Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III schizophrenic foreign policy approach gradually isolated France’s Second Empire from its allies: the emperor being unpredictable, too taken by his over-involvement in foreign matters, and too inclined vis a vis imperialist undertakings, his European partners ended up suspiciously isolating Paris from the European diplomatic circles and chancelleries. Nicolas Sarkozy as well pursued an extremely dynamic foreign policy, perhaps even more hyper-active than his domestic policy. Comparing his diplomatic moves to the British Prime minister’s ones, Poirier concluded that Sarkozy’s “appetite for the world looks pharaonic, or is Napoleonic a better word? He has visited three countries a month on average – not counting two trips to Afghanistan. After Berlin, Sarkozy visited the UK, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Gabon, Senegal, Hungary and – only then – the United States for the UN General Assembly in September; this was followed by Bulgaria, Russia, Morocco, the US (again), Germany (again), China, the Vatican, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and, India” (2008). France has rarely been that present by the past in the international stage, shaping the headlines of the world’s editorials and drawing attention on it from all around the world. Meunier even highlighted one of Sarkozy’s most commented foreign coup d’eclat: his advocacy for a “planetary New Deal”, estimating by this way that “French foreign policy has been a frenzy of proposals, a ubiquitous involvement of France, a constant whirlwind” (2008). This drastic makeover of the French diplomacy and its turning into a muscular display of foreign hyper- activism, Sarkozy style, is gradually irritating the traditional diplomatic channels. Citing the way France was ultra reactive when the South Ossetian war out broke in August 2008, Poirier underlined how Kouchner’s (the French minister of Foreign Affairs of that time) and Sarkozy’s appropriation of the diplomatic burden short-circuited the president of the European A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 90
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III Commission (José Manuel Barroso); she concluded that “the French president, who doesn’t believe in delegating power and who loves nothing better than inflated prerogatives, would go to Moscow as the face of Europe, and as Super President” (2008). On the same chapter, and on the eve of the French presidency of the European Union presidency, The Economist was astonished while underlining that “no fewer than ten international summits will take place over the six months: the French have prepared Grand Plans to show that France is back in Europe and the Sarkozy is a dynamic leader who can get things done” (2008). On that, the French political analyst Alain Duhamel pointed out the fact that Sarkozy’s dynamism relied upon the outburst of successive crises, either economic or diplomatic, which makes of his foreign policy a “bonapartisme de crise”, warning the French president by this way of the “Venetian-style republicanism of the European bureaucracy, very attached to its parliamentary culture and national susceptibilities” (2008). Duhamel anticipated the Sarkozist diplomatic staggers imposed via summits multiplications, foreign leaders’ harassments, and rules’ disruption on foreign matters (on that, one event is worth mentioning since it aroused a wide European commotion: Sarkozy’s invitation of one of the Euro’s - de facto - foes, Gordon Brown, to a EU summit dedicated to this currency’s future after the Greek crisis, 2008). At that time, at the end of the French presidency of the EU, France’s statesman muscular diplomatic activism was expected to considerably slow down. Such a bet would have been ignorant of the Bonapartist nature of Sarkozy’s foreign policy. As stated by Crumley, “although France relinquished the rotating presidency of the European Union with the New Year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is showing no signs of surrendering diplomatic center stage” (2009). Finally, the starting French presidency of the G20 summit (since the mid-November Korean Summit), followed by the G8’s A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 91
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