘tactic’ is deployed by certain silly bloggers here.) The fact is: truth is rather a team-sport in France. What do I mean? Well, it seems that Martin Luther didn’t actually utter the words: “Here I stand. I can do no other". The important thing is the “I”. W H Auden – and this isn’t apocryphal! – did suggest that Catholic and Protestant ways of perceiving and thinking were fundamentally different.

The Catholic view could be summarised: ‘WE believe STILL’. The Protestant view could be summarised: ‘I [uppercase] believe AGAIN’. Catholic = group-loyalty suggests an ‘instrumental’ attitude to truth (‘Don’t rock the boat!) which is unchanging, dogmatic, unquestioned. Protestant = personal integrity and respect for truth are inseparable, requiring constant revalidation.

Might I suggest that some blog-squabbles (‘blobbles’?) stem from two profoundly different conceptions of truth? Thus, anybody daring to challenge the prevailing dogmas, myths, sacred cows, ‘idées reçues’, ‘Republican’ platitudes must be prepared for a counter-attack. And because the counter attack is in defence of a ‘higher truth’, all manner of lies, irrelevance and slander are acceptable for that purpose. Ah, but how does this relate to Armstong and Jackson? Well, each was successful and American; this meant their acceptability was always going to be provisional rather than unconditional...

Far-fetched? Look around at all the naughtiness that goes UN-punished. The case of one J Chirac, for a start...

[rocket]

[It's a typical Sarkozy technique. He shifts the sense of the original question and asks a rhetorical one based on the false premise. When he is reproached for reducing taxes on the well-off, he always replies by saying: Do you think I was elected to raise taxes ? CB]

Yes, but he doesn't answer the question and it's not even a lawyers argumentation tactic.

Do his eyes start twitching also when he asks these rhetorical questions?

So CB are you going to call him on it one day?

[Dominique II]

"‘truth’ French-style is elastic"

RICK, naughty, naughty.

Brit pols are economic with the truth; they play close to the chest; but they never lie, until of course they convert to (horresco referens) Catholicism, and their name gets changed in common parlance to Bliar.

Not to mention the horrendous "journalism" of the gutter press. Oh but they don't lie either; they sell...

Thank God the French are there to lie and launch wars (or sink fleets) based on lies.

[Rick]

DOM2, could you and I agree, in deference to RICHARD JONES, on ‘Tony Regular-Sort-Of-Guy Blurr’? Yes, you’re right that politicians lie.

I didn’t actually write, ‘"‘truth’ French-style is elastic". I wrote, ‘The tittle-tattle in the ‘serious’ French press about Armstrong and Jackson suggests that ‘truth’ French-style is elastic too’.

You are well-travelled enough to know full well that attitudes to truth and truthfulness vary with cultures. Don’t Islam and Roman Catholicism have ‘get-out clauses’ enabling lies to be told for ‘raison d’état... (pardon!)... raison de théologie’?

And what is the Vulgate but a doctored version of the Bible, suitable for the kids and credulous? Sorry, I meant the ‘faithful’.

[Lex Stevens]

Rick,

In a word: twaddle.

My favorite bit:

"Protestant = personal integrity and respect for truth are inseparable, requiring constant revalidation."

The rest of the world -- especially the French -- are oh so impressed when we British and Americans jump up, toot our horns, wave our willies about and declare our 'personal integrity and respect for truth.'

Please.

I'll let you in on a little secret. We're the only ones who believe it.

We are drawing very near to playing the drunk boxing his shadow in an alley.

[Edward Johns]

DOM 2--you wrote "Thank God the French are there to lie and launch wars (or sink fleets) based on lies." Does the fleet sinking refer to Mers el Kebir? If so, what better justification was there for the events there than the contribution made between June 1940 and September 1943 by The Vichy government of French vessels to the Italian Axis forces as follows : 2 Cruisers, 7 submarines, 10 Destroyers, 6 Corvettes and 8 Minesweepers ? Or should the UK have sportingly continued to fight on alone against the Axis powers in possession of French naval resources?

[Rick]

LEX, my ‘twaddle’, as you call it, underlies the whole European project, and constantly threatens to undermine it. Shall I give you an example of a big lie? Well, we could start with NATO... a lot of members apparently believe they don’t have to pay for it. Or Italy, which promised millions for Africa at the Gleneagles summit... and up to now has handed out 3%, yes three percent, of the amount promised. ‘Twaddle’?

LEX, you wrote: ‘The rest of the world -- especially the French -- are oh so impressed when we British and Americans jump up, toot our horns, wave our willies about and declare our 'personal integrity and respect for truth.'

Well, count me out, pal!

You’ve misquoted me. I wrote (in note form, mind you): ‘Protestant = personal integrity and respect for truth are inseparable, requiring constant revalidation’. Now, look back at those last three words and call me a ‘willy waver’! And making a statement about the inseparability of truth and personal integrity hardly amounts to triumphalist provocation, does it?

Selective quotation is mendacious -- which rather brings us round to where we started.

[Rick]

Psst, LEX! Can I suggest, helpfully I hope, that you start by picking holes in W H Auden’s analysis of ‘cultural Catholicism’?

(Compare: ‘WE believe STILL’ with ‘I believe AGAIN’)

Do you believe that the Catholic Church isn’t dreadfully compromised; this, in the sense that loyalty to the institution is, demonstrably, seen as more important than truth itself? And isn’t it to the credit of your own country that the truth about child sex abuse by the clergy emerged there? In Ireland, it wouldn’t have emerged, ever – that’s my guess.

And then have a few shots at my key suggestion that France finds Catholic mental processes hard to discard. Unlike somebody else, I make no claim to infallibility.

[Daniel Strohl]

LEX,

"We are drawing very near to playing the drunk boxing his shadow in an alley"

LOL !

Somewhat off topic: but this reminds me of late Thierry Le Luron (a famous chansonnier who had Mitterrand as one of his main targets) who said about a journalist he didn't like: "Il cire les bottes plus vite que son ombre!" (he polishes boots faster than his shadow!).

[Dominique II]

EDWARD JOHNS fails to quote his source for the claim that "the contribution made between June 1940 and September 1943 by The Vichy government of French vessels to the Italian Axis forces as follows : 2 Cruisers, 7 submarines, 10 Destroyers, 6 Corvettes and 8 Minesweepers". It comes the British Naval Staff History publication, "Mediterranean", 1952, which may or may not use the word "contribute". BTW your list is incomplete, the Navy historians add a minelayer to the booty.

The French Navy Historical Service indicates that the towing to Italy, out of Toulon and Bizerte (Tunisia), of rather less (nineteen) naval units, did NOT occur "between June 1940 and September 1943", as you claim, but between December 1942 and September 1943, that is, AFTER the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon and the German invasion of Tunisia in the de facto collapse of the Armistice. The two cruisers and other units quoted by the BNS as "transferred to Italy" never left Toulon or Bizerte because there was no hope of repairing them. Of the 19 scavenged units, only three torpedo boats (Bombarde, Pomone and Iphigenie) and a submarine (Phoque) ever saw service under the Italian flag. Bizerte was a scrapheap.

June 1940, December 1942: that legerdemain with the dates puts things in a quite different light and speaks volumes about the skilful disinformation which surrounded Catapult from inception, and was then continued for political reasons.

That disinformation was necessary at the time, since the true objective of Catapult - securing US war aid by demonstrating Brit tenacity and will to fight, at a time when both were much doubted by an isolationist America - which worked perfectly and was an admirable, if cynical, strategic masterpiece, could not be made public. Hence repeated orders to the Brit admirals - who knew on very good sources that the French Navy would never be delivered to Germany - to do their job and not bother about matters beyond them.

What is unpalatable, to say the least, is that even now - when US and British naval historians have proven beyond doubt that Churchill was fully informed of the inexistence of the risk, both from official reports and intelligence sources - the lie perdures and is quoted as biblical truth by such honourable individuals as yourself. And in a rather disingenuous way, now that I read you a second time...

But you're welcome to list the French naval units which were "contributed" to the Duce before December 1942.

[Rick]

DOM2, you wrote; ‘even now - when US and British naval historians have proven beyond doubt that Churchill was fully informed of the inexistence of the risk, both from official reports and intelligence sources’.

Thanks, you’ve just given me a cast-iron excuse to pour myself a drop of something fortifying. You appear to claim that Churchill’s advisors had second sight.

Perhaps, you should have changed ‘have proven beyond doubt’ and ‘the inexistence of the risk’ into something milder... Now, where’s that tonic water?

[Daniel Strohl]

DOMINIQUE II,

Thanks for your informative post. As far as I am concerned, if I was fully aware of Mers el Kebir, I was not aware of the events as described by the BNS and by the French Navy Historical Service.

In addition to the important "detail" on the dates you mentioned above, anybody able to distinguish between starboard and port usually knows that it takes a lot of time to refurbish a war ship (just normal maintenance). Therefore, it is not too difficult to imagine how much time and effort it would have taken to refurbish in Italy purposely scuttled (i.e. sabotaged) French war ships - assuming they could have been safely towed to Italy.

From now on, some AS posters should try to find a more serious French bashing object :).

[Edward Johns]

Thanks for that DOM 2--my source was a book called "The Deadly Stroke" by Warren Tute (Pan), the dates I quoted are his.
Dsaniel Strohl, I was responding to DOM 2's oblique reference to the matter when he raised the subject of "sinking Fleets" I think he thus started the bashing!
Had Admiral Gensoul advised Darlan and his boss M. Petain of the option of taking the ships to the West Indies then the outcome would perhaps have been rather different.

[Dominique II]

Thank you RICK for giving me (temporary) leave to adverbially adjectivate to my heart's content - so let it be "US and British naval historians have proven beyond reasonable doubt that Churchill was fully informed of the lack of substance of the hypothesis, both from official reports and intelligence sources".

It's actually more accurate - that's the purpose of adjectives and adverbs, by the way.

As for Churchill's advisors, no need for them to have second sight, merely to be competent users of the intel at their disposal. But they had no idea of Churchill's overarching concern and objective. Which is why they were ignored, or requested to redraft their advice.

When I see the Mers el Kebir "justification" rearing its head periodically like an "old sea snake" as we French say, I cannot help thinking that in half a century, there still will be regular guys saying Saddam had WMDs... (with the difference of course that the Iraq caper was utterly pointless and nefarious to the ME, while Churchill's objective, to draw the US into the fight, was necessary and brilliantly pursued).

[Rick]

(a) 1 x German navy + 1 x French Mediterranean fleet = a lot of ships.

(b) An island nation takes large fleets very seriously: they may invade.

(c) An island nation with an ocean Empire, likewise.

(d) An island nation and net importer of foodstuffs, likewise.

(e) The fleet of an erstwhile ally is, potentially, an enemy fleet.

(f) Or possibly a useful addition to the island’s own defence .

(g) Such a fleet might reasonably be asked to persist with hostilities. Or hand over the vessels.

(h) At such a time, squeamishness could be construed as disloyalty. Had Admiral Somerville allowed the French fleet to sail back to Toulon, he would have acted traitorously.

(i) If he (or anybody else) had believed French assurances, he would have been considered more than naïve, culpably gullible.

(j) By providing Admiral Gensoul with three alternatives, Somerville and his political were more accommodating than the situation warranted.

(k) Those vessels sunk at Mers-el-Kébir could have helped the British war effort. A great pity.

Anybody considering the above as ‘French-bashing’ (such a twee phrase, like ‘Frenchies’) should pause and consider. A real ‘French-basher’ could have had a field day.

[Rick]

De Gaulle seems to have had the same opinion about Mers-el-Kébir.

‘I keeping with widespread French revulsion, de Gaulle called the attack a ‘deplorable and detestable occurrence, but he bravely justified it: ‘There cannot be the slightest doubt,’ he said on the BBC, ‘that, on principle and out of necessity, the enemy would have used them against Britain or against our own Empire. I therefore have no hesitation in saying that they are better destroyed.’

[‘The Resistance’, Matthew Cobb, Simon and Schuster, 2009]

[dante_01]

By reading this "paper" (HUH!) I can understand a couple of things.
In a different way: "Protestant" is an Ozzie tycoon buying a crusty icon and turning it into a messy paper where reporters usually wiretap VIPs or pay escorts for "confessing" what the paper want to publish, but they won't go to hell, since they have faith (AGAIN)and shall be saved. But they'll have to pay: a million punds and maybe more.
"Catholic" is a honest taxpayer sick of reading his country is the devil's den, 'cause he just sees a country where people just want to live peacefully as many others in the world, so everyday he curses the Protestants and their foolish ethic. But he won't go to hell, since Catholics have got confession, and he hasn't to pay, since your crap is free.
I am a Catholic.

[Dominique II]

DANTE don't turn the recurrent bile of a few posters into a religious strife... France may be the devil's den (not an expression found on this blog) for some bluenoses, but those for whom "Gott ist glücklich in Frankreich" must be half Catholic, and half Protestant! (in part Jewish, too).

Did the Times (Mr Murdoch's "danseuse") really indulge in celeb eavesdropping, or is this "basse oeuvre" left to his lowly "gagneuses" aka the gutter press?

[Rick]

DOM2, je crois qu’il titube un peu, votre nouvel ami.

[Dominique II]

RICK, "tituber" means to stagger under the influence of drink or some partial incapacitation. You may disagree with DANTE's point, but his post is hardly "titubant", it is perfectly clear if polemic.

Don't you get tired of the self-appointed umpire position? what next, moderator?

[Rick]

DOMINIQUE2, for crying out loud I was trying to warn you! You just don’t do subtle, do you? What I did for you was no more and no less than what I’d hope that you would do for me if the roles were reversed. No, I was not being an umpire. I was trying to warn you in such a way as to avoid giving offence to the person concerned.

[Dominique II]

RICK warning me? what about?

This is a moderated blog. Charles removes posts which are OT or OTT. I don't need vigilantes watching my back.

As for DANTE being a "new friend", I do not have friends online. The closest I get is people I'd feel honoured if my esteem was reciprocated, like His Eminence despite our political differences.

I have no enemies either. Don't take my sharp language as evidence of enmity; nuances are simply wasted on a blog.

[Rick]

DOMINIQUE2, for crying out loud I was trying to warn you! You just don’t do subtle, do you? [Part 2]

I have loads of esteem for you; don't you realise it?

There a some things you need the help of a native speaker to suss out. Even for someone whose English is as good as yours.

The above was a case in point. And I meant what I said about reciprocation.

[Dominique II]

RICK I'm not lashing out at you. I simply have yet to understand what it is you're warning me about. For somebody as articulate as you, you can get pretty cryptic. And I don't see how it can be a language thing, when the concerned post is not from a native English speaker.

[Rick]

That's what I thought too the first time I read it, DOM2. English was the first language; but pund was a dead giveaway... Then the sentence structure... I'll warrant the gentleman lives within 100 kilometres of Dublin; and he may well have had a drop of refreshment.

[Dominique II]

OH it's OK then. We French rather like the Irish. They served faithfully in almost all our wars, not that we really deserved such faithfulness, but France was often seen (from afar) as the saviour by European underdogs such as the Irish or the Poles.

[Rick]

As in our wars, DOM2. Check out the number of citizens of the (neutral) Irish Republic who fought WW2 in British ranks.

Recently, I read a brilliant biography of Lucy de la Tour du Pin, daughter of Arthur, Comte Dillon.

But why are you so argumentative? The individual in question was both offensive and not very bright. Could you really not see that. Oh, ye of little faith. Trust me: I don't deal in deceit.

Oh, and I was information-short and relying on your answering me on the 'anti-Semitism' discussion (ill-tempered shouting-match)...