La politique du dehors avec les raisons du - European University ...

«La politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans: can foreign policy be 

dictated by anti-immigrant attitudes?» 

Domestic explanations 

Raymond Taras 

Theories assigning primacy to external factors in the making of foreign 

policy hold that states are unitary actors behaving rationally and pursuing 

national interests. Internal theories point both to the existence of many 

different voices in the state and to deviations from rationality as leaders seek to 

satisfy domestic political goals by taking decisions that do not necessarily 

optimize state interests in international politics. “In contrast to the externally 

based theories, those who point to sources internal to the state expect 

differences across states’ foreign policies, despite the similar international 

circumstances. For these analysts, the great diversity of political systems, 

cultures, and leaders point states in different directions, even though they are 

facing the same external forces.” 1 

How attentive are leaders to public opinion, especially on issues related 

to international politics? On the one hand, “the conventional wisdom is that 

the public simply does not influence foreign policy…. It is not clear that leaders 

would follow the public’s opinion.” On the other is evidence that “there is some 

congruence between changes in public opinion and changes in foreign policy.” 2 

Ironically, the pathology of xenophobia can exert greater influence in a 

democratic system. “Demagoguery works best where the demos has some 

influence.” 3 The types of demagoguery that are likely to be most appealing are 

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those targeting an unpopular foreign nation, or a disliked minority or migrant 

community at home. Projected to foreign policy, xenophobic demagoguery can 

heighten irrational security fears and a correspondingly hostile policy towards 

antipathetical nations. 

The primacy of rationally defined national interests has always been 

suspect. Anthropologist F.G. Bailey, author of the seminal book Strategems and 

Spoils, quoted a letter written in 1648 by Count Oxiensterna, a Swedish 

statesman, to his son: “You do not understand, my son, how small a part 

reason plays in governing the world.” 4 Bailey highlighted the lure of 

demagoguery and xenophobia for average citizens: “Ordinary Jane and 

Ordinary Joe are quicker to feel than they are to think; they respond more 

readily to a message that touches their emotions than to one that requires 

them to attend to a carefully reasoned argument. Reason does not mobilize 

support; slogans do. Reasoning is demanding; slogans are comfortably 

compelling.” 5 

Culture and foreign policy 

The study of culture and its linkage to international relations has been 

receiving greater attention in recent years. 6 Valerie Hudson succinctly captured 

one aspect in this linkage—between national identity and foreign policy--this 

way: “When we speak of culture and national identity as they relate to foreign 

policy, we are seeking the answers that the people of a nation-state would give 

to the following three questions: ‘Who are we?’, ‘What do ‘we’ do?’, and ‘Who are 

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they?’” 7 

Culture organizes meaning for a society: “culture tells us what to want, 

to prefer, to desire, and thus to value.” It also “provides scripts and personae 

that are reenacted and subtly modified over time within a society.” 8 Culture 

shapes foreign policy, at least indirectly. 9 Shared systems of meaning become 

transferred to the foreign policy making process. For Hudson, “culture in and 

of itself is not a cause of anything in international relations…. It is in the ‘who 

draws what ideas’ and the ‘how the ideas are employed’ aspects that causes of 

events can be found.” 10 

Differences in the internal values found in states can become refracted 

onto foreign policy behavior. A good example is in the self-selected national role 

conception. Thus the Third Reich saw itself as preserver of the Caucasian race, 

the U.S. as champion of individual enterprise, Sweden as mediator, and 

Canada as multicultural pioneer. 11 For Hudson, it may even be the case that 

“A nation’s leaders rise in part because they articulate a vision of the nation’s 

role in world affairs that corresponds to deep cultural beliefs about the 

nation.” 12 Accordingly national action scripts may profound shape a state’s 

international politics. 

Culture is regarded as a guarantor of continuity in a state’s foreign policy 

and it follows that cultural analysis can indicate which “Well-known and well- 

practiced options, preferably tied in to the nation’s heroic history, will be 

preferred over less well-known and less familiar options or options with 

traumatic track records—even if an objective cost-benefit analysis of the two 

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options would suggest otherwise.” 13 

How power and national interests are understood and defined are often 

cultural constructs. Policy makers face a challenge: “to what myths, stories, 

heroic historical elements, contemporary cultural memes, or other elements do 

they refer?” 14 A culture that embodies a nation’s historical and normative 

pathways may become privileged in the formulation of foreign policy. 

Culturally-embedded values encompassing national biases, fears, and 

antipathies are regularly projected externally. Let us take one example. In his 

study of the Arab community in Canada and that country’s participation in the 

U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf war, a Canadian Arabist contended that 

race had been involved in judging who was an enemy and who a friend. 

“Canadians will never think of America as an enemy, and neither can they 

think of British or the French as enemies…. But it is so easy to think of Arabs 

as the enemy.” Pointing to Canada’s assertive multicultural, multiracial 

mosaic, the author inferred that “Since multiculturalism advocates celebrating 

the differences, allowing the traditions and cultures to coexist, the extension of 

that policy in foreign policy is a stance of neutrality.” 15 

Diaspora lobbies 

Especially in multicultural societies, diaspora groups may seek influence 

in the making of their adopted country’s foreign policy. 16 But this does not 

apply to all ethnic communities. After 9/11, Arab and Muslim community 

leaders in Western countries have had a difficult time exerting influence. There 

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are a number of reasons for this. These community heads are up against the 

leading role played by the U.S.—whether led by Bush or Obama—in the global 

arena. Arab and Muslim groups are often poorly organized and, in contrast to 

many other diasporas, receive little support from their countries of origin. 

Finally, “The community has a hard time defending the interests of an Arab- 

Muslim world ruled by despotic, non-democratic, corrupt, and politically 

disabled regimes.” 17 

In the Canadian case, “An internalization of democratic Canadian values 

would be a necessary step to transcend any cultural cleavages and overcome 

contradictions between the original values of these diasporas and their newly 

acquired Canadian values.” 18 Even then, such normatively-assimilated groups 

are competing—in Europe and elsewhere—with the anti-immigrant backlash 

that has helped securitize the Muslim threat. Radical right-wing parties have 

articulated and aggregated this backlash. Accordingly, “the populist radical 

right portrays Islam as one of the greatest threats to Europe in the twenty-first 

century, replacing the old specter of communism across Europe.” 19 

Diasporas exhibit the national likes and antipathies of their places of 

origin; often, they amplify them. They attempt to influence the receiving 

country’s foreign policy in so far as it involves that country of origin. Yet 

historian Jack Granatstein stated bluntly that “No nation like Canada can do 

what its citizens of Sri Lankan or Pakistani or Somalian or Jewish or Muslim or 

Ukrainian origin want—all the time.” Instead, “A nation must do what its 

national interests determine it must.” 20 It was therefore desirable “if our 

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leaders can focus on the aspects of foreign policy that are important to the 

nation as a whole and stop playing to the ethnicities that make up our 

population.” 21 

Migrants and security 

Identities, not ideologies, are the criterion by which most migrants are 

judged. The notion of the other has expanded as threats to security have 

become more palpable. Identities perceived as threatening are held suspect. 

Understanding how to protect a country’s security has shifted from “the 

absence of threats to acquired values” to “a low probability of damage to 

acquired values.” 22 

Identities threatening not just the internal cohesion of a state but its 

national security and national interests are identified as especially treacherous. 

Security has come to be redefined: “There has been a clear shift in emphasis in 

the perception of security away from what many would now see as the 

redundant nation-state to individuals and groups. Herein lies the paradox. 

How to reconcile the human right to move freely with the need to protect local 

cultures, economies, environments, health, and, in some cases, peace.” 23 

The traditional meaning of security has been weakened: “The term 

[security] as it has been traditionally used in international relations literature 

is based on two major assumptions: one, that threat to a state’s security 

principally arises from outside its borders, and two, that these threats are 

primarily, if not exclusively, military in nature.” 24 Today, in an era of 

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unprecedented human migration, phobias—the natural and sometimes 

constructed fear of “foreigners”—have become more profoundly intertwined 

with security and foreign policy. The securitization of migration represents a 

synthesis of phobias and foreign policies. Fear of the loss of national 

sovereignty enjoins the two. As one academic noted, immigration phobia and 

threat perceptions have become fused in a “fear narrative.” 25 

On the one hand, that is a surprising conflation: “alarmism about 

national security arising from marginal migration is the principal paradox.” 26 

On the other, viewed through the lens of the security dilemma, migration—as 

cross-border movement of ethnically heterogeneous populations—is a process 

that makes different groups potentially insecure not because government 

authority suddenly declines, but because these groups become suddenly 

proximate: 

[B]ecause any influx of migrants may be ascribed to government failure, 

host populations are likely to develop a suspicion that their government 

becomes weaker, even though the opposite may be the case. The 

governments then face an immigrant policy dilemma in very much the 

same way they face the arms race dilemma. The appearance of being soft 

on immigration is likely to undermine domestic support for the 

government. But pursuing a tough restrictionist policy may result in 

economic costs, and it may criminalize immigration—exacerbating 

exactly the problems that need to be resolved. 27 

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Domestic and foreign policies become locked in a dialectic. Although 

other aspects of globalization—unrestricted movement of capital, consumerism, 

cultural production—have also made governments seem “soft” on protecting 

their “borders,” it has been migration where norms of transnational activity 

have not taken root. Thus “Migration (especially illegal migration across state 

borders) is often perceived as a sign of declining state sovereignty. The very fact 

that ethnic ‘others’ are capable to cross state borders and are hard to control 

once inside the host state sets the stage for increasing concerns of the host 

populations about security.” 28 

The concept of anarchy, both in the international system and in the 

receiving society, becomes salient. “The weaker this perceived [government] 

capacity, the greater the likelihood that the incumbent groups will feel 

uncertain and fearful for their future. Drawing on the security-dilemma logic, 

the stronger the sense of anarchy, the stronger the likelihood that security will 

be the primary concern of individuals and groups.” 29 Formulating a tough state 

security policy becomes a priority for the anti-migrant constituency. 

Fear of approaching anarchy and fear of foreigners become interrelated. 

A consequence is the spread of resentment--an emotional response to the 

prospect that under anarchy social hierarchies may shift in favor of others. 30 

Most cases of ethnic targeting in the twentieth century involved such 

resentment, whether the regularity of pogroms against Jews in eastern Europe 

or the protracted economic subordination of Catholics in Northern Ireland. In 

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short, shifting social hierarchies produce the “sense of emerging anarchy and 

uncertainty about the future under weak ‘rules of the game.’” 31 

Similar logic was employed by Bauman to associate the rise of 

xenophobia with the replacement of structures of solidarity by competition. 

“Xenophobia, the growing suspicion of a foreign plot and resentment of 

‘strangers’ (mostly of emigrants, those vivid and highly visible reminders that 

walls can be pierced and borders effaced, natural effigies, asking to be burned, 

of mysterious globalizing forces running out of control), can be seen as a 

perverse reflection of desperate attempts to salvage whatever remains of local 

solidarity.” 32 

In sum, “Immigration phobia in host societies is likely to be more 

intense, the more acute perceptions of emergent anarchy, the more ambiguous 

the sense of migrant intentions, and the more distinct and cohesive the 

perceived ‘groupness’ of migrants.” 33 The spread of Islamophobic attitudes is 

partly the product of popular perceptions in the host society of the strong sense 

of groupness that Muslim migrants preserve even as anarchic conditions 

prevail in transnational migration. 

The peril of securitizing migration is that it can bring about exactly that 

which it is intended to prevent. “As in the case of spiraling arms races, 

overrating of security threats arising from migration is likely to generate self- 

fulfilling prophecies: The more migration is feared as a security threat, the 

more of a security threat it becomes.” 34 

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As EU policy makers concerned with managing immigration are aware of, 

coercive measures against migrants can lead to the spiraling of illegal activity 

and violence. The policy dilemma, then, that brings together domestic and 

international factors appears as easy to conceptualize as it is difficult to 

resolve: “the principal policy challenge is how to reduce the temptation and the 

public pressure to ‘securitize’ immigration control while at the same time to 

effectively manage migrant flows and unlock the social and economic potential 

of migration.” 35 

A Case Study: the EU 

In his book on EU Foreign and Interior Policies, international relations 

expert Stephan Stetter was concerned with the question whether “the EU 

‘allocates’ values which construct an inside and an outside.” 36 He studied the 

roles of three institutions—the European Commission, the EU Council 

Secretariat, and the European Parliament—in formulating both outside 

policies—towards the Middle East—and inside policies—on third country 

nationals in the EU. He concluded that there was a common pattern of 

evolution signaling that at the EU level international and domestic decision 

making patterns cross-fertilized. 

Stetter discovered that initially the European Commission’s policy 

preferences on the Middle East were politically ambitious. But they were reined 

in by political realities and in time replaced with a more technical, managerial 

approach. The Commission concluded that its economic involvement in the 

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egion had had important political results—the survival of the Palestinian 

Authority and the modernization of some Arab countries. With regard to the 

Commission’s interior policy, “a similar adaptation process from an initially 

ambitious and political agenda, which was based on a functionally unified 

approach to migration policies, was replaced by a more managerial, issue- 

orientated attitude.” 37 

The visibility of the Council Secretariat in foreign policy increased after 

1996 with the activities of its Special Representative for the Middle East, then 

after 1999 with the appointment of a High Representative for Common Foreign 

and Security Policy. Similarly, in tandem with this, the Council Secretariat 

developed specific preferences on migration policies, taking on a more active, 

political role. 

Finally the European Parliament’s priority in its Middle East policy has 

traditionally been democracy promotion and human rights—areas of less 

concern to the Commission and Secretariat. Stetter again found an apparent 

demonstration effect on interior policy making. “Turning to migration policies, 

Parliament’s preferences show a remarkable similarity to those outlined on 

foreign policies. The lack of direct influence over executive policy-making has 

led Parliament to adopt a general skepticism with regard to the overall policy 

agenda in migration policies.” 38 

From the outset, the European Parliament attached greater attention to 

serving as a platform for the perspective and interests of migrants. Whether on 

the Middle East or migrants, “In both areas Parliament perceives its own role 

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as being a provider for alternative policy agendas to official EU policies as they 

are pursued by the EU executive.” 39 Stetter’s explanation for the uncanny 

convergence of decision rules on interior and foreign policy by the EU’s three 

principal agents was not causality but cross-fertilization. At the EU level of 

governance, it appears that Stetter’s findings highlight the congruence between 

la politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans. Can we go further and 

discover whether under certain conditions a state’s foreign policy may be 

dictated by religious and ethnic fears at home? 

The internal logic of French foreign policy 

For Jocelyn Evans, who employed the French expression above in his 

study of the influence of the Front National on France’s foreign policy, right- 

wing movements may target scapegoats who are simultaneously found abroad 

and at home. Muslim migrants and minorities at home are viewed by many FN 

supporters as mere extensions of Muslim states in the international arena. 

They are therefore seen as posing an equal threat to national cohesion, 

national security, and the national interest. 40 

Of course the opposite perspective—of a natural coalescing of interests 

found at home and abroad—is just as plausible. Jacques Attali, special adviser 

to President Mitterand, remarked that “France may be Christian, Atlantic, and 

European, but it is also Muslim, Mediterranean and African. And its future— 

like that of every great power—resides in the multiplicity of its connections, in 

the resolute acceptance of its ambiguities.” 41 France’s special interest in the 

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Muslim and Mediterranean worlds is a product of its geographic proximity to 

Arabic-speaking countries. Its extended period of contact with, and at times 

conquest of, these peoples, dating from the battle of Tours-Poitiers in 732 at 

which Franks defeated an army of the Umayyad Caliphate, has also had the 

effect of forging close links. Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign (1798-1801) was 

the precursor for the military expedition to Algeria in 1830, setting the stage for 

l’Algérie française. Algeria became France’s “narrow door” to Africa. Based on 

an often wrenching history, France maintains an emotional attachment to the 

Arab world. It seems unlikely that a sudden rise in anti-Muslim attitudes 

directed at those of migrant background at home can undo the influence of 

France’s deep structures with the Islamic world. 

One comparative study contrasted the “quite different and somewhat 

incompatible foreign policy models” of France and Germany. “France’s politique 

arabe sought to counter U.S. and Soviet influence in the region, showed a 

preference for Arab countries in the Middle East conflict, attempted to isolate 

Islamist movements and was guided by strategic considerations that gave little 

value to the promotion of democracy.” 42 By contrast, Germany’s ill-termed 

Politik der Ausgewogenheit [“balanced policy”] “promoted U.S. primacy in the 

region, strongly supported Israel, sought to engage with Islamist movements 

and emphasized a premium to civil society contacts and democracy 

promotion.” 43 French grand strategy was unlikely to be derailed by internal 

changes, whether in government or in public opinion. 

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From pro-Israeli to pro-Arab foreign policy 

The history of France’s pro-Arab policy cannot be decoupled from an 

internal factor—the existence of anti-Semitism in the country through much of 

the twentieth century. The Dreyfus affair, sparked by the conviction in 1894 of 

Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French military, for treason, exposed the 

country’s anti-Semitism. French society divided over the question of the 

patriotism of French Jews, and the controversy left an enduring mark on 

French conceptions of identity, belonging, and national security. In the 1940s, 

the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Third Reich, including help with the 

deportation of French Jews to extermination camps in eastern Europe, raised 

new questions about the uncertain status of the Jewish minority in France. 

To be sure, France had thrown its support behind the 1924 Balfour 

Declaration which envisaged an independent Jewish state in the Middle East. 

France’s colonial policies in the Levant had alienated much of the Arab world. 

Its recognition of the State of Israel in 1948 won it few friends in the Middle 

East. If anti-Semitism remained a strong undercurrent in French society even 

after World War II, the country’s international politics were decidedly anti-Arab. 

“Coupled with its war in Algeria, the Fourth Republic’s close ties with Israel 

made it a pariah in the eyes of Arab nationalist leaders.” 44 French participation 

in the mismanaged 1956 invasion of Suez—an attempt to abort Arab 

nationalism as personified by Egyptian leader Gamul Abdel Nasser—furnished 

yet another example of Arabophobia in foreign policy. 

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If France’s relations with Arab states were strained, between 1948 and 

1958 Fourth Republic governments embraced the new Israeli state, even 

transferring nuclear technology to it. At home the state made efforts to improve 

French attitudes towards its Jewish minority. Up to the 1960s, enthusiasm for 

“Franco-Israeli relations were one of the few foreign policy issues with a strong 

domestic resonance—both because of their implications for domestic attitudes 

to French Jews, and because of the existence of relatively well organized 

lobbies.” 45 

France’s close relationship with Israel was weakened by the Evian 

agreement of 1962, under which France ended its occupation of Algeria and 

granted it independence. The withdrawal was used by President Charles de 

Gaulle to generally shift foreign policy priorities towards the non-aligned world 

and away from Europe, the Atlantic, and Israel. The end of the cordial Franco- 

Israeli relationship came in 1967 following Israel’s rout of Arab states’ armies 

and the beginning of its occupation of Arab lands in the aftermath of the Six- 

Day war. In response, President de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on Israel. 

It carried huge symbolic importance as well: “An undeniable by-product of de 

Gaulle’s criticism of Israel in 1967 was the perception among many Arab 

leaders that this marked a decisive tilt in policy towards a ‘pro-Arab’ stance by 

France.” De Gaulle’s “criticism of Israel provided French diplomats with both 

political capital and commercial leverage within the Arab world.” 46 La politique 

arabe was to remain the cornerstone of French Middle East policy up until 

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2007. It preceded large-scale Muslim migration into the country. It ended 

shortly after French Islamophobia began to make a mark in national politics. 

There were always limits to France’s support for secular republics in the 

Arab world as well as a theocratic one in Iran. Affection for Saddam Hussein’s 

secular Iraqi state vanished when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991. President 

Mitterand joined the U.S.-led coalition in driving the Iraqi military out of that 

Gulf state. In addition, the French preference for laïcité at home was 

transplanted to the international arena and led to a repudiation of Iran after its 

1979 revolution. Jean-Pierre Chevènement, defense minister in the late 1980s 

in a socialist government, had been a leading strategist behind the approach to 

back secular governments in Muslim states: “One of Chevènement’s 

longstanding central arguments has been for the need for French foreign policy 

to combat religious revivalism in the Maghreb and Middle East—not as an end 

in itself, but as a bulwark against the influence of Islamist groups within 

France’s own population.” 47 

This approach was not yet a turning point in policy towards the Middle 

East. After 1996 France expressed opposition to continued sanctions against 

Saddam’s regime and President Chirac returned to a more traditional Gaullist 

foreign policy. He became one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. invasion 

of Iraq in 2003 and was supported by major French enterprises, the upper civil 

service, and the vast majority of French citizens. Chirac contributed to the 

conceptualization of France as une puissance musulmane, earning him the 

nickname Chirac d’Arabie. The Maghreb in particular became the primary 

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destination for French aid, investment, and cooperation on military and 

counterterrorism operations. 

The Sarkozy shift 

As presidential candidate in 2007, Sarkozy styled himself l’homme de 

rupture—the leader who would break with the country’s past foreign policy. His 

electoral campaign borrowed ideas from the Front National, notably promises of 

harsher crackdowns on those involved in urban violence and deportation of 

greater numbers of illegal immigrants. Such electoral rhetoric has not actually 

been reflected in policy initiatives, however. 

This has much to do with the way foreign policy is made. As in other 

democratic states, different groups close to the president compete for influence. 

The most influential group in the first years of the Sarkozy presidency was 

made up of intellectuals, journalists, and business leaders who were pro- 

American. Most were drawn from the ranks of the center-right party that 

backed Sarkozy, Union pour la majorité présidentielle (UMP). Many of their ideas 

were based on a book written by former UMP prime minister Edouard 

Balladur. 48 Thus France, like Israel, was defined as an axis of the Western 

world facing the same threats: Russia, China, and Islam. France’s politique 

arabe was a sellout of Western ideals. In order to face these threats squarely, 

the French state had to stop promoting the interests of large corporations like 

carmakers Peugeot-Citroën and Renault and oil companies like Total. But 

another plausible consideration was to overhaul a culture in which “Arabs have 

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een accustomed to the cajolery of the French state, and the expected privilege 

that goes with it.” 49 

This new strategic blueprint shared several features with the 

longstanding strategic thought of the Front National. One analyst summarized 

the FN view: “Muslim fundamentalism in North Africa and the Middle East is 

seen as a new strategic threat—missile launchers along the southern 

Mediterranean coast could reach France, and proto-nuclear power Iran and 

illegal arms trading from the ex-Soviet Republics could supply weaponry to 

these countries.” 50 Such strategic interests overrode domestic discontent with 

growing Muslim communities, though “securitizing” them was the one way that 

fears could have foreign policy resonance. 

Strategic thinking was the purview of the foreign policy establishment. 

The dominant group in Sarkozy’s presidency was what Hubert Védrine, former 

socialist foreign affairs minister, dubbed occidentalo-atlantiste. Until Sarkozy’s 

election, the term “Occidental” was prohibited from use in official reports. It 

was a watershed, then, that in his first major speech on foreign policy in 

August 2007, Sarkozy invoked the term seven times, including to warn about a 

conflict with the Occident’s other, Islam. In the “White Book on Defense and 

National Security” published in Sarkozy’s first year as president, Occident was 

used 18 times, though it was not defined. 51 

Apart from closer ties with Washington, the second main axis of 

Occidentalist policy involves changed relations with the Muslim world. To 

some, Sarkozy embarked on reversing the policies of his Fifth Republic 

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predecessors. In a speech to French troops in Afghanistan in late 2007, for 

example, he described the war in that country as the front line of a global war 

on terror waged by the Occident. One writer noted how “For the first time, an 

openly pro-Israeli presidential candidate made it to the Élysée…, making a 

mockery of old conjectures about the communitarian electoral breakdown in 

France: 6 million Muslims versus 600,000 Jews!” 52 

Under Sarkozy bilateral relations with Israel were strengthened. In late 

2007 a Sarkozy aide met with leaders of Le Conseil représentatif des institutions 

juives de France (CRIF) and announced that a Franco-Israeli alliance would be 

“at the heart of the Mediterranean Union.” Sarkozy, whose grandfather was 

Jewish, visited Israel in 2008 and expressed his sympathy for the suffering of 

Israelis--without saying a word about Palestinians or occupation. Israel and 

France were in the same democratic camp, he emphasized. He even “forgot” to 

read the phrase in his speech referring to a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders. 

Sarkozy also supported Israel’s bid to have closer relations with the EU, 

including having an annual meeting with the EU Council of Ministers as great 

powers like the U.S., Russia, and China enjoy. Arab states threatened to 

boycott the upcoming Mediterranean Union summit in retaliation. Shortly 

afterwards, an EU meeting diplomatically turned down the initiative to hold 

EU-Israel annual meetings. 53 

In sum, President Sarkozy, who came in for increasing criticism of 

conducting “Glampolitics,” made inroads in breaking with traditional Fifth 

Republic foreign policy. But they should not be overestimated. The 

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Mediterranean Union may have been his most high profile achievement, but it 

was essentially an extension of existing French policy: “the Maghreb policy 

means essentially, for France, the management of immigration, the 

francophonie policy, the tolerance of human rights violations, and the defense 

of French economic interests.” 54 

Inflating the importance of Islamophobia 

Much conventional thinking about French foreign policy priorities has it 

that both a phobia—anti-Israeli views—and a philia—pro-Arabism—have long 

been embraced by French political elites, if not necessarily by French society: 

“In contrast to the foreign policy establishment and its determination to act 

and speak as though the national interest demanded siding with the Muslim 

Middle East in all its issues and prejudices, public opinion in France has been 

in the main supportive of Israel and Jews generally, while wary of a ‘France 

musulmane.’” 55 If the foreign policy elite has pursued la politique arabe—and 

we have identified the many caveats to it—then the Sarkozy shift may 

represent, among other things, a closer realignment with citizens’ political 

orientations. 

Let us not overlook the individual level of analysis. The president is said 

to be sensitive to the interests of minorities and disadvantaged groups. Of 

Hungarian origin with a Jewish background, Sarkozy was described by a 

Senegalese Muslim woman appointed to his first cabinet this way: “He has 

always thought like someone from a minority. So that's why he understands 

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minorities so well: he thinks of himself as not completely French. He has a 

particular sensitivity about that.” 56 This may be reflected in his embrace of the 

Mediterranean Union and even of a cultural Islam. At a ceremony at which he 

laid the cornerstone for an Islamic arts addition to the Louvre (financed largely 

by Saudi Arabia0, the president proclaimed that “Islam represents progress, 

science, finesse, modernity.” 57 

Personnel selection for his first cabinet—they were more conventional in 

subsequent changes—also seemed to reflect his personal sensibilities. Half of 

the appointments were women including several from minority background. 

The Justice Minister became Rachida Dati, a Muslim Moroccan citizen. The 

Urban Affairs Secretary was Fadela Amara, an Arab-rights activist and feminist 

who belonged to the Socialist Party. The national secretary of the UMP was 

Kacim Kellal, of Maghrebi ancestry, who was then appointed Deputy Minister 

for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development Partnership. 

His reason for accepting an appointment in a conservative party was revealing: 

“Muslims are sick of having a dialogue only with the ministry of police.” 58 

The empirical basis for claiming a link between “Islamicization” of French 

society and la politique arabe is flimsy. First, pro-Arab foreign policy predates 

the arrival of millions of Muslims to France. Second, these Muslims do not vote 

as a bloc. Third, Muslim communities are diverse in terms of their level of 

assimilation into French society and their political orientations. In their 

analysis of a possible Muslim domestic-foreign policy linkage, Lawrence and 

Vaisse claimed that “The political impact of the Muslim population is very 

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minimal on foreign policy or the fight against terrorism.” 59 Among reasons cited 

are that only about three of five Muslims in France are voting citizens. The 

issues they are interested in are employment, the economy, education, and 

discrimination. 

The Muslim fact in France, then, has at most an impact on the margins 

of foreign policy. Laurence and Vaisse hypothesized that “The historical record 

of French policy in the Arab world since Charles de Gaulle suggests that 

France’s position on international affairs would not look much different even if 

there were no Muslim minority in France.” 60 We can add that it would not be 

much different if there were no politically influential Islamophobes in the 

country. To be sure, “While there is no evidence of the Muslim minority’s direct 

influence on French foreign policy, the presence of five million Muslims does 

have an indirect impact on diplomacy with respect to the Middle East. But it 

seems mostly to confirm France’s preexisting policies toward this region.” 61 

On the big issues, French Muslims and the French population at large 

have usually been in agreement. More than 70 per cent of both groups said 

that they worried about Islamism and that they believed there is no “conflict 

between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.” The two 

populations also expressed mutual respect: in 2004 close to two-thirds of all 

French people thought favorably of Muslims—the highest such proportion of 

any of the western countries polled. Reciprocally, more Muslims had favorable 

views of Christians and Jews (91 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively) in 

22

France than anywhere else. Mutual respect was slightly lower in a 2008 survey 

but it had fallen less in France than other European countries polled. 62 

Rejoining NATO’s military structure and fighting a war of attrition in 

Afghanistan are Sarkozy’s policies that may split the Muslim minority from the 

French mainstream. French sociologist Emmanuel Todd was especially critical 

of these initiatives and attributed them directly to Islamophobia. President 

Sarkozy was joining the U.S. on a “mission of conquest” against Islam. France 

was 

positioning [itself] in an ideological construction against the Muslim 

world. This posture is also very much of a piece with Sarkozy's interior 

politics.... The search for scapegoats, the emergence of an Islamophobic 

ideology hostile to immigrant children...this is not in France's character. 

In the final analysis, the French always prefer decapitating noblemen to 

decapitating foreigners. 63 

This dubious hypothesized connection is as close as we have come to 

learning that French Islamophobes have hijacked French foreign policy. That is 

no more supported than the proposition that Muslim communities in the 

country have (a separate research question). At the same time, this does not 

discount the importance of exploring the domestic-international policy 

connection. “[D]omestic factors deserve a special attention in the study of world 

politics, as they influence national foreign-policy making….domestic factors 

often impact on whether the incentives, policies, and values promoted by the 

‘West’ are acceptable. In other words, domestic factors related to political 

23

identity may be decisive for the success of the EU’s normative power in world 

politics.” 64 

Among the many subtle influences of domestic structures on foreign 

policy is one in which not just systemic models—democracy or the free 

market—make an impact on other actors in the international system. The 

existence of harmonious relations between majority and Muslim populations at 

home can have a demonstration effect and be more meaningful to enhancing 

French influence abroad than many forms of traditional diplomacy. Conversely, 

French Islamophobia, such as it is, may not be an influential factor in shaping 

a country’s international politics, but it can have a spoiler effect. 

Notes 

1 Juliet Kaarbo, Jeffrey S. Lantis, and Ryan K. Beasley, “The Analysis of Foreign Policy 

in Comparative Perspective,” in Beasley, Kaarbo, Lantis, and Michael T. Snarr (eds.), 

Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: Domestic and International Influences on 

State Behavior (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2002), 13. 

2 Kaarbo, Lantis, and Beasley, “The Analysis of Foreign Policy in Comparative 

Perspective,” 14. 

3 Ronald Rogowski, “Institutions as Constraints on Strategic Choice,” in David A. Lake 

and Robert Powell (eds.), Strategic Choice and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1999), 133. 

4 F.G. Bailey, Treasons, Strategems, and Spoils: How Leaders Make Practical Use of 

Beliefs and Values (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 9. 

5 Bailey, Treasons, Strategems, and Spoils, 8. 

6 The most recent major study is by Richard Ned Lebow, A Cultural Theory of 

International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 

7 Valerie M. Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis: Classic and Contemporary Theory 

(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 104. 

8 Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 109-110. 

9 As with the semantics of rendering Marx’s statement that the economic base 

determines/shapes/conditions the ideological superstructure, so too culture’s impact 

on foreign policy can be that of determining, shaping, or conditioning—depending on 

how much causality we choose to impute. 

10 K.F. Wilkening, “Culture and Japanese Citizen Influence on the Transboundary Air 

Pollution Issue in Northeast Asia,” Political Psychology 20, no. 4 (1999), 8. 

24

11 Kal J. Holsti, “National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy,” 

International Studies Quarterly 14 (1970), 233-309. 

12 Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 116. 

13 Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 120-21. 

14 Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 122. 

15 Zuhair Kashmeri, The Gulf Within: Canadian Arabs, Racism and the Gulf War 

(Toronto: Lorimer, 1991), 126ff. 

16 See Yossi Shain and Aharon Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory,” 

International Organization, 57, no. 3 (2003), 449-479. 

17 Sami Aoun, “Muslim Communities: The Pitfalls of Decision-Making in Canadian 

Foreign Policy,” in David Carment and David Bercuson (eds.), The World in Canada: 

Diaspora, Demography, and Domestic Politics (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University 

Press, 2008), 116. 

18 Aoun, “Muslim Communities,” 121. 

19 Christina Schori Liang, “Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy 

of the Populist Radical Right,” in Liang (ed.), Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign 

and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 20. 

20 J.L. Granatstein, “Multiculturalism and Canadian Foreign Policy,” in Carment and 

Bercuson, The World in Canada, 79. 

21 James Travers, “Underscoring a Message of Zero Tolerance,” Toronto Star (14 July 

2005. Quoted by Granatstein, “Multiculturalism and Canadian Foreign Policy,” 90. 

22 D.A. Baldwin, “The Concept of Security,” Review of International Studies, 23, no. 1 

(2005), 5-26. 

23 Nana Poku and David T. Graham (eds.), Redefining Security: Population Movements 

and National Security (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), xv. 

24 Mohammed Ayoob, “The International Security System and the Third World,” in 

William C. Olson (ed.), Theory and Practice of International Relations, 9th edn. 

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994), 225. 

25 Roger D. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in 

Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 

26 Mikhail A. Alexseev, Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, 

and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 20. 

27 Alexseev, Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma, 38. 



30 Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence, 56. 


32 Zygmunt Bauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure (New York: Polity Press, 2004), 

99. 


34 Alexseev, Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma, 227-28. 


36 Stephan Stetter, EU Foreign and Interior Policies: Cross-pillar Politics and the Social 

Construction of Sovereignty (London: Routledge, 2007), 37. 

37 Stetter, EU Foreign and Interior Policies, 148. 



40 Jocelyn Evans, “‘La politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans:’ foreign and 

defence policy of the French Front National,” in Philippe Burrin and Christina Schori- 

25

Liang (eds.), European Right-Wing Populism and Foreign Policy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 

2007). 

41 Jacques Attali, “A Continental Architecture,” in Peter Gowan and Perry Anderson 

(eds.), The Question of Europe (London: Verso, 1997), 355. 

42 Timo Behr, “Enduring Differences? France, Germany and Europe’s Middle East 

Dilemma,” Journal of European Integration, 30, no. 1 (March 2008), 83. 

43 Behr, “Enduring Differences?” 83. 

44 David Styan, France and Iraq: Oil, Arms and French Policy Making in the Middle East 

(New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 31. 

45 Styan, France and Iraq, 34. 

46 Styan, France and Iraq, 46, 50. 

47 Styan, France and Iraq, 199. See Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Le vert et le noir: 

intégrisme, pétrole, dollar (Paris: B. Grasset, 1995). He was close to leading French 

Orientalist Jacques Berque. 

48 Edouard Balladur, Pour une Union occidentale entre l’Europe et les Etats-Unis 

(Fayard, Paris, 2007). 

49 David Pryce-Jones, Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews (New York: Encounter 

Books, 2006), 151. 

50 Jocelyn A.J. Evans, “‘La politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans:’ Foreign 

and Defense Policy of the French Front National,” in Liang, Europe for the Europeans, 

135. 

51 Le Livre blanc sur la défense et la sécurité nationale (Paris: Odile Jacob—La 

Documentation française, Juin 2008). 

52 Frédéric Encel, “France-Israël: Passé et present d’une relation spéciale,” l’Essentiel 

des relations internationals, (Juin-Juillet 2008), 79. 

53 Alain Gresh, “OTAN, Proche-Orient, Afrique... Enquête sur le virage de la diplomatie 

française,” Le Monde Diplomatique (Juillet 2008), 1, 8-9, http://www.mondediplomatique.fr/2008/07/GRESH/16104. 

54 Jean-François Daguzan, “France and the Maghreb: The End of the Special 

Relationship?” in Yahia H. Zoubir and Haizam Amirah-Fernández, North Africa: 

Politics, Region, and the Limits of Transformation (London: Routledge, 2008), 335. 

55 Pryce-Jones, Betrayal, 132-33. 

56 Doug Sanders, “Five women and 365 days,” Globe and Mail (May 9, 2008). 

57 Cited in Ivan Rioufol, “‘La France veut la paix’ (mais à quell prix?),” Le Figaro (18 

July 2008). 

58 Quoted in “Allocution de M. Brice Hortefeux, ministre de l’immigration, de 

l’intégration, de l’identité nationale et du développement solidaire lors des Journées de 

la Coopération internationale et du développement,” Maison de la Mutualité, Paris (25- 

26 août 2008), at 

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/article_imprim.php3?id_article=65683 

59 Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse, Integrating Islam: Political and Religious 

Challenges in Contemporary France (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 

2008), 218. 

60 Laurence and Vaisse, Integrating Islam, 219. 

61 Laurence and Vaisse, Integrating Islam, 221. 

62 Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Unfavorable Views of Jews and Muslims on the 

Increase in Europe” (17 September 2008), at 

http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/262.pdf 

26

63 From Emmanuel Todd interview in Marianne2.fr (3 April 2008). For an English 

summary, see Alex Lantier, “France moves towards reintegration into NATO,” Global 

Research (19 March 2009), at 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12801 

64 Raffaella A. Del Sarto, Contested State Identities and Regional Security in the Euro- 

Mediterranean Area (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006), 233. 

27

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