vive la France

Austin Bay hoots and hollers over Sarkozy’s pick for foreign minister of France:

Nicholas Sarkozy strikes again — and again. Yesterday Saint Nicholas (”it’s Christmas for liberty”) appointed Bernard Kouchner as Foreign Minister. Touche’. Too-effin-che’. Magnifique. Kouchner supported the toppling of Saddam. Like Norm Geras and Christopher Hitchens, Kouchner’s a man of the Left who actually believes in liberty. Grind your teeth in your own buttock, M. Chirac.

The Times-OnLine has the background.

President Sarkozy yesterday appointed as Foreign Minister a socialist rights crusader who backed the US-British invasion of Iraq, causing bemusement and some anger in the French political world.

The appointment of Bernard Kouchner, 67, one of the most popular and outspoken public figures in France, was the most novel in a new “inclusive” government that mixes left-wing and centrist politicians with Mr Sarkozy’s Gaullist lieutenants.

The Socialist Opposition, in whose governments Dr Kouchner had served as Minister for Health and Humanitarian Action, immediately denounced him as a traitor and expelled him from the party.

Yup. Expelled. Cela va sans dire. Where the nutroots control, the purge shall follow. That’s because they are Stalinists at heart.

Indeed.  But score one for the anti-totalitarians (my kind of leftists). The New York Times has more:

“It’s an amazing appointment, a stunning event in French foreign policy,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and one of Mr. Kouchner’s closest friends. “He’s motivated by an antitotalitarian drive, whether he sees injustice from the left or the right. It will be very positive for U.S.-French relations because he does not come with a visceral anger towards the American ‘hyperpower.’ ”

I’m waiting for the nuanced wing of the Democratic Party—John Kerry, I’m talkin’ to you—to respond to this move from our oh-so-alienated ally France. Meanwhile: chalk one up for the (rare) good guys.***

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*** It has been a long time since I talked about my politics: I was hatched on the left and will always feel most at home there; I’m also strongly anti-totalitarian. Combine that with a strong innate anti-authoritarian streak, and … well, now you know my politics.

I praised Oliver Kamm’s book Anti-Totalitarianism here.