Kouchner at the New Republic
Bernard Kouchner is arguably one of the most interesting people in French politics today. Although he actively supported Ségolène Royal during the recent presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy had no hesitation in appointing him Minister of Foreign Affairs. Before that Kouchner served François Mitterrand as Health Minister, and later held the same post in Lionel Jospin’s government. As an active Communist, he took part in the May ’68 student riots, then worked as a doctor in Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. On his return founded Médecins sans frontières then later Médecins du monde. He was one of the very few prominent French to support the removal of Saddam in Iraq, although he was not in favour of the war and became highly critical of the American management of Iraq after Saddam had been toppled. He is regularly voted the most popular public (i.e. political) figure in France, although he has so far consistently failed to be elected to any national political position – he was elected to the European Parliament in 1994. He was the United Nations’ Representing Administrator in Kosovo from 1999 to 2001.
For those interested in this complex man, who in many ways epitomises the contradictions and subtleties of modern France, the New Republic is very generously putting on the web five long extracts from Paul Berman’s recent book “Power and the Idealists”, in effect a biography of Kouchner and his times, including Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Régis Debray. It is “the most complete biography of Kouchner written in English”. Today they publish part four. It is extremely detailed (some might say long-winded, so far it runs to over 17,000 words), and a fascinating picture of the last forty years with excellent background material on emblematic figures such as Che Guevara. Berman also recreates a badly remembered moment of recent history – late 2002 when many thinking people wanted the removal of a terrible dictator.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Hello Mr King,
Just a word to say that you’re doing a great job on Prospect. I read your blog very attentively & it’s so interesting to see his country from another view. Thanks for that.
Bien à vous.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Hello,
In the major Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter we have recently been reading investigative reports by Maciej Zaremba (probably Sweden’s most well known and respected investigative journalist) on how the UN has acted in Kosovo. Since Mr. Kouchner for a while was the UN’s High Representative in Kosovo he is to a large extent responsible for the development there. And the UN has failed miserably according to the articles in Dagens Nyheter. Corruption has been widespread, especially so among some companies from presumably less corrupt countries, as the UK and Iceland. After countless billions of EUROS there is almost nothing to show for it in Kosovo, except for fancy cars driven by foreigners and brothels visited by the same foreigners.
Mr. Zaremba shows how the French government saw Kosovo as a chance for French companies to make money. Below follows my quick and imperfect translation of a part of Mr. Zaremba’s text; the quotes within the text are from Mr. Zaremba.
“As soon as it becomes clear during the summer of 1999 that the UN will intervene in Kosovo and that a French minister (Bernard Kouchner) shall lead that intervention, the government creates a special committee, Mission interministérielle pour lEurope du Sud-Est (Miese). The mission: to prevent a repetition of Bosnia. That time France supplied 17 percent of the aid but only 5 percent came back in the form of orders to French companies. This time the currents should be reversed.
The committee makes clear that France will ‘give with one hand and take back with the other’. But they are pressed for time; they have to arrive first at this ‘bingo market’ where ‘everything can be sold at a higher price because of the need’. With government blessing large French companies are allowed to dress up their reserve officers as Kfor soldiers, with the intent of claiming territory and making ‘informal contacts’. The aim is to create goodwill and therefore ‘one must not hesitate to once in a while give a humanitarian hand’. (Yes, this is what it says. Sometimes the French language contains an enviable clarity.)”
It is unfortunate that Mr. Kouchner, who has contributed so much to the world through Médecins sans frontiers, did not mind leading such a despicable task as profiting from the people of Kosovo in their hour of need.
Kind regards,
Mats Walus
A link to the page in Dagens Nyheter (the text is in Swedish): http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=660203
June 13th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Very interesting. Now I understand why the French look back at the period when Kouchner was UN Representing Administrator in Kosovo as a high point in their recent history. Does that also explain why, after his job in Kosovo, when Kouchner applied for two big jobs (UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Director General of The World Health Organisation), he was turned down? I know everyone around Kouchner was very angry that he was not appointed, as though it should have been the natural choice. Anyway, thank you for that link.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Hi Tim,
I totally agree with your perception of Bernard Kouchner…
Maybe we could have a chat together if you see an interest in my blog: http://mitterrand.2007.over-blog.com/
Kind regards,
Tonton
June 14th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I think the Colbertist state of mind of French top-executives (even more so for Nicolas “I saved Alstom from evil German robbers” Sarkozy) is one of the key to French economic stagnation in the last decades. Building national champions and protecting them is a way to channel capital in large non-innovative firms.
The same for ailing firms. Managers from failing companies have the political connections needed to attract government support for their firms. Such money would be more useful it it was used to develop more promising industries (but startup managers are not yet affluent, so they lack the political connections that they will have when they will not need them anymore => When their firm will have succeeded) or if it was not used at all (with lower taxes for everyone).
Even more so, it leads to bad habits (see the relapse of the British government with the BAE Al Yamanah contract in Saudi Arabia) such as corruption.
Anyway, given the state of mind of French top-executives obsessed with state-sponsored contracts, I am not at all surprised by these Kosovo developments. And as you can see from recent political developments, I am not really optimistic for the future.