French envoy is mending U.S. rift

PROVO — The French ambassador to the United States offered his chair on stage to any of the dozens of Brigham Young University students who sat on the floor in a crowded campus lecture hall to hear him speak on Tuesday.

It was the first of many conciliatory gestures made by His Excellency Jean-David Levitte, and while none of the students accepted, they were more receptive to his campaign to repair relations between the United States and France.

Levitte said taking that campaign directly to Americans is critical because the war that opened the rift is over and serious danger remains in the reconstruction of Iraq, especially for Europe, which considers the Arab world to be in its back yard.

"That's why I am traveling a lot outside the Beltway (Washington, D.C.) because our relations have been damaged," Levitte told the Deseret Morning News. "In this dangerous world, it's very important to see our two peoples working together as true friends and allies."

In fact, Levitte said France remains grateful its soil was liberated by Americans twice in the past century. When President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac stand together on the beaches of Normandy on June 6 — the 60th anniversary of D-Day — Levitte said 60 million French will be saying, "We will never forget. Thank you, America."

While the French-bashing that followed France's decision to oppose America's war on Iraq has subsided, Levitte doesn't expect Americans to resist a good joke about "freedom fries." But he said Americans should sweep aside any lingering questions about France's loyalty.

"You don't have a better ally and friend than the European Union," Levitte told the students.

"We still consider that this war was not necessary," he added. "There are no links between al-Qaida, (Osama) bin Laden and Iraq. But the war is now behind us, and all of us have to recognize what is at stake today in Iraq. It is huge. It is first, the future of the people of Iraq, second, the future of the whole Middle East and, most important, the future of the Muslim world and the West.

"Just imagine what would happen if we fail, if in the center of the Middle East, in Baghdad, al-Qaida is in power. It would be a disaster."