L'Europe unie ?

Europe unie ?

6 octobre 2002 — Il est tentant de dire à nos hommes politiques européens : “l'Europe unie, vous l'avez”. C'est celle qui manifeste contre la guerre contre l'Irak, celle qui vote avec ses pieds comme disait Lénine. Le dernier “domino” en date, c'est l'Italie, avec 1,5 million de personnes dans la rue contre la guerre, ce week-end, avec les spéculations qui vont avec sur la possibilité que le gouvernement italien infléchisse sa politique vis-à-vis des projets l'attaque US contre l'Irak, qui se révèlent si impopulaires.

« More than 1.5 million Italians took to the streets of dozens of cities Saturday afternoon and evening to protest possible U.S. military action against Iraq -- a surprise show of discord that could be fervent enough for the Italian government to re-think its support of Washington.

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» “For several weeks, Italians have been saying that they are opposed to action against Iraq, but this is the first time they have put those words into action,” Maria Rossi, co-director of the polling firm Opinioni, told United Press International. “The site of thousands of Italians on the streets protesting against the potential war in Iraq has to be a sobering sight for government officials who will need public support for other issues.”

» Government officials were not available for comment on their stance on U.S.-Iraq relations on Saturday, but local television drew the same conclusion as Rossi. “If the government can ignore this ... it can ignore anything,” said one on-the-scene journalist for the network La 7 in Milan. “On this day, the Italian people have spoken ... and they say they are against support for the American position.”

L'Italie est le dernier des grands pays européens à exprimer son opposition profonde. Avant elle, le Royaume-Uni l'a fait depuis quatre mois, avec la culmination de la manifestation du samedi 28 septembre. L'Allemagne s'est exprimée indirectement, par la prise de position de Schröder, due évidemment à l'opposition de la population allemande à la guerre. Dans un commentaire, aujourd'hui, William Pfaff analyse remarquablement ce phénomène, en l'élargissant de l'Allemagne à l'Europe. Pfaff parle également des Français, notamment des intellectuels Jean-François Revel et Olivier Todd, dont nous avons nous-même parlé. La France est à part dans ce concert : quelles que soient ses interrogations, sa politique, qui est ancrée dans les principes gaulliens, finit toujours par secréter une logique oppositionnelle aux entreprises déstabilisatrices de l'hégémonie. On le constate aujourd'hui, où la France se trouve diplomatiquement, quoiqu'elle en veuille par ailleurs, à la pointe de la bataille d'opposition.

Le décompte donné la semaine dernière (le 3 octobre) par l'AFP des diverses manifestations d'un sentiment anti-guerre dans les pays européens, que ce soit des manifestations diverses en public ou des résultats de sondages, indique effectivement une très grande force dans l'opposition à cette guerre.

« From Oslo to Moscow, opinion polls show a majority of Europeans are against military action against Baghdad and hundreds of thousands of people have voted with their feet at anti-war marches in several capital cities. ''No War Mister Bush,'' thundered a headline in the Swiss tabloid Blick over a survey showing that four out of five people in the staunchly neutral country were opposed to US President George W. Bush's hard line on Iraq.

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» In Italy, a poll published in the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana on Wednesday showed nearly 90 per cent of 1,000 surveyed opposed war against Iraq. It also surveyed another 17,000 readers on the issue of Italy providing military support in any proposed conflict. Close to 95 per cent of those surveyed, declared their opposition to any Italian participation.

» In Britain, whose Prime Minister Tony Blair is the staunchest supporter of Bush's stance, tens of thousands of people last weekend joined what organisers called the country's biggest ever peace demonstration. Speaker after speaker at the London rally called Bush a ''dictator'' and Blair — who last week published a dossier of allegations about Saddam's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capability — his ''poodle.'' (...) The most recent survey published in the Guardian newspaper Tuesday showed that British support for a possible war on Iraq had dropped to 33 per cent while opposition was running at 44 per cent.

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» Germans are almost unanimous in backing the position of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose vehement opposition to an Iraq attack and a minister's reported comparison of Bush's methods to those of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler has ''poisoned'' relations with the United States, according to US officials. A poll conducted by the Hamburg Gewis institute for a television magazine found 97 per cent against any German participation in a war on Iraq, while three-quarters of those surveyed believed Bush was trying to disguise the reasons for an attack.

» Nearly two-thirds of French people are also opposed to their country becoming involved in a military strike even if it had UN support, according to a poll published in a Sunday newspaper. President Jacques Chirac has made clear his opposition to any unilateral US strike but has put forward a two-stage plan that could eventually see the Security Council authorize an international operation against Saddam, in which Paris could participate.

» In Moscow, a poll last month showed 53 per cent of Russians opposed to a US-led military operation and 57 per cent said Russia should maintain relations with Iraq, Iran and North Korea, three countries Bush says form an ''axis of evil.''

» More than 82 per cent of Swiss believe a military attack against Iraq without a mandate from the United Nations would be wrong, while three out of four Norwegians are against any US-led operation to oust Saddam, latest polls show. And in Ireland -- which currently has a seat on the 15-member Security Council -- the public oppose military action by the United States without UN approval by a margin of almost three to one, a survey said Tuesday. »

Cette montée de l'opposition à la guerre qui ne peut que s'aggraver avec l'éventuel conflit, va nourrir un sentiment antiaméricain déjà exacerbé. Surtout, elle conduit, vue son importance populaire (avec effets sur les élections à venir) à une question politique de première dimension : comment les dirigeants politiques européens, en général alignés sur les USA, vont-ils affronter cette contradiction ? Il faut avoir le “culot” d'un Blair pour la supporter, — encore que nous soyons inclinés à ne plus donner vraiment très cher de l'avenir politique de Blair s'il continue comme ça. Les autres, qui sont en général faibles et sans guère de volonté, ont toutes les chances d'être tentés par la méthode Schröder : basculer dans l'opposition aux entreprises américaines à une occasion ou l'autre, importante pour leur carrière personnelle. Tout cela peut conduire à des remises en cause radicales, notamment dans les liens de l'Europe avec les USA.