WikiLeaks cables expose France’s collaboration with US imperialism

[Hannah Bell]

Cables published on WikiLeaks show that Sarkozy and his political team were in frequent contact with the US diplomats long before assuming the French presidency in 2007. This was part of a broader attempt by Paris to mend relations with Washington. Though Chirac kept French airspace open to US military flights to Iraq, Washington never forgave Chirac’s opposition to the US invasion of Iraq at the United Nations in 2003.

Sarkozy’s relations with the US were so close that he confirmed his candidacy for the 2007 presidential election to the US embassy some 16 months before he did so to the French public in 2006.

According to one cable, “Sarkozy lamented the troubled state of U.S.-France relations during recent years.... Calling it something he ‘would never do’, he cited President Chirac’s, and then-Foreign Minister de Villepin’s, use of France’s Security Council veto against the U.S. ... as an unjustifiable and excessive reaction to a difference of views.”

Shortly before Sarkozy announced his candidacy, the US embassy in Paris wrote, “He is a markedly different presidential heavyweight, pro-American and committed to free-market principles. Sarkozy is the French political leader most supportive of the U.S. role in the world. Sarkozy has told the Ambassador on several occasions that France needs to help the U.S. ‘get out of Iraq.’ Sarkozy's pro-American orientation has earned him the sobriquet ‘Sarkozy the American,’ and his affinity for Americans and the U.S. is genuine and heartfelt.”

Ultimately, Sarkozy did not send troops to Iraq in the aftermath of his election in 2007, for fear of provoking mass opposition. However, Sarkozy has continued his collaboration with the criminal policies of US imperialism, such as the war in Afghanistan, in violation of public opinion. According to one US diplomatic cable, Sarkozy views this policy with pride.

Sarkozy was rewarded with his cut of the spoils. After his election, French oil firm Total won bids for oilfields in US-occupied Iraq, and France opened its first military base in the Persian Gulf. In 2008, France sent more French troops to Afghanistan to support the NATO-led occupation of Afghanistan. In 2009 Sarkozy announced that France would rejoin NATO’s command structure, in which France had not formally participated since 1966.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/fran-d24.shtml

[uppityperson]

1. About the only good thing I can say about Sarko is he isn't Le Pen

[leftstreet]

2. "...and committed to free-market principles"

:puke:

[Arctic Dave]

3. Confirms sarkozy is a douchebag.

Fuck him.

[malaise]

4. But we always knew that

+1,000.
I have long suspected that the election was rigged.