FRANCE: The Pope, Iran, the United Nations, Africa, Libya, India, Japan, China and Russia all received favourable mention in President Jacques Chirac's annual New Year's address to the diplomatic corps here yesterday, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris
But the French leader managed to name the United States only once in his 14-page speech. And that was to note the return of the US to the UN cultural organisation UNESCO.
Yet opposing French and US world views read like a subtext through Mr Chirac's talk. Last year was trying, he noted.
"Faced with the prospect of recourse to force without the approval of the United Nations, public opinion mobilised the world over and the international community was divided," he said, referring to the US-British invasion of Iraq. "We all live with sorrow and concern over the continuing murderous violence in Iraq. The crisis which has opened up, whose solution cannot be dissociated from a settlement of the Near-East conflict, is far from over."
The invasion "ended a hateful regime", Mr Chirac admitted. Lest his diplomatic audience think he'd undergone a change of heart, he hastened to add: "But who does not see the chain reactions that this intervention provoked?"
He reiterated calls for the rapid restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. "For the feeling of occupation, in all places and at all times, inspires the same reactions." The involvement of the international community, through the United Nations, was "indispensable", he said.
The ambassadors in the Salle des Fêtes understood the jibe at US uni-lateralism. His call for "environmental governance on a world scale" and the creation of a UN Organisation for the Environment could be interpreted as a challenge to Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Treaty.
Without naming President George W Bush, Mr Chirac criticised over-eagerness to use military force and the failure to address the root causes of world problems. The recourse to force could be legitimate "in certain conditions", he said.
"But it is no longer sufficient to ward off the new threats affecting international security. For the resentment of peoples, the breeding ground of all violence, feeds on unresolved conflicts and the persistent denial of rights. It also feeds on poverty, the pillaging of natural resources and the loss of identity." Despite France's reservations about the use of force, Mr Chirac said his country "wants to take its full place in the transformation of the (NATO) Alliance, in particular the Reaction Force." But this affirmation of ties to the US came with a warning: "I would also like to remind you that an alliance is never stronger than when it respects its members' positions."
Mr Chirac cited evidence that a "multi-polar world" - that is to say not under the sole domination of the US - is becoming a reality. But, he warned, there is a danger of "rivalry, confrontation, chaos" if relations among states are not "organised in a new multi-lateralism under the rule of law." Implicitly criticising the US for its failure to impose an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, Mr Chirac said: "The progress of peace, security and democracy for the whole region must inevitably pass through the resolution of this question, on a just and lasting basis." Those involved must show "audacity and courage" comparable to that of the Israeli and Palestinian politicians who in November concluded a virtual peace accord in Geneva. Mr Yossi Beilin and Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo received luke-warm praise from the US Secretary of State, but two US officials who shape Middle East policy, Ms Condoleezza Rice and Mr Paul Wolfowitz, refused to meet the authors of the Geneva initiative.