FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac used his 12th and last Bastille Day television interview yesterday to express "consternation" at the Israeli bombing of Lebanon.
"One may ask whether there isn't, today, a will to destroy Lebanon," Mr Chirac said. "I find, honestly, like all Europeans, that the present [ Israeli] reactions are completely disproportionate."
Mr Chirac said he spoke at length with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday. "I suggested an initiative. I am happy that he took it up, judging from the decision to send urgently a UN mission [ to the region]."
Alluding to Syrian support for Hamas and Hizbullah, Mr Chirac said the UN mission should end in Damascus "because there is, without any doubt, at the heart of this whole problem an action which needs to be discussed with Syria".
Mr Chirac said "the principal objective" of the UN mission was "to obtain the liberation of the three Israeli prisoners, the three soldiers". The second objective was "a total ceasefire" and the third was to study the possibility of "military protection" on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Mr Chirac, who is often considered pro-Arab, was careful to appear neutral in the present crisis. He called the actions of Hamas and Hizbullah "inadmissible, unacceptable and irresponsible".
Hizbullah's actions "risk taking us God knows where, and in any case, to a tragedy in Lebanon. These people are absolutely irresponsible, especially towards the population of Lebanon."
Asked whether there was "an Iranian hand" behind the crisis, Mr Chirac said: "I have the feeling, not to say the conviction, that Hamas and Hizbullah could not have taken these initiatives alone and that, by consequence, there is somewhere support by some nation or another."
Regarding the long-running crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, Mr Chirac said Iran would be well advised "to seize the outstretched hand" offered by the UN Security Council and Germany.
The accumulation of crises in Gaza, Lebanon and over the Iranian programme had brought the world to a very dangerous pass. "Every initiative counts. Every words counts. We could slip either way."
Mr Chirac said the present crises remind him of the run-up to the Iraq war, which he still believed was a mistake.
"We are in a situation which must be conducted with a great deal of experience, a great deal of finesse, because we are permanently on the edge of the abyss."
An opinion poll published by Libération newspaper on Thursday showed Mr Chirac's rejection of the Iraq war remains the most popular decision of his two terms in office.
Fifty-eight per cent of those questioned rated Mr Chirac positively regarding "the role of France in the world", while only 29 per cent thought he had done well in fighting unemployment.
Mr Chirac's partial recovery in the opinion polls may explain his fine form yesterday. Forty-seven per cent of those polled said his presidency has been "useful". The Lebanon crisis allowed Mr Chirac to play his favourite role, that of world statesman.
"France needs to be strong," he said. Watching yesterday's military parade made him think of France's position as the world's fifth economic power, a leading exporter and recipient of foreign investment.
France has the world's best system of social protection and is also a cultural, military and diplomatic power, he noted. In Europe, he added, only Ireland has a higher fertility rate.
Mr Chirac twice commented favourably on Nicolas Sarkozy, his long-time rival and the leading right-wing presidential candidate. However, he resisted attempts to turn his last Bastille Day interview into the long goodbye which French media predicted.
"One is responsible until the end of one's term," he said. "This is not the time for summing up; this is the time for action."