President François Hollande of France has less than 15 months left before the new presidential election in France. Seldom has the political situation been more disadvantageous for an outgoing president. Only one French citizen out of four finds his re-election "suitable," according to a Viavoice survey that was recently conducted for the famous left-wing daily Liberation.
Hollande was elected in 2012 basically due to two important issues. First, the French public had had enough of then President Nicolas Sarkozy's "bling" presidency, made up of international show-offs devoid of substance and domestic inefficiency and second, Hollande promised a serious reform program to curb unemployment. His program was inspired by the German market and employment regulations. Despite being from very different political families, his ties to and relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained steady and courteous.On the issue of unemployment, he has been making structural changes, but unemployment is still on the rise after almost four years of his presidency. He thus wants to emphasize the best performance of his presidency, which is security. After the terrible attacks in Paris in which 130 people lost their lives, Hollande's stance was reassuring, solid and steady. He is not convinced that Merkel's policy to accept a given number of migrants is a good political stance a year before the elections. Therefore, taking into consideration the rise of the extreme right in France, Hollande has opted for a moderate and cautious approach to migrant policy.
First, he has chosen to change the constitution in order to render the implementation and steering of martial law. He then reshuffled his cabinet, increasing the number of ministers from the Green political movement. He also has taken this opportunity to call back his former prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault to replace Laurent Fabius as the minister of foreign affairs.
This change does not bode well for France's Syria policy. Fabius, a very experienced and talented socialist politician, has been handling the foreign affairs portfolio since the beginning of Hollande's presidency. He sided with Turkish government initiatives, especially in his first years in the job. When the Syrian regime was found guilty of using chemical weapons on the opposition and civilians, France and Turkey were ready to intervene with airstrikes alongside with the U.S. to help to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
U.S. President Barack Obama's last minute volte-face and his idea to organize a conference in Geneva left both Turkey and France totally on the obverse side. That last moment hesitance from the U.S. administration almost gave Iran and Russia carte blanche, leaving Western democracies, and mostly Turkey, unable to really influence the developments in Syria.
With Fabius gone, Ayrault will not have a very hard time convincing his EU counterparts that not doing anything is the best policy in Syria. Now that Russia has openly declared war on all the opponents of Assad, it will be very difficult and intricate to gather all EU countries for an anti-Russian policy after the war in Ukraine.
Ayrault is also a very European politician. He will be more engaged with the EU instead of trying to establish bilateral talks with Ankara, or at least not as often as Fabius. To Hollande's credit, one must stress that he has genuinely succeeded in normalizing relations between France and Turkey. After the terrible and incomprehensible period of enmity under Sarkozy, Turkish foreign affairs were getting used to seeing in France a dependable ally. Fabius's personality and efforts have also been instrumental in mending these ties. Now that he is gone, Hollande will obviously not change his policy for Turkey, but he wants to distance himself from Merkel's humane approach to the refugee problem. France has already asked Turkey to stop retaliating against the Democratic Union Party's (PYD) attacks on the Syrian border.
It is a pity that France is not ready anymore to back Merkel on the issue of migrants and refugees. Ankara has lost a strategic partner in this perspective.
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