Adieu, indeed

Anne Applebaum lists the diplomatic achievements of soon-to-be former President Jacques Chirac.

Ponder closely, for example, what Chirac has had to say on Africa, where his country has enormous influence, in many places far outweighing ours: During a visit to the Ivory Coast, Mr. Chirac once called "multi-partyism" a "kind of luxury," which his host, president-for-life Felix Houphouet-Boigny, clearly could not afford.

During a visit to Tunisia, he proclaimed that since "the most important human rights are the rights to be fed, to have health, to be educated and to be housed," Tunisia's human rights record is "very advanced" — never mind the police who beat up dissidents. "Africa is not ready for democracy," he told a group of African leaders in the early 1990s.

On Britain: "The only thing they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease …You can't trust people who cook as badly as that."

On Russia: "For his contribution to friendship between France and Russia," Mr. Chirac decorated Vladimir Putin last year with the highest order of the Legion d'Honneur, a medal reserved for the closest foreign friends of France such as Churchill and Eisenhower, despite the deterioration of the Mr. Putin's human rights record.

A few weeks later, Mr. Chirac decided to hold his 74th birthday party in Riga, Latvia, after a NATO summit. He invited President Putin, disinvited President Bush, and snubbed the president of Latvia in the process. As the diplomatic scandal grew, the guests all begged off, and the birthday dinner never took place.

On Saddam Hussein: "You are my personal friend. Let me assure you of my esteem, consideration and bond."

On Eastern Europe supporting America in the United Nations: "It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to shut up."

On Iran's nuclear program: "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous." Theoretically, Mr. Chirac was supposed to be negotiating with Iran to give up its nuclear program at the time.

On hearing a French business executive address a European summit in English: "deeply shocked," he stormed out of the room.

As I say, it's an important legacy: one of consistent scorn for the Anglo-American world in general and the English language in particular; of suspicion of Central Europe and profound disinterest in the wave of democratic transformation that swept the world in the 1980s and 1990s; of preference for the Arab and African dictators who had been, and remained, clients of France.