The French Are On A Roll

If one thing has truly changed for France, it is the new Europe around it. Only a few die-hard nationalists doubt that France's international aims and aspirations can be achieved only through participation in the European Union. Hence the leading role that the country has taken in promoting European military cooperation and in defending European economic interests. France's strategy of using Europe to enhance its own clout--and counterbalance America's overwhelming power--demands the kind of changes that Jospin's government is trying to make, even as it offers the proud French a new forum in which to practice their tenacious belief in France's own special destiny. Plus ca change, one might say, plus c'est la meme chose.