"Terrorism is not eradicated with bombs, because once it has gotten into hearts and heads, it proliferates," says Dominique de Villepin (Rabat, 69), a former foreign minister and former prime minister of France. "For every bomb that falls on an ambulance or a school in Gaza, dozens of new terrorists are born and rise. This is what needs to be understood. I've been saying that for more than 20 years."
With his air of a nineteenth-century dandy, Villepin also has something of the old rocker in him. A Mick Jagger of politics and diplomacy, albeit a decade younger. It stays in shape, like the original, and jumps, even if dialectically. Every interview with him is a performance. Like a concert with the greatest hits. His success, his particular satisfaction, is the speech he gave on February 14, 2003 before the UN Security Council. He was then in charge of French diplomacy. The U.S. was about to invade Iraq. And with the diplomat's vibrant, flowery oratory, he issued a warning against the dangers of invasion. Time proved him right.
Learn more
Israel-Gaza War, Latest Live News
It's been 20 years. Since leaving politics, he has worked as an international consultant and art collector. On November 7, in a private room of the brasserie Le Bourbon – and in front of a smaller audience than at its peak: five correspondents from the European media network LENA – it was like a revival. What was then the invasion of Iraq is now the Israeli war in Gaza following Hamas' attack on Israel just a month ago. The scenario and context have changed. The message, not so much.
"What I say now, I say as a friend of Israel, just as in 2003 I spoke as a friend of the United States," Villepin says. "Who were his real friends then? Those who supported the war at all costs?" He cites, among others, the British Tony Blair and the Spaniard José María Aznar. "Or was it France that, out of realism and friendship, said, 'Don't do this foolishness'? Well, today I say it again and it is necessary for the European countries to become aware: it is not being a friend of Israel to encourage it in this policy of force, because it is a dead end and it will end up leading us to a battle face against face, the West against the rest of the world, civilization against civilization, which is a terrifying prospect." And he adds: "There is a risk that, based on misunderstandings, internal fronts will ignite." "That is why," he adds, "we must be fully mobilized in the face of the rise of anti-Semitism in France, Germany and other European countries."
By the time he makes these reflections, the former prime minister has been answering the first question for almost half an hour, without interruption. Like a conference. Or as if recreating the UN discourse. Then the rest of the questions will come.
Dominique de Villepin, photographed outside the National Assembly building in Paris on November 7. Samuel Aranda
Three Simultaneous Wars
Villepin explains that Israel is now fighting three simultaneous wars and only one is acceptable, in his opinion. The first is what he calls "a siege war" in Gaza. Unacceptable. The second, the "massive bombings" that seek to "break all possibility of resistance" and that he considers "a strategy that is not only ineffective but counterproductive." Unacceptable, again. The third is ground intervention with military and precise objectives. This one is more acceptable. "The eradication of Hamas is illusory," he says, referring to Israel's goal. "The only credible military objective," he argues, "seems to me to be the elimination of those responsible for Hamas and the horror of October 7, and this means punctual ground operations, undoubtedly more dangerous for the Israeli army."
Villepin argues that "wars cannot be fought in the 70st century as they were fought 100 or 2001 years ago." Think of the Allied bombing raids on Germany or Japan during World War II. "Today," says the veteran diplomat, "if you don't take into account civilian populations, you get the opposite of the desired result. That is why I think that Israel is waging yesterday's war, an obsolete war that leads to escalation and drags us, also the Western countries, into the logic of the worst." He alludes to wars "that begin, but don't end," such as those the U.S. and the West launched in Iraq and Afghanistan after the <> attacks. They are failures, he says, that "play into the hands of those who want to destabilize the international scene." Today, Russia or Iran.
He is convinced that "the war on terror is not won with armies, but involves a political strategy." "And that is why," he adds, "we must distinguish the response by force, often fueled by vengeance, from the response by justice. What makes it possible to respond to terrorism is justice."
The word "justice," as opposed to "vengeance," he repeats as a refrain. "To get out of the cycle of violence and revenge, we don't just need a policy that relies on force, which is vain, and these are the same words I used at the time of the Iraq war. You need a political strategy," he says. "The antidote is to get out of vengeance and restore justice. And there is no justice without the creation of a Palestinian state."
During the conversation, which lasted more than an hour, the man who said no at the UN will allude several times to the Iraq war and 2003. At that time he was the minister of President Jacques Chirac and today he continues to embody, perhaps single-handedly, the Chiracian tradition. Some Gaullism – an uninhibited and sometimes grandiloquent defence of French interests in search of a balance between powers – combined with Third Worldism – attention to the Arab world and what is now called the global south – and scepticism in the face of any interventionism in the name of democracy or human rights. With his interventions in recent weeks, he has garnered more applause from the left critical of Israel than from his home political family: the right.
Villepin sees a "multiple trap" for France, Europe and the United States in today's world. "The first [trap] is Westernism, a once-triumphant West trying to maintain its dominance, but the world has changed." The second is militarism. The third, "democratism." That is, "to believe that, because we are democracies, we have the right to impose our values on the rest of the world." And the fourth, "moralism." "Too often," he laments, "it's a morality of variable geometry, a morality of double standards." "Look at what's being done with Ukraine and what's being done with the Middle East: it turns out it's not the same. In one case, international law is upheld; in the other, no. And this the whole world sees, and this creates an abyss between them and us."
Dominique de Villepin, a poet and essayist in addition to his other professions, stands up at the end of the interview. As a child and adolescent he lived in Venezuela, because of his father's work. He says goodbye with a few words in Spanish. A sweet, American accent. "It's the same accent as Hugo Chavez," he smiles.
Follow all the international news on Facebook and X, or in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
_