The Frogs of war

What happened to the cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Just over a decade ago, the French, having refused to join the allied adventure in Iraq, were the butt of every hawkish joke. (Remember ‘Freedom fries’? Oh how we laughed.) Now, as America and Britain are beating a retreat from the world stage, France has turned into the West’s most reliable interventionist. Its President, the disaster-prone François Hollande, rattles his sabre at any despot or war criminal who dares to stand in the way of liberté, egalité, or fraternité.

American neoconservatives — the War Party in Washington — have turned Francophile as a result. ‘Vive la France!’ tweeted Senator John McCain, America’s most insatiable hawk, after the French tried (unsuccessfully in the end) to scupper the deal between the world’s leading powers and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear development programme. ‘Thank God for France,’ added Senator Lindsey Graham, another arch-neocon, ‘The French are becoming very good leaders in the Mid East.’ One contributor to the right-wing American magazine the National Review suggested that President Hollande should run for the White House in 2016.

It’s a bizarre volte-face. Where America’s interventionist lobby once commended President Bush for standing firm in the face of Gallic pusillanimity, now they berate Obama for leaving it to France to lead the free world. Obama is mocked for ‘leading from behind’. Britain is a diminishing player, humiliated by our failed exertions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unwilling to step up. Germany remains reluctant to wage wars, for obvious reasons. So it has fallen to France to take the initiative in the fight for global democracy.

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