on November 9, 1989, with fireworksnand champagne, the French presidentnand his foreign policy advisers have,naccording to Fabra, done everythingnpossible to maintain the old status quonin Europe. So perturbed was FrangoisnMitterrand by that totally unexpectedn”happening” that on December 6,n1989, he made a hasty trip to Kiev tondiscuss this worrying developrhent withnMikhail Gorbachev, followed severalnweeks later by a hasty trip to EastnGermany, which could only be interpretednas a gesture of goodwill towardnErich Honecker and other discreditednGommunist leaders. Neither of thesenneedless diplomatic forays was accidental;non the contrary, both reflectednthe conviction formulated by ForeignnMinister Roland Dumas to the FrenchnNational Assembly on November 15,n1989 (exactly six days after the BerlinnWall’s collapse), in these anything butnprescient words: “We know today thatnthe reunification [of Germany] carinotnbe a current problem” (in French, an”probleme d’actualite”).nOld prejudices die hard, even innsupposedly Cartesian France, and thisnparticular Germanphobia has provednto be one of them. But what is trulynastounding, as Fabra went on to pointnout, is that this stubborn hostility tonchange has not simply been focused onna disintegrating Soviet Union and annominously reuniting Germany; it hasnembraced virtually all of the countriesnof Gentral and Eastern Europe. Thus,non the eve of the June 12-14 conferencenthat was organized this year innPrague, under the chairmanship ofnVaclav Havel, to discuss the feasibilitynof forming a European Gonfederationn(a pet Mitterrand project), the Frenchnpresident roundly declared, with annarrogance even Gharles de Gaullenwould have been hard put to match,nthat it would be “tens and tens ofnyears” before the suppliant countries ofnGentral and Eastern Europe would benallowed admission to that exclusivenclub, the European Economic Gommunity.nThere is, of course, nothing new ornspecifically French about this reluctancento accept change in Gentral andnEastern Europe. Ever since 1968 (andnI would be tempted to say ever sincen1961, when General de Gaulle’s reactionnto the erection of the Beriin Wallnwas as loftily abstract as Haroldn42/CHRONICLESnMacmillan’s and Jack Kennedy’s), thenprevailing instinct among Westernnleaders has been “not to rock thenboat.” And indeed, so ingrained hasnthis apprehensive instinct become innFrance that it has almost always beennmembers of the opposition who, usuallynfor purely partisan reasons, havenupheld “dissidents” and others in communistncountries who were challengingnthe hated “system.” Thus, during thenlate 1970’s, it was none other thannFrangois Mitterrand who once tooknValery Giscard d’Estaing to task fornhaving flown to Warsaw to see LeonidnBrezhnev, as though to seek his approvalnbefore an important meeting ofnEuropean ministers, stigmatizing thenFrench president as “the messengerboynfrom Venice. “nAs Fabra was writing his lead articlenfor Le Monde, another threat to thenestablished order was exploding in Yugoslavia.nAnd how did Frangois Mitterrandnreact to this new crisis? Exactly asndid almost every other leader in thenWest — and here we must includenJames Baker. He condemned the immoderatenhaste that Slovenes and Groatiansnwere displaying in deciding tonbreak away from an overly centralizedn”federadon” dominated by a still communist-controllednSerbia.nJust six days after the publication ofnFabra’s front-page article, Le Monden(July 9) published an even more blisteringncritique, in the form of an interviewnwith philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.nAnd once again the Metternicheanncomparison was rolled out ofnthe cupboard.nThe Soviet Union and Serbiandepend on the West for theirnsurvival. It is thus possible to getnGorbachev to come to terms,njust as yesterday it was possiblento force the Belgradengovernment to accept thentransformation of Yugoslavianinto a confederation ofnSovereign states. Instead of that,nour president has chosen thenperpetuation of colonialismnand injustice. He could, likenMetternich, say: “With me,nthe first moral element isnimmobility”—but with thisndifference, that Metternichnknew very well that he wasncombating liberal principles,nnnwhereas our president proclaimsnhimself to be their defender.nWhat a flabbergastingndiplomacy, which sides with thencrushing of small nations in thenname of the struggle againstnnationalism. A republic thatnkeeps spouting aboutn”differences,” but which wantsnto see one head and one headnonly in Europe, a republic thatnhonors hip-hop culture andnwhich is impudently ignorant ofnSlovene culture. Long live lenrap Down with Slovenia! Thentwo things go hand in hand.nBut, the observant reader may at thisnpoint ask, what has Gladstone to donwith all this? And why should his namenbe associated in any way with that ofnFrangois Mitterrand? William Gladstone,nan emphatic liberal in the 19thcenturynmeaning of this now shopwornnterm, was the very opposite of Metternich,na resolute advocate of “change”nand “progress.” Shortly after his triumphalnreturn to power in 1893, at thenrobust age of 84, he tried to rush a billnthrough Parliament intended to setflenthe Irish problem “once and for all.”nThe House of Gommons, however,nrefused to be stampeded, and Gladstonencame a cropper. It was then thatnLord Randolph Churchill, Winston’snfather, described Gladstone as an “oldnman in a hurry.”nIs Frangois Mitterrand this kind ofnold man? Almost certainly not. Butncertain disturbing developments suggestnthat he, too, is in a hurry. There is, fornexample, his latest folly in the field ofnarchitechtonic grandiosity: the fourtoweredncomplex of the future GrandenBibliotheque de France, which willnsoon disgrace the skyline of southeasternnParis, a monumental steel-glassand-concretenmausoleum in which librarynbookworms will have to do theirnborrowing underground.nThen there is the French president’snimmoderate haste in wishing to makenhis peace with Khomeini’s successors bynmaking a state visit to Tehran. The waynfor this dubious initiative was pavednsome months ago by the arbitrary releasenfrom prison (ordered by Mitterrand)nof Anis Naccache, the terroristnleader of a five-man commando squadnwhom Khom’eini had dispatched to Parisnin the early 1980’s to assassinaten