Distemper in Europe

By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, April 4, 2004; Page B07

French voters have succeeded where the Bush administration failed: They have punished President Jacques Chirac and his center-right government. And it is unlikely that the French are finished, or alone, in taking out their bitterness and frustration on their rulers.

(snip)

What does the decision by French voters to give the once-discredited Socialist Party control over 20 of the country's 21 regional administrations -- and to defeat every one of the 19 Chirac Cabinet ministers running for local office last Sunday -- have to do with these larger international questions?

For one thing, it forced Chirac to move from his foreign ministry the Frenchman many Americans and U.S. officials love to hate over Iraq: Dominique de Villepin, the hard-charging, impossibly romantic Gaullist who spearheaded the international campaign against going to war. In a change dictated solely by domestic politics, de Villepin was named interior minister, a post that positions him better to become prime minister in a new shuffle likely this autumn.

The new foreign minister, Michel Barnier, is no less a Gaullist. But he does not carry the heavy emotional baggage on Iraq that de Villepin accumulated. Barnier, a consensus-builder in his previous job as a top European Union official in Brussels, will be more reflective and conciliatory, especially in his opening moves. U.S. officials should seize this small opening, while remembering that Chirac is still president and regards de Villepin as his most trusted adviser and almost as a son.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48297-2004Apr3.html

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I was afraid this "turnaround" might mean a change in their stance on Iraq -

From the Posted Article:

"French voters were not, of course, punishing Chirac for Iraq, as Bush contemplated. But it is striking that last year's high-profile international campaign by France against Washington's "arrogance" and "law-breaking" bought Chirac little if any respite at home in a vote that had the distinct flavor of a national referendum. Moreover, the French vote shared one important characteristic with Spain's national elections two weeks earlier, in which conservatives who supported the war in Iraq were booted out: In both countries voters seemed to have gone to the polls in a fury against the incumbents.
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"conservatives who supported the war in Iraq were booted out"

ahhh

I feel much better finding that one line!