France\u2019s selling warships to Russia \u2013 the first arms deal between a NATO member state and Russia \u2013 has alarmed Ukraine and its supporters. \u00a0Ukraine has seen Russia seize Crimea and escalate violence in eastern Ukraine. \u00a0Russian president Vladimir Putin has not hidden his intention to \u201cdo whatever he wants\u201d with the ships, according to The Guardian.<\/p>\n
In 2011, France made a deal worth 1.2 billion Euros to Russia to build two Mistral-class warships with amphibious assault capacities. \u00a0Russia has the option to buy two more. \u00a0The first ship, the Vladivostok, will leave the French port of Saint-Nazaire in October. \u00a0Both states have been involved in its production. \u00a0At the end of June, 400 Russian sailors came to Saint-Nazaire to train with the ship\u2019s high-tech weaponry. \u00a0In October 2015, the French are to deliver the Russians a second warship, the S\u00e9vastopol, named after the Black Sea port in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Current president Francois Hollande has insisted that France must fulfill its obligation to deliver the Vladivostok. Saint-Nazaire\u2019s union leaders fear cancelling the sale would deprive 600 to 1,000 workers of their jobs in the shipbuilding industry and thousands more in subcontracting firms, making worse an unemployment rate already at 14 percent, reported The Guardian.<\/p>\n
French officials have considered not delivering the S\u00e9vastopol, but that depends on European Union leaders imposing much more severe sanctions on Russia, including freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs in London, which would cost the city\u2019s financial industry dearly. \u00a0\u00a0France\u2019s far right sees the Mistral ship deal as an important step for France reasserting a more independent foreign policy.<\/p>\n
As the far right welcomes France\u2019s move away from the EU and the United States, and as Saint-Nazaire workers understandably fear for their jobs, the French may want to reflect on their own history and the national wounds that came when foreign aggressors threatened their future.<\/p>\n
Like Sevastopol in the twenty-first century, the French city of Strasbourg, along with the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, were seized by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. \u00a0On Paris\u2019s Place de la Concorde, the City of Strasbourg has had a statue in its honor since the 1830s. \u00a0After 1871, French citizens draped the statute for Strasbourg in black and decorated it with wreaths to mourn the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. \u00a0Losing Alsace and Lorraine became a serious wound for the French nation. \u00a0\u201cWe shall see France arise again, we shall see her retrieve Lorraine, take back Alsace,\u201d vowed writer Victor Hugo in 1871. \u00a0\u201cBut will that be all? \u00a0No\u2026 Seize Trier, Mainz, Cologne, Koblenz, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss of Alsace and Lorraine fueled a political movement on France\u2019s far right called the Ligue des Patriotes (the League of Patriots) dedicated to retaking the two provinces and exacting revenge on Germany. \u00a0A desire to strike back at Germany, la revanche, kept growing between 1878 and 1889. \u00a0Far right leader Georges Ernest Boulanger, a French general, was at the height of his popularity in January 1889. \u00a0He threatened to seize power, establish a military dictatorship, and strike at Germany. \u00a0Parliamentary elections in September 1889 led to a major defeat for his party, the Boulangists, and the threat of a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat soon disappeared.<\/p>\n
Over time, the pain felt over the loss of Alsace and Lorraine diminished. \u00a0On the eve of World War I, French symbolist poet and novelist R\u00e9my de Gourmet, said, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t give the little finger of my right hand for those forgotten provinces. \u00a0My hand needs it to rest on as I write. \u00a0Nor would I give the little finger of my left hand. \u00a0I need it to flick the ash from my cigarette.\u201d \u00a0French politicians, too, learned to live with the loss. \u00a0In July 1914, Prime Minister Ren\u00e9 Viviani said France could not go to war with Germany over these provinces without international support. \u00a0Still, for over 40 years, French citizens placed black ribbons and wreaths on the statue for Strasbourg.<\/p>\n
France regained Alsace and Lorraine after World War I, and true to Victor Hugo\u2019s words, the French went on to occupy the Rhineland after Germany refused to make reparations payments. \u00a0Nazi Germany took back Alsace and Lorraine during World War II, and it was only after that war that France regained the two provinces for good.<\/p>\n
Strasbourg has gone from being a source of national wounds to becoming a center of reconciliation between France and Germany. \u00a0It is now home to the European Parliament and a number of other European institutions, including the Council of Europe and its European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n
Sevastopol, Donetsk, and Luhansk risk becoming Ukraine\u2019s lost cities in the twenty-first century. \u00a0While there are no statues where people can mourn their loss in Ukraine\u2019s capital, Kyiv, the political far right, like Boulanger two centuries ago, has vowed to take back the nation\u2019s lost territories. \u00a0On Khreshchatyk Street, which goes past the protest city on the Maidan, Right Sector, a far right paramilitary organization operating in the Donbas, displayed an armored personnel carrier bearing the inscription, \u201cTo Crimea.\u201d \u00a0Right Sector is not alone in these sentiments. \u00a0Ukraine\u2019s new defense minister, Valeriy Heletey, on his appointment by parliament on July 3 vowed to take back Crimea and promised, \u201cThere will be a victory parade… in Ukraine’s Sevastopol,\u201d as reported by the BBC.<\/p>\n
Will the Donbas and Crimea become a point of reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine? \u00a0It looks very doubtful these days. \u00a0Thus, French citizens should consider whether or not they wish to support a weapons program that essentially will escalate a conflict that just might bring on the kind of carnage World War I inflicted on Europe.<\/p>\n
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