France's Jobert: Diplomatic Dissenter

Ever since he was named Foreign Minister of France eight months ago, Michel Jobert, 52, has been likened to Henry Kissinger. The comparison must titillate his highly developed sense of irony. In fact, Jobert and Kissinger, whose clash last week was the highlight of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting, make a study in contrasts that tells much about the uncertain state of U.S.-European relations. Aside from a few parallels in their careers, the two men are as fundamentally opposed in their views of the world as in their working styles.

Jobert is basically shy, without political ambition, and obviously ill at ease in public gatherings. He operates best behind the scenes as a quiet, efficient technocrat. Unlike Kissinger, Jobert never makes a decision without clearing it first with his chief of state, President Georges Pompidou. A graduate of France's prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration, Jobert was a gifted civil servant who joined forces with Pompidou ten years ago as one of his top aides. Short and slight, he has a mordant wit, and his intellectual powers command the respect of Cabinet colleagues.

No European diplomat has spoken out as strongly as Jobert against a major Kissinger achievement: American-Soviet detente. In an interview last week in his Quai d'Orsay offices with TIME

Correspondents George Taber and Roger Beardwood, Jobert argued that the superpower detente, which he referred to as "a condominium," was different from the kind of accord achieved by such lesser powers as France or West Germany. The effect of the Kissinger detente, he fears, will be to neutralize Western Europe, limit its world role, and even block any development of its nuclear capability. "The agreement of June 22 put the seal on what had been prepared for a long time ... a kind of modus vivendi in the management of world affairs between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in their relations," said Jobert. "I'm not the one who is saying this. It is in the June 22 agreement [on prevention of nuclear war], which has the advantage of being very short and clear."

Jobert's interpretation of this accord--that the U.S. was committed to give first priority to consultation with Moscow in any crisis--triggered his (and Pompidou's) decision to launch a public discussion of a common European defense outside the framework of NATO. "NATO is not European. It is European and American and Canadian--in short, Atlantic." Instead, Jobert wants European defense organized within the Western European Union, an organization he describes as "more flexible and exclusively European."

Jobert feels that the presence of American troops is, for the time being, essential for the defense of Europe. But he is not prepared to make concessions to keep them there, nor is he sanguine about the prospect that they will stay. "All I can tell you is that if it is in the interests of the U.S. to remain in Europe it will remain here. If it is not in U.S. interests, the troops will leave."

In a recent interview, Jobert praised Kissinger as "a sharp man who has a passion for responsibility, a great taste for life and at the same time likes to animate the life of nations." Nonetheless, as France's diplomatic spokesman, Jobert is doing what he can to modify, and perhaps even block, some of the grand designs of the superpowered U.S. Secretary of State. "Europe is going through a very difficult exercise at the moment," he said last week. "That is, it is trying to come into existence. At the moment Europe is a nebula. But it is becoming more and more precise day by day."

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