In French Diplomacy, Once Again It’s Vive la Difference

The French are not only one of America’s oldest allies, they often have been among the most difficult. But any who believed that they might become more pliable just because President Jacques Chirac likes Americans and once jerked sodas at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Boston may now have reason to lose hope.

“It shows that private sympathies and public policy are not the same thing,” noted Stanley Hoffman, former chairman of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and an acknowledged expert on U.S.-French relations.

Chirac once again swept aside U.S. policy considerations in the Middle East during his current, controversial trip to the region. In an address Thursday to the Jordanian parliament in Amman, he repeated his call for immediate easing of the United Nations-imposed trade embargo against Iraq to let the Iraqis sell at least some oil to buy food and medical supplies.

The United States supports that idea in principle but argues that such a trade-off now would come too soon after Iraqi military intervention in late August in fighting between rival Kurdish groups.

“The Iraqi people cannot be held responsible for decisions to which it was not party, nor can it be held hostage for stakes that are alien to it,” Chirac declared.

A day earlier, the French president became the first head of state to address the fledgling Palestinian legislature in the West Bank town of Ramallah, telling members that he backed Arab demands for a separate Palestinian state and the return of the Golan Heights from Israel to Syria as part of a regional peace formula. Chirac has also demanded a French or European role in the U.S.-mediated peace process.

Israel rejects the idea of an independent Palestinian state, while the U.S. has shown no interest in broadening the highly sensitive Arab-Israeli negotiations aimed at carrying out the Oslo peace accords.

“Our decision to retain the [format] we have for the talks isn’t because we want to exclude anyone, but because what we’ve got seems to be working,” one White House official said.

Coming on the heels of a sharp verbal exchange between senior U.S. and French officials about the motivation for Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s recent trip to Africa--a region many in France view as a French preserve--relations between the two countries seemed yet again headed for stormy waters.

The reason for the frequent strains tend to be complex, often going deeper than simple policy differences. Sometimes they stem in part from a kind of cultural competition, in which France has, for example: led efforts to reduce the impact of American films in Europe; subsidized its own film industry; and sought to build barriers to protect the French language from erosion by “Americanisms.”

The U.S. and France also have a tendency to act unilaterally on foreign policy matters more quickly and often than other major nations.

Indeed, Chirac drew criticism Thursday from Leon Brittan, a European Union commissioner, for acting independently at a time when the EU is trying to formulate a common foreign and security policy. So far, damage from the flurries in Franco-American ties seems to have been mainly at the margins. The Mideast peace talks remain unaffected by Chirac’s remarks, as does the Iraq trade embargo.

But Clinton administration officials say French criticism has made it more difficult to sell the centerpiece of Christopher’s African trip--creating a regional crisis reaction force drawn from the armies of Africa to deal with tragedies such as the fighting in eastern Zaire.

“It’s hard in a sense,” a senior White House official said, sighing. “It’s created doubt in the minds of some Africans whether this is a useful concept.”

Jacques Godfrain, French minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, dismissed Christopher’s trip as an election ploy, apparently seeing it as an attempt to woo black voters in the United States. Christopher responded hotly, reminding Godfrain that “the time has passed when Africa could be carved into spheres of influence.”

Few of those familiar with the long history of relations between the two nations see the recent strains developing into a crisis. One senior White House official, for example, claimed that “our private conversations are far more positive than our public exchanges.”

They also note that France and the U.S. have often bickered, only to come together again.

“It’s too easy to make a list of troubles between the United States and France,” a French diplomat said. “That is superficial. We are basically in agreement on all important issues.”

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler contributed to this report.