{"id":16292,"date":"2023-01-19T16:58:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/?p=16292"},"modified":"2023-01-19T17:30:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T16:30:23","slug":"hubert-vedrine-and-renaud-girard-discussed-the-question-what-remains-of-french-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/hubert-vedrine-and-renaud-girard-discussed-the-question-what-remains-of-french-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubert V\u00e9drine and Renaud Girard discussed the question: \u201cWhat remains of French influence?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can France still shape the world?<\/h1>\n

A debate in Paris revealed the attitudes of a certain French elite in search of lost influence<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cream of the French upper class packed into a ballroom at the Cercle de l\u2019Union Interalli\u00e9, next door to the British ambassador\u2019s residence in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honor\u00e9, on Monday evening to consider the question, \u201cWhat remains of French influence?\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-hour discussion by former foreign minister Hubert V\u00e9drine and Renaud Girard, a foreign correspondent and columnist for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, revealed the attitudes of a certain elite.<\/p>\n

V\u00e9drine\u2019s advice is valued by French business executives and politicians, including, it is said, by President Emmanuel Macron. His scathing remarks about naive \u201ceurop\u00e9istes\u201d and \u201chuman rights-ism\u201d have earned him a reputation as a cynic, but his books on geopolitical strategy sell tens of thousands of copies.<\/p>\n

Girard laced his commentary with historical references and anecdotes from his years as a war correspondent. He credited V\u00e9drine with having invented Gaullo-Mitterrandisme, a philosophy that reconciles the two main families of post-second World War French politics.<\/p>\n

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The late president Jacques Chirac, quoted by Count Denis de Kergorlay, the president of the Cercle, praised V\u00e9drine for combining de Gaulle\u2019s rigour with Mitterrand\u2019s pragmatism. Though de Gaulle and Mitterrand were adversaries, both defended what de Gaulle called \u201ca certain idea of France\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

V\u00e9drine pointed out that French influence today is greater than it was after defeat by Germany in 1940, or\u00a0the loss of Dien Bien Phu in 1958, a decisive moment in the first Indochina War.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Read the entire article on The Irish Times<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can France still shape the world? A debate in Paris revealed the attitudes of a certain French elite in search of lost influence   The cream of the French<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-16292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room","tag-154"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}