Dominique de Villepin at Harvard
On Friday, I got the chance to see the Prime Minister of France, Dominique de Villepin, give a speech in the Forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Outside, the snow was coming down in white swirls, making the streets slushy in Cambridge and slowing the traffic down to walking speed. Nevertheless, he entered into the building on time, wearing the standard politician uniform of a black business suit with tie. After a somewhat fulsome introduction by a Harvard professor, he took the podium and gave a decent speech.
I was there, primarily, because I remember with fondness M. de Villepin’s speech at United Nations, opposing the US-led invasion of Iraq. He revisited the Iraq issue during his Harvard speech, making the general point that no country, even the United States, is powerful enough to be a global hegemon by itself. Therefore, international institutions must be strengthened.
I agree with this thesis, and it was generally well received at the Kennedy School, which is always internationalist in its character due to its diverse make-up. However, the specific programs he proposed seemed rather uninspiring: expansion of the UN Security Council to include Germany, Japan, and a representative of Africa; an international conference to solve the Iraq problem; another international conference to solve the Palestinian problem; and increased foreign development aid. No real news was made during the speech.
Most interesting was what lines drew applause. The fiscally-conservative elements in the crowd gave him applause for his promise to continue slowly modernizing and opening France’s economy. The libertarian elements (in the original sense of that term) clapped loudly when he said no country should torture its prisoners. Disturbingly, there was almost no overlap between these two groups, leading me to wonder what ever happened to the traditional conservative position of support for free trade and respect for the rule of law
To his credit, M. de Villepin was brave enough to take 30 minutes of unscripted questions from the audience. This is more than can be said for several American politicians, including our current President. In fact, M. de Villepin was noticeably more relaxed during this question period than during his speech. He displayed the great rhetorical skill of subtly changing a question to one he wanted to answer, and then responding to the latter. At times this meant he skipped the substance of a question, as when he dodged a question about poverty among North African immigrants by discussing unemployment in France among the general population. Still, I’m willing to forgive this rhetorical evasion, for one in such a political position as he must avoid making news accidentally.
