When, late August, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, revealed on French radio that he had seriously considered resigning1 over the French government's stigmatisation of the Roma, the former Socialist was doubtless trying to save the modicum of dignity that some of his friends, including Daniel Cohn-Bendit2, still credited him with. But in the event, it sounded more like the cry of man drowning.
As Cohn-Bendit himself put it: "Imagine Bernard Kouchner 15 years ago! He would have been on the first flight […] He would go and see for himself what life was like for the Roma in Romania and Bulgaria and he would say: "Stop right there, Monsieur le président! You can’t do that!"
Kouchner’s comments about his near-resignation, pleading that although he had defended the Roma for 25 years his resignation would achieve nothing, did him few favours. They served only to illustrate the abyss into which the co-founder of 'Médecins sans frontières' (Doctors without Borders), a pioneer in international humanitarian activities and one of the Socialist Party’s biggest hitters on major international issues in the 1980s and 1990s, had now fallen.
The tragedy of Kouchner's time at the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs (commonly referred to as the Quai d'Orsay, after its River Seine quayside address), amounts to much more than a renunciation of his principles. It’s a tale of idleness, fickleness, arrogance, contempt, impotence and, ultimately, the weakening of the institution that he directs. The consequence has been that French foreign policy is now flying at half-mast and gives no clear message.
Numerous articles and several books have already been written on the subject of the conflicts of interest caused by Kouchner’s professional activities (concerning various business deals), and also his private life (his wife, Christine Ockrent, a veteran journalist, is now head of France's external public broadcasting authority. More ink still has flowed about his various foreign policy failures and on the effects of budget cuts at the foreign affairs ministry.
Behind all this is a man who isn’t doing his job - or who doesn’t know how to do it - and who desperately clings to his position, at the beck and call of his master in the Elysée Palace, even prepared to pre-empt what the president will ask him to do.
In a restaurant close to his offices near the Quai d'Orsay, a senior diplomat, who has daily contact with the minister, agreed to talk to Mediapart on the strict condition of anonymity. This was also the condition demanded by nearly all of those who are quoted in this article.
The interview was on July 27th, 2010, just a few days after the news of the assassination of the French hostage Michel Germaneau in the Sahel, for which the Al-Qaeda organisation in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa) claimed responsibility. "Did you hear Kouchner this morning on RTL[radio]?" asked the diplomat. "It’s pathetic, a total disaster! Everyone knows he doesn’t study his briefs, but he could at least communicate properly. That should be his core business, communication. He was completely floundering there." Indeed, the minister made a succession of sweeping statements, interspersed with "I don’t knows" and appears out of his depth on a subject of major importance.
"Kouchner has always worked on instinct, and for a long time that was his strength and his charm," commented a French ambassador to a Middle East country, and who nevertheless admits to having sympathy for his boss. "We don’t have enough people like that at the ministry. But when that’s accompanied by a disdain for diplomats and their work, it ends up being counter-productive. I can’t even count the number of meetings in which the minister has boasted about not reading the briefs that they have prepared for him, or mocked the advisors who have written his summaries. Inevitably, he ends up spouting rubbish, which could have been avoided if he had done a bit of preparation."
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1: On October 6th, shortly after this article was first published on the Mediapart English pages, French weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur revealed the contents of a resignation letter reportedly prepared by Bernard Kouchner on August 25th. In it, the minister expresses his concerns over the French government's recent policy emphasis on law and order, an end to its cross-party political "openness" and the "humiliation" he has suffered due to the significant foreign affairs role given to presidential advisors. On October 7th, a presidential spokesman, quoted by French daily Le Figaro, said Nicolas Sarkozy had never received a resignation letter from the minister.
2: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, once known as 'Danny the Red' as one of the leaders of the 1968 Paris student riots, is now co-president of the European Parliament's Green parties alliance.
Foreign affairs are directly managed from the president's office
The celebrity and reputation of Bernard Kouchner was built, in the 1970s and 1980s, around his 'French doctor' image, someone who refused to split hairs and who constantly and vociferously attacked the frustrating inertia and contradictions of officials and officialdom. In a word, he was an anti-diplomat.
Like Nicolas Sarkozy, who gave him his post, he dislikes civil servants, particularly those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In several cases, he openly despises them and, just like the president, he's apt to bully them - to the point of verbal violence according to several sources.
"The result is that many people at the Quai d'Orsay have stopped talking when he's around," says the senior diplomat who works with the minister. "They don't want to be insulted. As a result, there aren't many people who dare to tell him that he's wrong."
This falling out between the minister and his team worsened over recent months, in particular following a series of unrelated leaks to the press from other ministries. "There is a general paranoia regarding civil servants," claims a senior civil servant with the foreign affairs ministry, whose career spans some 30 years. "We are accused of ‘not being part of the team', of not being behind the government. With his status as a maverick, you might have thought Kouchner would have not have been a target for these types of accusations - but on the contrary, he's one of the worst. He is constantly fearful of leaks and betrayals that in his mind can only come from these contemptible civil servants."
It could be said that 'the original sin' of Bernard Kouchner's accession to the Quai d'Orsay was the nature of his appointment by a Nicolas Sarkozy, who opened the door for political reasons. After hesitating between the former 'French doctor' and the former socialist minister Hubert Védrine - the two men have radically different ideas about foreign policy - France's new president decided to offer Kouchner the post he could only have dreamed of as fulfilling a fitting end to his career. But this left him with an obligation to the man who hoisted him onto the pedestal - and who then pulled the rug from under his feet.
Indeed, it's widely reported how French foreign policy is decided and executed from the presidential offices at the Elysée Palace. President Sarkozy has hired the services of a remarkable and wily diplomat, Jean-David Levitte, a former opponent of Dominique de Villepin1, as his diplomatic advisor and sherpa. Nicolas Sarkozy has also given carte blanche to his most faithful servant, Claude Guéant, to manage what represents his personal foreign policy sphere - several African countries and the Persian Gulf.
A young diplomat who acts as intermediary between the president's office and the foreign affairs ministry complained: "It's no different for him [Kouchner] than for his regional directors and ambassadors. Kouchner is constantly bypassed by Guéant. They find out where Guéant went the previous day and who he met from the morning paper. To be walked over like that is very hard for the diplomats of the zones concerned, who are often dedicated and very competent. Not to mention Kouchner, who is starting to look like a spare wheel."
The result has been a sort of paralysis setting in at the Quai d'Orsay. "We have since seen an incredible number of internal memos circulating with the words: ‘To be signed off by PR' [President of the Republic]," bemoans a senior regional director of the ministry. "The young civil servants of the Quai, who know that their minister isn't deciding anything and will not protect them, cover themselves by sending everything to the Elysée where, very often, there's a bottleneck."
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1: Dominique de Villepin, former French foreign minister then prime minister under Jacques Chirac's presidency, has a long-standing political - and personally bitter - rivalry with Nicolas Sarkozy over leadership of the French conservative Right.
Kouchner in the hot seat
Françafriquethe term used to describe France's relations with its former African colonies, often seen to be encouraging dictatorships and corruption1Omar Bongo.
With the cabinet reshuffle announced for this autumn, Kouchner knows he's in the ejector seat. There have been previous rumours that he might lose his job, but this time it seems more probable than ever before. According to a source close to justice minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, the president has promised her the post. That would be logical enough in the context of his monarch-like decisions to revolve certain key ministerial posts (Interior, Defence, Justice, Foreign Affairs).
Kouchner could have reason to believe that it is indeed time to leave - certainly not with his head held high, but at least before the ongoing corruption scandals and the debate over security issues harden and pollute political debate in the run-up to the next presidential election in 2012. But, on the contrary, it seems that the former humanitarian is doing everything to save his skin. The Socialist Party parliamentary representative, François Loncle, told French daily Libération that "the president only gave him one instruction at the beginning of the summer: ‘Above all, keep quiet!' Which of course the minister scrupulously respected."
But Kouchner's instinct for self-preservation is causing more damage at the Quai d'Orsay than anywhere else. "Bernard Kouchner will do anything to please the Elysée and Guéant in particular," said one of the highest-ranking civil servants at the ministry. "He calls me up to give me instructions saying, ‘It's Guéant who wants it' When I tell him that I want the confirmation from Guéant himself, he gets annoyed. And when I try to check this with the Elysée they are often surprised. Pleased perhaps, but surprised by Kouchner's zeal. In reality, he's pre-empting their call. He's doing what no-one asked him to do to in order to please the Elysée and save his job."
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1: The 'Rassemblement pour la République' (Rally for the Republic), the RPR, was once the mainstream French conservative Right party, created in 1976 and led by Jacques Chirac. It claimed its political heritage and vision as those of General Charles de Gaulle. It became the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement), the UMP, in 2002, on the instigation of Jacques Chirac.
'The gift of the gab no longer works'
Bernard Kouchner, 71 years-old on November 1st 2010, is a tired man. Many within his ministry comment on the lack of drive and general fatigue of the top man. "At 70, there's not much charm left," commented a high-ranking civil servant, posted within the French government. She also spoke to Mediapart on the condition of anonymity. "Kouchner has become so used to being able to convince people in front of him with his expression, his gestures and his gift of the gab, that he cannot understand when it doesn't work anymore. Given that he doesn't back it up with solid work, there's nothing left."
Until now, Kouchner has filled the role demanded of him by Nicolas Sarkozy. Namely, to provide the president with the appearance of putting in place a political openness that over flies the cross-party divide, while not becoming an obstacle in Sarkozy's centralisation of powers. But now the time has come for readying the government machine for the all-important 2012 presidential elections, a battle in which Kouchner has no place.
For a while, the name of Alain Juppé, Jaques Chirac's former prime minister, now mayor of Bordeaux, was rumoured as Kouchner's replacement - speculation that had foreign ministry staff breathing a sigh of relief. That now appears unlikely after he lost official favour with his public comments attacking foreign ministry budget cuts and his criticisms of the orientations of the government's crime and security policies.
Above all, in the current political climate amid the election run-up, foreign affairs are to be relegated to a secondary position, and the ministry is hardly, therefore, the place for a leading political figure. "The grand [foreign affairs] projects of the start of the government's term, that were the Mediterranean Union or global financial governance, have come to a standstill," commented a ministry diplomat about to take up a three-year post abroad. "Looking ahead to 2012, the presidency has fallen back on interior issues, like the Roma or crime and safety. In France, the very end of the five-year terms of presidential office is like the second half of the terms served by US presidents, when nothing happens."
That notion will not displease Bernard Kouchner, if ever he manages to keep his post. Given the point he has now reached, such an idle end to his career, watching the trains pass, will no doubt suit him well.
English version: Alison Culliford