Comment by alephnerd
10 days ago
> They flip flop on this stuff at least once a month
Because in the background it's a French vs German vs Irish vs Czech vs $insert_eu_state business interests competing with each other.
Notice how it's almost always French legislators and businesses that mention "domestic EU tech" and not Polish, Czech, Romanian, Dutch, or even German policymakers or businesses?
That's why.
National interests always end up trumping the EU in it's current form. And for a large portion of the EU, American BigTech represents the majority of FDI (tech and overall).
Japanese and Korean automotive players did the same thing with the US in the 1980s-90s in order to ensure their interests remained aligned (though the Plaza Accords did play a role)
France has some history in being disappointed by the US, so it doesn't really surprise me that France is beating the independence drum the loudest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9qhDGv300&t=150s.
(the entire video is interesting and informative, I've skipped it to the France-US specific part, up to about 11:02 where Australia is introduced as the US sycophant it is)
Whether it's logical or not, offences past, even those thought forgotten, are easily recalled when under similar pressures.
> Whether it's logical or not
From an American NatSec perspective, French strategic autonomy is viewed as a positive, as can be seen with Elbridge Colby's work (and similar work by Mastro and Doshi), and a lot of the initiatives led by the Biden admin, as this would allow burden sharing because the US is no longer in a position to manage a two continent war. France does our dirty work in the Sahel and can help in the Indo-Pac (as was seen with the US, France, and India jointly armtwisting the UK into ceding Diego Garcia to Marutius)
In Australia's case (and to the US's benefit), alignment with France makes sense and has been something that has come up in Australian NatSec for years.
New Caledonia is barely 800 miles off the coast of Australia and NZ, and both New Caledonia and French Polynesia have faced pressure due to China, especially after the recent violence in New Caledonia was linked to Azeri [5] disinfo networks on TikTok, along with decades of covert ops by China in New Caledonia [6][7]. France has also been an active defense partner with India and Indonesia - both of whom are increasingly cornerstones of Australian defense.
By every single standard, having an active "Indo-Pac" France is a net benefit for America+ strategy and Taiwan.
That said, French NatSec "strategic autonomy" does not have anything to do with French industry's alignment with marketing a "European first" tech story.
France has similar issues to the US with power politics (as can be seen with France, US, SK, and Israel sharing a similar CPI score), and the biggest booster and beneficiary for "European Tech" is Xavier Niel [0] (France's Mark Cuban or Elon Musk), who is on a first-name basis with Macron [1][2] and whose Father-in-Law (Bernard Arnault) has personally played a significant role in French power politics for years [3][4]. Arnault is also the reason why every country negotiating with the EU ALWAYS tariffs congac and champagne - Arnault's LVMH owns Hennessy and all the other congac producers, and the majority of champagne producers.
End of the day, this is just another inter-elite conflict between vested business interests like any other, but couched with the flag of nationalism.
Nothing wrong with that, but this is why you don't see alignment amongst EU member states - as each state is supporting their own vested business interests amidst a trade war. For example, there's a reason all of us American tech investors end up working with the same handful of politically aligned law firms in Czechia or ending up in the same IT Parks in Eastern Europe.
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-12/xavier...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/22/emmanu...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-22/french-mi...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/insight-macro...
[4] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2023/08/08/bernard...
[5] - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/russia-azerbaijan-exploit-...
[6] - https://www.aspi.org.au/report/when-china-knocks-door-new-ca...
[7] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2024/05/16/why-and-...
> From an American NatSec perspective, French strategic autonomy is viewed as a positive
Sometimes. And then, the outcome of that autonomy is that France makes a decision that doesn't please the US, and the US goes ape.
Why is Diego Garcia to Mauritius good for the USA?
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One wonders how much of the French foreign policy is affected by an online influencer trolling campaign.
Pretty significantly actually.
For example, the violence in New Caledonia was instigated on TikTok by Azeri disinfo networks [0][1] due to French support of Armenia, which itself is due to French support for Greece+Cyprus against Turkiye, who is the primary patron for Azerbaijan.
Algeria has been doing something similar [2] due to French support of Morocco, and China's UFWD aligned groups have done something similar in the French Pacific [3]
Unless you're insisting I'm a troll or a bot, which I strongly disagree with. I've worked closely with EMEA (and especially French institutions and businesses) in my current career and previously when I worked in the policy space. I just kvetch on HN because it's not significantly on any radar yet and the anonymity is appreciated.
[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/france-accuse-azerbaijan-fom...
[1] - https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/azerbaijans...
[2] - https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-roots-o...
[3] - https://www.aspi.org.au/report/when-china-knocks-door-new-ca...
I would push back on this. That is in large part French propaganda in service of French interests—manufacturing consent for continuing French imperialism over their maltreated colonies; and delegitimizing narratives that speak counter to that—delegitimizing the political voice of the people actually living there. Which they do flagrantly: the French mainland government has done wide-scale internet censorship in New Caledonia[0,1] to suppress anti-French-government speech—a human rights atrocity.
That's not to claim there's no foreign interference. I'm sure there's a large kernel of truth in that French claim. But hammering on that point is a form of dehumanization: it's to say people who disagree you, having been misled, no longer have the right to a voice, and are fair game to be silenced. That's atrocity. That's bad-faith rationalization by an actor pointing authoritarian weapons at their adversary, which they were intending to do anyway.
It's difficult to speak with nuance on this dilemma: that every political debate in existence, today, is saturated with bad-faith actors, allying with both sides. But people tend to view this through one lens, selectively amplifying the bad-faith on the other side—as if it entirely invalidates them, instantly wins the debate—while minimizing it on their own side. If you don't want your voice silenced because of what other people, who are not you, said—you should not advocate doing that to other people. If you don't to wake up one day with all your favored newspapers and media sites blocked by government order—you should not wish for that to happen to other people.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-tiktok-ban-new-caledo... ("French TikTok block in overseas territory sets ‘dangerous precedent,’ critics warn")
[1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/tech/news/french-court-void... ("A French court ruled today that last year's ban on TikTok in New Caledonia was illegal and disproportionately infringed rights and freedoms")
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