On the Scene: Frère Jacques?

Paris

BLAISE Pascal’s 382nd Pensée goes as follows: “When everyone is headed toward collapse at the same time, no one appears to be going there. However, if one person stops, he will show up, like a fixed point, how the others are being carried away.” Jacques Chirac seems to have had the seventeenth-century philosopher’s advice in mind when he started talking tough about Bosnia. The ultimata he delivered to Britain and the United States—that they should either send reinforcements to recapture the fallen safe havens, or get out of Bosnia altogether—were clearly intended to make France into just such a fixed point, around which everyone else was to be shown up in disarray. However, while the venality and confusion of France’s allies—especially Britain—may not be in doubt, Paris is doing little more than the diplomatic equivalent of ceasing to beat one’s wife.

JL

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John Laughland

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Paris

BLAISE Pascal’s 382nd Pensée goes as follows: “When everyone is headed toward collapse at the same time, no one appears to be going there. However, if one person stops, he will show up, like a fixed point, how the others are being carried away.” Jacques Chirac seems to have had the seventeenth-century philosopher’s advice in mind when he started talking tough about Bosnia. The ultimata he delivered to Britain and the United States—that they should either send reinforcements to recapture the fallen safe havens, or get out of Bosnia altogether—were clearly intended to make France into just such a fixed point, around which everyone else was to be shown up in disarray. However, while the venality and confusion of France’s allies—especially Britain—may not be in doubt, Paris is doing little more than the diplomatic equivalent of ceasing to beat one’s wife.