INTERVIEW
This is a question that comes up in the news at the time of commemorations of a past that seems far away today. 75 years after the Allied landing, whose celebrations have taken place since Wednesday, would the United States intervene today, if Europe faced an imminent danger? Hubert Vedrine answered this question Thursday evening on Europe 1.
"Raffarin is right to ask the question" of the American intervention
Former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was in Matignon when France opposed in 2003 the US intervention in Iraq, a major date in the relationship between the two countries, asked the question, Thursday . "Today, if America needed America, I'm not sure it would be there," said the former prime minister on Cnews.
"Jean-Pierre Raffarin is right to ask this question, which arises on both sides: do the Americans still need and still want a treaty of alliance like that?", Reformulates on our antenna the former minister of Foreign Affairs and former secretary general of the Élysée, Hubert Védrine.
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The United States, outside NATO? No, replies Vedrine
"If it asks the question, it means that it includes the fact that we are still not able to defend ourselves by ourselves." Today, Europeans can take action elsewhere, but 70% Atlantic Alliance (NATO) spending is covered by the United States, "writes the author of Chaos Facing, Save Europe (Liana Levi edition), at a time when the subjects of division multiply between the two powers (climate, Iran ...).
Can NATO one day die in the face of these growing dissensions on both sides of the Atlantic? "Donald Trump, who is a brutal egoist but not an isolationist, will not deny the treaty", tempered Hubert Védrine. "He can maintain the doubt, he can slap on the heads of Europeans if they do not spend enough, because he wants more budget for Europeans to buy American weapons," he said.
"No click" in Europe
In Europe, according to the former minister, dominates the feeling that the construction of a European defense worthy of the name is not urgent. "The brutality of Trump, the uncertainty he has on the famous Article 5 of the alliance, has not produced a massive European reaction Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel have said things, but there is not a click in the whole of Europe to say that the moment has come, because of this uncertainty, to organize ourselves to finally make the European pillar of the alliance. "