French Policy Toward the

Charles Saint-Prot

Emirates Lecture Series 42 The Emirates Center For Strategic Studies and Research

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French Policy Toward the Arab World

Charles Saint-Prot This publication is based on a lecture presented on September 2, 2002. The views expressed in this study do not necessarily reflect those of ECSSR.

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Introduction

“French Policy toward the Arab World”—the title in itself suggests the specific and unique nature of French policy in the Middle East. Only a very small number of countries have a truly global and constant policy towards the Middle East. Besides Russia, which maintains its presence in the region and tries to guard against efforts by the United States to encircle and contain it, the only other powers active in the Middle East region are the United States, Great Britain, and .

The United States has, little by little, replaced Great Britain, and the broad outline of American policy is based on former British policy. It is a policy very clearly linked to hegemonic domination, both political and economic. Its objectives are openly declared in a document entitled “America and the Middle East in a New Century.”1 Published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, this document is a summary by the Presidential Study Group responsible for outlining US policy in the Middle East for the twenty-first century.

According to this paper, the goal pursued by the US is to ensure control over this highly strategic zone. The priorities are: domination of petroleum reserves and control of petroleum transit routes; creation of a strategic partnership with ; aid in the establishment of a Turkish-Israeli military alliance;2 and prevention of the emergence of any strong and independent Arab state or group of states.

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We can hardly speak of a constructive Arab policy by Britain and the US, who have always tried to keep the Arab world weak and divided. The US has not shown any positive interest for the Arab world as such. Its policy is not based on forming solid and friendly links with the . It is an imperial policy, which, like all imperial policies, seeks clients Ð in the Roman sense of the term Ð not friends or equal partners. Furthermore, according to the famous American analyst Noam Chomsky, the American policy is dangerous in as much as Washington supports an Israeli government that is overtly racist and extremist.3

France’s policy in the region is at the other extreme. France is the only great power that has an Arab policy. Consequently, one does not speak of France’s Middle East policy, but rather of France’s Arab policy, which has a very different meaning. France’s Arab policy is based on ancient history and geography. It is the expression of a traditional doctrine, of a political philosophy, and of a strategic choice. Moreover, this policy is one of the most solid pillars of French diplomacy, which plays a unique role in the region and is centered on key objectives.

A Policy Based on History and Geography

Regarding geography, France is by extension a neighbor of the Arab world, which begins on the southern Mediterranean with the five Maghreb countries, and is then linked to , Palestine, Lebanon, and . For France, the Arab world is not a distant world. The Orient

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for us is at our doorstep. This proximity, which facilitates trade and contact, results in France’s increased sensitivity to what goes on in the Arab world, perhaps more so than in the case of other powers. It also means France has a better knowledge of the region. If, as Napoleon said, a country’s policy depends on its geography, we understand better why France has always tried to forge close relations with the Arab world. France’s Arab policy is one of the oldest historical constants of French policy as a whole. General de Gaulle reminded us that the Arab world is a region in which France has always been present and active. Unlike many other countries, France did not discover the Arab world with the drilling of the first oil wells.

France’s Arab policy goes back more than two thousand two hundred years. At the end of the third century before our era, in 218 BC, the Gaul ancestors of the French facilitated the passage of troops loyal to Carthage chief Hannibal on their way to attack the Roman Empire. More generally, the birth of French-Arab relations dates from the eighth century, with the alliance between the King of the Franks, Pépin, and the Caliph of Baghdad, Al-Mansur. Around the year 800, King Charles the Great (Charlemagne) and Caliph Harun Al-Rashid exchanged ambassadors and signed a treaty of friendship in opposition to the Byzantine Empire.

In the eleventh century, during the Crusades, French kingdoms were created in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The French discovered then already the wealth of Arab

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civilization and the advances of Arab scientists over those in Europe. It was in science that the Arab world exercised its greatest influence—in medicine, mathematics, geography, philosophy, and in technical developments in agriculture and industry. Moreover, inter-marriage, friendships, and better mutual acquaintance allowed the contacts to continue after the liberation of Jerusalem, in 1187.

During the Middle Ages, relations between the great Arab and French trading towns were important. Numerous Arab students and scholars frequented French universities, and the kings of France signed treaties of friendship with the Arab principalities, such as the Bey of Tunis and the Sultan of . When the Spanish Inquisition persecuted Muslims after the fall of the last Umayyads in Spain, many Arabs found refuge in France. In the sixteenth century, King Francis I chose to ally France to the Muslim world by calling on the Ottoman Sultan to help against the empire of Charles V.

One of the signs of France’s interest in Arab civilization was the opening of the first language university chair in Paris in 1587. That was how France introduced the study of Arabic into Europe. In the seventeenth century, King Louis XIII requested the creation of printing houses for Arabic, and Louis XIV ordered that students learn Arabic in order to serve as translators to assist in the diplomatic relations he wanted to develop with the Arab world. At that time, treaties were signed

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with the King of Morocco, the Bey of Algiers, and the Sultan of Oman. French sailors visited the Arab Gulf all the way to Basra.

In the early nineteenth century, after his Egyptian expedition during which he first set foot in the Arab world, Napoleon made contact with Ibn Saud’s successor with a view to forming a French-Arab alliance against the Turks, allies of the English. Under the restored monarchy, France landed in Algeria and in particular lent its aid to Ali in his effort to liberate Egypt, Palestine, and Syria from Turkish domination. French generals fought beside the Arabs against the Turks and the English. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Emperor Napoleon III dreamed of a great Arab kingdom, spreading from Algiers to the Arab Gulf and allied to France. In the early twentieth century, the first Arab nationalist intellectuals fled Ottoman oppression and settled in Paris, where the first Arab National Congress was held in 1913.

Following World War I, France held Lebanon and Syria as mandates and Tunisia and Morocco as protectorates. It also had a presence in Algeria. This French presence in numerous Arab countries reinforced French interest in the Arab world and the Muslim religion. The first mosque in Western Europe was built in Paris in honor of Muslim soldiers who fought with the French against Germany.

After World War II, a weak Socialist government without conviction ruled France and became mired down in the

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war in Algeria. It also allowed itself to be led into the questionable French-British tandem against Egypt, and to align itself with American policy and support for the Zionist state. Only the return of General to power in 1958 put an end to this policy, which had been completely out of line with France’s traditional views on, and relations with, the Arab world.

After ending the Algerian crisis, General de Gaulle restored the state’s authority and returned to the traditional French policy. He reaffirmed a policy of national independence of which one of the pillars was the strengthening of secular relations with the Arab world. He contacted Nasser’s Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, reinforced France’s support for Lebanon, and established good relations with King Faisal of and the emirs of the Arab Gulf region. He encouraged large French companies to redouble their efforts to have a presence throughout the Arab world.

During the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, General de Gaulle condemned the Israeli aggressor, placed an embargo on all arms sales to Israel, and denounced the occupation of Arab territories. Concerning France’s policy towards the Middle East, in November 1967 General de Gaulle declared: We have begun again the same policy of friendship and cooperation with the Arab peoples that had been French policy for centuries, and of which reason and sentiment make it imperative today that it be one of the fundamental bases of our actions abroad.4

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