France, 1993

I

should like first to say, Mr. President, that France is pleased

to see the General Assembly meeting under your guidance

this year. Your election is just testimony to the esteem in

which the international community holds your country. It

also affords us the opportunity to welcome the "silent

revolution" that has been taking place in Latin America over

the past few years, which has put many States back on the

path of national reconciliation, democracy and economic

development.

22 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

The year which is ending will have been as rich in

promise as it has been fraught with danger. Conflicts once

thought to be insoluble suddenly seem to be on track

towards resolution. On behalf of my country, I should like

to pay tribute to the men in the Middle East, in South Africa

and in Cambodia who found the courage to take the path

towards reconciliation and peace: Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser

Arafat, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, His Majesty

King Norodom Sihanouk and all those, known and unknown,

who accompanied or even preceded them on this courageous

path.

The agreement between Israel and the Palestine

Liberation Organization (PLO) opens the way to the

settlement of a conflict which some had despaired of seeing

resolved, and makes it possible to conceive of a radically

new future for the entire region. This revolution gives us

new reason to believe in human will and encourages us

never to consider the hope for peace as a chimera. From us,

it calls for collective effort, including financial effort, in

order to translate this hope into reality as soon as possible.

It also invites us to erase the aftermath of conflicts as

reflected in past resolutions of this Assembly.

But the end of what was for years called the balance of

terror has also led to new kinds of uncertainty and disorder.

Russia is going through a political and economic

transition that could lead to serious internal difficulties, as

the events of the past few days have shown. In that context,

I should like to reaffirm France’s support for the process of

democratization and reform courageously undertaken by

President Yeltsin.

In the former Yugoslavia war has been raging for two

years, with its attendant death, suffering and destruction.

Other regions in Africa, Central Asia, the Balkans and the

Caucasus are falling or could fall victim to this new type of

conflict, resulting from the break-up of States and the

resurgence of nationalist, ethnic or religious passions.

Elsewhere, States put under a sanctions regime by our

Organization for failing to comply with the obligations of

international law or with commitments they have made

persist in refusing to take the measures that would permit

them to regain their place in the international community.

Almost everywhere, the proliferation of weapons is a

fearsome factor for instability.

In the face of the promises and dangers I have just

outlined, France bases its foreign policy on a few guiding

principles. Whether they are found reassuring or disturbing,

I should like to recall them to the Assembly.

The first principle is the desire for independence.

France has amply demonstrated that it is ready to act in

concert with others where the ends are genuinely collective.

But, needless to say, it does so in complete sovereignty.

Exercising freedom of judgement and choice, France refuses

to follow the orthodoxy of the moment or to succumb to

pressures resulting from relative material strengths.

The second principle, shared by many in this Hall, is a

commitment to our fundamental interests. Like every other

State in this Organization, France has its own strategic,

commercial and cultural interests which it seeks to preserve.

While we are open to negotiation and to the mutual

concessions it implies, we cannot be made to give up

anything we consider to be an essential element of our

security, our prosperity or our culture.

The third principle is devotion to law and justice.

Beyond its own interests, France aspires to help ensure that

certain fundamental principles first inspired by France,

among others, triumph throughout the world: the right of

peoples to self-determination and security, human rights and

the right to development.

Finally, one last aspect of our diplomacy, in the service

of the others, is France’s perseverance, and at times

stubbornness. May I recall our resolve - despite obstacles -

in opening up the path that would eventually lead to the

restoration of peace in Cambodia, and our determination to

see institutional legality restored in Haiti.

These unchanging principles dictate the two main lines

of the policy which my country hopes to implement on the

international stage.

Our ambition concerns Europe first of all.

Whatever the present difficulties, whatever the

prevailing scepticism, France will not falter in its resolve to

build with its neighbours a strong, prosperous, democratic

and generous Europe, capable of making its voice heard and

of contributing to world peace. This is an irrevocable choice

for us because the peoples of Europe need a plan that brings

them together, and European unity is the only goal that

measures up to the values they share. Moreover, the

building of a united Europe is the only way to avert the

dangers threatening our continent at this time: dangers

arising from the resurgence of the most implacable forms of

nationalism and from the persistence of unacceptable

economic disparities. Europe’s success will serve as an

example for other regions of the world as did in its day the

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 23

reconciliation between France and Germany sought by

General de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer.

I have already spoken of the conflict raging in the

former Yugoslavia.

France has spared no effort to put an end to it. As you

know, France initiated most of the Security Council

resolutions designed to discourage or punish aggressors.

Together with its partners, France provides an essential part

of the humanitarian aid sent there. Its soldiers represent the

largest of the contingents made available to the United

Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and more than a

dozen of them have paid for their generous presence there

with their lives. It has so far been the only country to send

reinforcements in accordance with resolution 836 (1993) in

order to contribute to the security of the protected areas and

the Muslim populations there. France was, as well, the first

nation to deplore the inadequacy of the actions taken by the

international community in regard to the former Yugoslavia.

The efforts it has made entitled it to tell those who have

been free with their advice and lessons that they might be

better heard if they were agreeing, when they are able to do

so, to commit their own troops to the field. Once in contact

with the realities of the situation, they would undoubtedly

better appreciate the fact that between negotiated peace and

chaos there is no middle ground.

Let us learn the lessons of this painful experience. It

is essential for us to acquire the means to avoid the

repetition of such a conflict, and to ensure, without waiting

for future progress in the construction of a united Europe,

that preventive diplomacy, military openness and respect for

the rule of law prevail wherever latent tensions remain. This

is the intent of the proposed pact on European stability

which France has submitted to its European partners and to

which it would like to associate Russia, as well as its allies

across the Atlantic, Canada and the United States.

Europe is, of course, far from being the sole horizon of

France’s action. My country has long-standing, close

relations with many parts of the world. For the long-term

organization of the international scene in the aftermath of the

cold war, France naturally turns to the United Nations.

Because it believes in the mission of the United

Nations, France wants a strong and effective Organization.

This goal involves, first of all, the reforming of the

Security Council. Its enlargement, which has become

necessary today in the light of the world’s evolution, must

be envisioned as the way to increase its effectiveness.

France understands and supports the aspirations of some

of its partners to exercise their international responsibilities

more actively, provided that they are ready to commit

themselves in the field. However, the expansion of the

Council should not be achieved at the expense of one or

another group of States; in particular, it must preserve the

capacity of the developing countries to make their voices

heard. In our view, this is an essential requirement.

In their wisdom, those who drafted the Charter

recognized that only a group of limited size could take

prompt measures to restore peace when confronted with an

urgent crisis. We should therefore take care that the

projected enlargement does not lead to a paralysis of the

Council.

France hopes that at its present session the General

Assembly will decide to open discussions on ways to reform

the Security Council. A solution will have to be found that

reconciles the will to reform with the desire for

effectiveness. This is why enlargement, in our view, will

have to be decided according to a formula combining new

permanent members and additional non-permanent members.

The Secretary-General is a key institution of the United

Nations. France would like him to be given the means to

carry through the innovative action he has undertaken.

Allow me to pay a tribute to the energy, authority and

courage with which our Secretary-General is carrying out his

missions.

France approves not only of his political initiatives but

also of his tireless efforts to rationalize the functioning of

our Organization. We must combat the proliferation of

institutions, which consumes our resources and threatens the

coherence of our efforts. We must improve the coordination

of activities linked to development and restore to the

Economic and Social Council its role as a provider of

stimulus and organization. We must combat administrative

waste wherever it exists, without hesitating to punish any

abuses that may be uncovered. Lastly, we must have more

supervision and greater transparency in peace-keeping

operations.

The Secretary-General still does not have all the means

to exercise his responsibility to the full. France calls on the

Member States to provide him with those means without

delay. Strengthening the Department of Peace-keeping

Operations, establishing a mechanism for a true general

inspection, and setting up a court for budgetary discipline

are, in our eyes, indispensable measures.

24 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

The third requirement for strengthening the

Organization is a clean-up of its finances.

Perhaps I should have begun with this point.

According to an old French saying, money is "the sinew of

war". It is also the sinew of peace. Our projects for this

Organization will be no more than empty words unless we

have the courage to adopt the new measures that its financial

bankruptcy requires.

First, Member States which do not pay their

contributions within 30 days following the

Secretary-General’s call for contributions should be

penalized. France proposes that market-rate interest should

be imposed on all late payments. This firm stance seems

particularly necessary because the payment of accumulated

arrears alone would suffice to resolve the financial crisis. It

is also consistent with considerations of fairness and political

morality. One cannot simultaneously speak of United

Nations reform, justice and international development and

exempt oneself from the primary financial obligation

resulting from adherence to our Charter. It is high time to

measure the generosity of words against the yardstick of

arrears due our Organization.

The establishment of a mechanism for a true general

inspection will, as I have said, make it possible to rationalize

the functioning and costs of the United Nations. France will

support all initiatives to supplement the existing procedures

of internal assessment, which have already shown their

limitations despite the judicious reorganization recently

introduced by the Secretary-General.

Lastly, we must adopt an exemplary budget for the

1994-1995 period. We must not hesitate to reduce

expenditures for obsolete activities. We will also have to

provide sufficient funding for the new mandates entrusted to

the Organization. If, from that, it is necessary to consider a

reasonable increase in the ordinary budget, France, which

has never espoused a dogmatic idea of zero growth, will

readily accept this.

These are concrete measures. They require a collective

effort on the part of Member States. But France is

convinced that we can no longer be satisfied, as in previous

years, with marginal adjustments. The very ability of the

United Nations to carry out its mandate is at stake.

France, as you will have realized, is ambitious for the

United Nations. With the support of renovated institutions

and reorganized financing, the United Nations will be able

to meet the great responsibilities incumbent on it: to preserve

peace and collective security, to promote development and

to address global problems whose international scale

removes them from the individual action of States.

Peace is of course the first of our responsibilities.

The present instability in several parts of the world

compels the United Nations to intervene more and more

frequently in order to check the spread of conflicts and allow

a negotiated solution to be sought. France, for its part, has

wished to participate fully in this effort and is today in the

front rank of States participating in peace-keeping

operations.

This commitment obviously does not confer any

privilege on us. But our experience enables us to cast a lucid

eye over the operations in which we have participated and

encourages us to reaffirm certain principles and to propose

certain common-sense measures that might help increase the

future effectiveness of our action.

First, greater political control is needed over operations

that have become increasingly complex. Purely military

considerations should never thwart - or even obscure -

political ends. Naturally, regional or defence organizations

may make useful contributions in terms of expertise,

personnel or matériel. But the use of force presupposes that

the guardian of the law - that is, the Security Council -

exercises its authority in the name of the international

community. This it cannot relinquish. That is why France

insisted that the Secretary-General’s Special Representative

to the former Yugoslavia should have authority over all

operations under international mandate. It is important, it

seems to me, that we should maintain this requirement at all

times. By the same token, France insists that the political

ends of the operation in Somalia should not be lost sight of.

Next, we should systematically consider the question of

the timetable of operations.

As a matter of principle, time-frames should be

explicitly assigned to each operation in the actual resolution

that institutes it. It is also important to know when to

terminate operations that go on and on, needlessly dipping

into the means of the Organization and its Member States.

France fully supports the Secretary-General’s efforts on this

score.

Lastly, we must expand the capacity of the

Organization to react. The time that elapses between our

decision to create a force and the implementation of that

decision is far too long. How many weeks did we have to

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 25

wait before the air power authorized by resolution

836 (1993) on Bosnia was eventually deployed? And how

many weeks for the ground reinforcements that had been

announced to reach Sarajevo?

We cannot but note that the current procedures do not

meet the criteria for rapid reaction and flexible use which

are called for in this area.

France does not, however, believe that the Organization

should have its own force. On the other hand, it has

participated in discussions organized by the

Secretariat-General on the concept of stand-by units. These

discussions have resulted in original proposals for "tailormade" forces for the United Nations. In this way, the

Organization could have at its disposal support, transport and

communications capabilities which it currently lacks for

carrying out military actions speedily.

France, which has already offered, in a statement made

by the President of the French Republic, to make available

to the Secretary-General a 1,000-strong contingent for peacekeeping operations at 48 hours’ notice, will take part in this

effort.

These measures will have another advantage. They will

add an extra degree of effectiveness to preventive diplomacy,

which has to be central to the ambitions we have for the

Organization. This policy requires us to develop and put in

place mechanisms for crisis alert, evaluation and prevention.

Several ideas were put forward in the "Agenda for

Peace" - they included use of fact-finding missions and the

effective deployment of United Nations forces - and have

already been applied to certain difficult situations in Africa,

Central Asia and the Balkans.

In this spirit, the United Kingdom and France are ready

to submit to the Secretary-General proposals for compiling

a list of prominent individuals who could intervene promptly

at his request, in liaison with appropriate regional

organizations, and provide them with equipment -

specifically in the communications field - necessary for

carrying out their mission completely.

It is through concrete initiatives of this sort, which may

seem modest at first, that preventive diplomacy will

gradually assume its rightful place in the maintenance of

peace.

The effort made in relation to disarmament in the past

few years, finally, should continue.

Considerable progress has already been made with the

reduction of stockpiles from the cold-war era. But a new

priority is becoming evident: the struggle against the

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To attain this

goal, we must be extremely vigilant in the threefold domain

of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and ballistic

technologies.

In this light, France welcomes the signing in Paris by

nearly 150 States of the Convention banning chemical

weapons, the first real multilateral disarmament pact of

general scope, and calls on the States which have not yet

ratified this Convention to do so. It supports the efforts

being made by several groups of countries to institute

systems of control of missile technology, nuclear exports and

the sale of so-called sensitive products.

France asks, finally, that the non-proliferation regimes

be strengthened. It reaffirms in particular its desire to see

the Non-Proliferation Treaty prolonged indefinitely and

unconditionally. It continues to believe that it is only the

Security Council that can decide on sanctions against

irresponsible behaviour. This would be the case if North

Korea were to fail to respect its commitments to the

International Atomic Energy Agency.

What guarantees can be given for collective security

and peace if nothing is done to try to resolve the economic

and social disparities that are so often the source of conflict?

We know that there can be no lasting peace without lasting

economic development. That is why the "Agenda for Peace"

unquestionably requires also an "agenda for development".

France, as is known, has consistently spoken for the

interests of the developing countries, particularly the least

developed, in discussion with its industrialized partners. It

has tirelessly pleaded - sometimes as a voice crying in the

wilderness - for a substantial increase in the level of official

development assistance in order to permit these countries to

enjoy trade advantages without reciprocity, to ease their debt

burden and stabilize raw-material prices. Our resolve in this

matter will not weaken: how can we accept, for example, a

situation in which every year the African countries pay the

World Bank more than they receive from it?

Nor can we accept the persistence, and sometimes the

worsening, of the most glaring situations of distress. France

has not forgotten the depth of the crisis in sub-Saharan

Africa, with which it has so many ties. It believes it is

26 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

essential that the basic achievements of cooperation between

the European Community and the African, Caribbean and

Pacific countries, should be maintained, especially with

regard to trade.

Lastly, our third ambition for the United Nations

concerns the vast issue of societal questions, linked naturally

to the requirements of development but distinct from it.

The protection of human rights, the preservation of the

environment, aid to refugees, the struggle against full-scale

epidemics, organized crime and drug trafficking all have a

worldwide dimension. The Organization must address these

problems with the same energy it expends in the search for

peace and the promotion of development.

Several important dates lie ahead of us. Let us apply

without delay the recommendations unanimously adopted at

the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, particularly the

creation of a post of high commissioner for human rights.

Let us prepare for the conferences in Cairo and Beijing and

the social development summit in Copenhagen with all the

necessary determination, so as to reinforce the cooperation

required in addressing demographic problems, the promotion

of women’s rights and the demands for social development.

Great epidemics have always been a threat to the

world’s nations. But the need for full-scale international

mobilization is becoming particularly acute in the case of

AIDS in view of the havoc of all kinds caused by the spread

of this malady. I earnestly hope that, as we approach the

second decade of this struggle, the coherence of United

Nations action, and that of its specialized agencies and of all

States and interested organizations, will be equal to this new

challenge. In this context, France proposes the convening of

a conference next year to bring together the main contributor

countries in the war against this scourge in order to improve

coordination of their efforts and give them a new impetus.

In most cases, these phenomena are not new. However,

the challenge they pose to our societies, in the North and in

the South, is of unprecedented seriousness. They affect

underdevelopment as much as they do the excesses of the

consumer society, and our traditional responses are proving

to be inadequate or ineffective. We need new ideas in this

area. The Secretary-General should have broad power to

take initiatives and make proposals in this matter. France

therefore suggests the formation of a group of prominent

figures chosen for their intellectual and scientific abilities

and moral influence to assist him in this vital task at the end

of our century.

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 27

Setting forth such ambitions for the United Nations

might have made the sceptics smile a few years ago. With

the end of the cold war the international community has a

historic opportunity: no longer to dismiss problems but

perhaps to solve them; no longer to limit conflicts but

perhaps to settle them.

Let us remain clear-sighted. This period could be

merely a brief interlude. If we were to hesitate, would it be

long before peoples succumbed to their basest inclinations,

cast off the rules of international law or put themselves - in

the best of cases - under the sole protection of regional,

competing and potentially hostile solidarities?

We do not have unlimited time. It is therefore our duty

to undertake without delay the reforms required to strengthen

our Organization and to realize its new objectives.

I should like to assure the Assembly that in the pursuit

of these twin goals, the United Nations can count on

France’s firm resolve.