French diplomacy now recalls the lines from King Lear, ‘The worst is not / So long as we can say “This is the worst”.’ By the end of François Hollande’s presidential term, it felt as though we had reached rock bottom ; there were those who even predicted the return of some sense of pride. With the US showing supreme contempt towards European capitals and wanting to reduce its NATO obligations, why not seize the moment and quit NATO, drop the policy of sanctions against Russia and re-imagine the European cooperation ‘from the Atlantic to the Urals’ that de Gaulle dreamed of 60 years ago? Oh, to begrown up and finally free of US tutelage!
France, in backing Juan Guaidó’s self-declaration as Venezuela’s interim head of state on the pretext of an imaginary power vacuum, has instead hitched its wagon to the US again and lent its support to an attempted coup. The situation in Venezuela is serious: hyperinflation, food shortages, corruption, sanctions and violence. And this is partly because a political solution is now made more difficult by fear (...)
