WITH HIS inimitable sense of timing, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner chose the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to say he regretted establishing a ministerial post for human rights.
“I think I was wrong to ask for a ministry of state for human rights. It was a mistake,” Dr Kouchner told Le Parisien newspaper. The remarks were particularly shocking, coming from the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and proponent of the “right to intervention” in countries that abuse human rights.
The reason for Dr Kouchner’s regrets? “There is a permanent contradiction between human rights and the foreign policy of a state, even in France,” he said.
Dr Kouchner damned his secretary of state for human rights, Rama Yade, with faint praise.
Ms Yade, who, at age 32, is the youngest minister in the government, “did what she could, with talent”, Dr Kouchner said. It was “important that Rama Yade take a passionate interest in the rights of women and children, particularly regarding sexual violence,” he explained. She “didn’t need a (minister’s) title to be efficient”.
Dr Kouchner (68) strives to appear young; Le Parisien photographed him wearing blue jeans at his minister’s desk. Advocacy of human rights has been the hallmark of his career. But the former left-winger has veered to the right. “You cannot run the foreign policy of a country solely in function of human rights,” he said. “Being in charge of a country obviously distances you from a certain naivety.”
Ms Yade, like Dr Kouchner, is one of the most popular ministers in the government. Born in Dakar, Senegal, she attracted attention by expressing disgust at shaking the hand of Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy on a visit to Libya with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in July 2007.
Exactly a year ago, while Col Gadafy visited Paris at Mr Sarkozy’s invitation, Ms Yade said he “must understand that our country is not a doormat on which a leader, terrorist or not, can wipe the blood of his crimes”.
Despite her frank speaking, Mr Sarkozy asked Ms Yade to lead the right-wing UMP’s list in next June’s European elections. When she announced in a radio interview that she did not want to be a candidate, Mr Sarkozy let it be known that he was “not annoyed, disappointed”. Sources at the Élysée said Ms Yade’s notoriety “went to her head” and that “she has no sense of politics”.
Ms Yade had been tipped to replace Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the minister for European affairs, who will leave to head the French market-regulating authority after this week’s EU summit. Now the Élysée has ruled her out, and Bruno LeMaire, who was once chief aide to former prime minister (and Sarkozy adversary) Dominique de Villepin, is likely to replace Mr Jouyet.