Pro-Iraq War Socialist Picked as Sarkozy’s Foreign Minister
French President Nicholas Sarkozy is set to name a Socialist and one-time student Communist as his foreign minister. Yet it appears to be a good thing for the United States.
Mr. Sarkozy already has shaken up the French political world in other ways, by apparently offering cabinet posts to members of the opposition Socialists, most notably the job of foreign minister to Bernard Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel-prize-winning Médecins Sans Frontières and an icon of leftist politics in France.
Mr. Kouchner has told confidants that he is ready to accept the job.
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As a student, he was secretary of the Union of Communist Students and a leader of the May 1968 student revolt that Mr. Sarkozy has denounced. Mr. Kouchner also approved of American military intervention in Iraq, which Mr. Sarkozy, in line with French policy, repeatedly has called a tragic mistake.
A Frenchman who backed the Iraq War? Such a creature exists?
Michael Ledeen is thrilled:
Kouchner is a Socialist who is the French equivalent of Natan Sharansky, a tireless campaigner for human rights, a man who has advocated the right of democratic countries to intervene against tyrannical regimes in the name of freedom.
I was fearing Sarkozy would pick Hubert Védrine, a man who fears everything about the American “hyperpower.” Choosing Kouchner gets me to forget (temporarily) Sarkozy’s focus on global warming and protectionism.
My French wine boycott is back on its last throes… again.
I haven’t had the time to dig into this guy yet, but it appears that Mr. Sarkozy isn’t quite the righty that I’ve heard he is s’posed to be.
Perhaps it is that in Fance, when you are on the right you are still very left…. say… Fiengold-like.
And if Mr. Sarkozy is really right, then he’s continuing the the time-honoerd right-side mistake: invite your enemies.
Some folks never learn.