FRANCE….As my readers know, I got awfully tired of the insane levels of French-bashing that went on before the war. However, as Dan Drezner points out today, the rule of thumb that “Every major disruption of the global political economy is the fault of the French” actually has something to it.
In this case, he’s talking about France’s egregious and self-centered attachment to the EU’s hideous agricultural policy, and it’s true that France has been by far the biggest obstacle to reform in this area. What’s more, France seems almost incapable of agreeing to any EU policy unless the rest of the EU caves in to their frequently ridiculous demands.
The fact that France disagreed with our Iraq policy didn’t bother me that much, but overall France does indeed insist on playing the role of spoiler far, far too often. There’s actually not that much that the U.S. can or should do about this, but there’s plenty that France’s EU neighbors could do about it. It’s probably about time some of them started playing the same brand of hardball that France does.
