the pre-campaign for the presidential election, the return of Arafat to Palestine, the death of Kim Il-sung – L’Express

From the end of the Indochina War to the Watergate affair, to the appointment of Emmanuel Macron to Bercy, rediscover through our archivesthe highlights of the summers of each decade between diplomatic advances, political crises and scientific progress. This week, the summer of 1994.

EPISODE 1 – Summer 54: the hope of Mendès France, the end of the Indochina war, a coup d’état in Guatemala

EPISODE 2 – Summer 64: end of racial segregation in the United States, birth of ORTF, first photos of the Moon

EPISODE 3 – Summer 74: the shock of Nixon’s resignation, the decline of the majority and the Larzac struggle

EPISODE 4 – Summer 84: there demonstration for free schools, Fabius at Matignon, the Los Angeles Olympics

For or against primaries on the right

In June 1994, Charles Pasqua, Minister of the Interior, proposed to the RPR leaders to organize primaries with a view to the 1995 presidential election. Between Giscard, Chirac and Balladur, hostilities were declared and each had their good reasons for rejecting this method of operation.

“For the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, two deleterious factors are combined: the right, rightly or wrongly, is almost certain to win in 1995; and for most of the “elephants” in this camp, this is the last round. Some have been waiting for thirteen years – the Gaullists for twenty years – to return to the Elysée: how could they give up their last chance before handing over to the next generation?

The primaries have therefore come out of the cupboard where the Minister of the Interior had carefully put them away, waiting for the right moment to offer them to the majority public. This time has arrived: the implicit candidacies for the next supreme deadline are multiplying, with their share of “constructive” criticisms and alternative projects. So many opportunities to accentuate the divisions. Hence Pasqua’s idea of ​​channeling this plethora of energies before the first round, set for April 23, 1995. His text provides that the voters, at the request of the parties, can be consulted in advance, directly, on one or two Sundays, to decide between their champions. Objectives: to give the losers time to digest their defeat; and to allow the candidate legitimized by the majority voters to face the second round with a good lead. […]

When we add that voters are massively in favor of primaries (the survey Figaro -Sofres has just demonstrated it) and that local elected officials are even more so (not a single mayor or aspiring councilor is not pleading for unity, with the municipal elections taking place in the wake of the presidential election), one wonders how the Pasqua project has not already been voted on… But since the train has left, it is a safe bet that it will not enter the station: the primaries will probably remain in the middle of nowhere, sabotaged by all those – and there are many – who believe they have no interest in them. And too bad if they all signed the famous charter establishing them! Giscard says “Too late!”, Chirac makes Bernard Pons say “No, but” and then Jean-Louis Debré say a downright “No.”

L’Express of July 7, 1994

Arafat returns to Gaza after 27 years of exile

Less than a year after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Yasser Arafat made a triumphant return to Palestine on July 1, 1994. After more than a quarter of a century of wandering between Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia, the founder of Fatah was greeted by a jubilant crowd in Gaza. Known for his authoritarianism, the leader of the PLO would have to deal with the extremists of Hamas if he wanted to establish his credibility.

“By returning to his land, after twenty-seven years of exile, Yasser Arafat, as if by magic, illuminated this July 1st the dark existence of those who have the misfortune to belong to the peoples of too many. So, forgotten their miserable childhood in the sordid refugee camps! Resurrected, this future that they had mourned after so many disappointed hopes. In short, at the top of their luxuriant promontory, the “chebab”, these young people of the Intifada, almost believed themselves to be in heaven. …

The older ones, those who have seen others, already know, as Shimon Peres, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, just reminded us last week, that the peace and autonomy agreements between Israelis and Palestinians were concluded “not on dreams, but on reality”. It is the latter that the leader of the PLO will find himself confronted with when he soon settles in Gaza. For the “old fox” who has survived all wars and foiled all traps, here is the dawn of the most uncertain of battles.

“By deciding on this visit without having first succeeded in obtaining from Israel the release of our 6,000 or so brothers who are still prisoners, he has undoubtedly made his first major strategic error!” worries a notable from Gaza close to Fatah. And he adds: “It is time for him to listen to the opinions of his own people and tolerate criticism.” Among the Palestinians “on the inside”, many doubt, in fact, the capacity of their leader to renounce an authoritarianism necessary in a revolutionary context.

Exploiting this growing frustration, the Hamas fundamentalists are increasingly undermining the authority and credibility of the PLO leader. Unmoved by the latter’s outstretched hand – “My brother, we are with you,” he declared in his speeches to Sheikh Yassin, the founder of Hamas, who was sentenced to life in prison – the leaders of the Islamic movement liken Arafat’s visit to a “humiliating capitulation,” comparable to that of the “traitor” Sadat in Jerusalem in 1977.

L’Express of July 7, 1994

North Korea mourns dictator Kim Il-sung

After half a century of rule, North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung died on July 9, 1994, in the midst of a nuclear standoff with the West. The international community was worried about his son Kim Jong-il succeeding him. The Kim dynasty took power.

“Will Kim Il-sung be even more of a nuisance dead than alive? In the eyes of his people, subjected to debilitating official propaganda, the North Korean dictator, who died on Friday, July 9 at the age of 82, must have evoked a kind of demiurge. For the rest of the world, the man was all the more dangerous because he perhaps had nuclear weapons. Kim Il-sung is, in principle, leaving power in the hands of his son, Kim Jong-il. Almost nothing is known about this 52-year-old heir: North Korea is one of the most closed, most secretive countries. Once again, the rest of the planet is afraid. Seen from Pyongyang, the capital, this is a formidable feat. Nearly fifty years after Stalin installed Kim-Il-sung at the helm, the international community is worried about the risks of instability in Asia. In spite of itself, it is paying a kind of posthumous homage to the “Great Leader” gone. Inspiring fear is what he did best. …

Since the 1960s, this disturbing dictator has organized a personality cult unprecedented since Stalin. Born from the Korean War and the partition of the peninsula along the 38th parallel in 1953, North Korea has often been likened to a “waking nightmare”. A people of robots cheered the Great Leader at spectacular rallies (the most famous being the “fake” Olympic Games, organized in 1988 while the South Koreans hosted the real Olympics in Seoul). The country lives in a vacuum. Apart from a few minutes of interview granted very recently to the American channel CNN, Kim Il-sung had not spoken to a Western journalist since 1972…”

L’Express of July 14, 1994

Operation Turquoise launched in Rwanda

Between April and July 1994, the Tutsi genocide left more than 800,000 dead in Rwanda amidst almost total indifference from the international community. On June 15, 1994, François Mitterrand, close to the president Hutu Juvénal Habyarimana assassinated on April 6, 1994, decides to launch Operation Turquoise.

Thirty years later, several reports have been published on France’s role at the time and figures such as Bernard Kouchner, François Mitterrand’s foreign minister, have spoken out to explore the grey areas of the French president’s attitude. In 2021, Emmanuel Macron acknowledged “responsibilities” in the role played by France at the time but dismissed any notion of complicity, refusing all requests for apologies or forgiveness.

“There was this guilty abandonment that nothing could justify. Rwanda, a small piece of Africa clinically dead, had stopped its calls for help. Because of genocide. For twelve weeks, in fact, the country of a Thousand Hills has been nothing more than an immense cemetery. 500,000 dead, perhaps more, 350,000 refugees outside the borders, 2 million people displaced within this ethnic slaughterhouse. An unprecedented humanitarian disaster and the deafening silence of the international community…

“This is unacceptable, we must do something without delay. I take full responsibility for it.” On Wednesday, June 15, François Mitterrand brought together, in a restricted council, the head of government, Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppé, François Léotard and Michel Roussin, respectively Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Cooperation, and Admiral Lanxade, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Describing the unspeakable massacre, the President of the Republic cannot hide his emotion. Nor his anger. He cannot let it be said that, in the face of this tragedy, he has stood idly by. That France has abandoned Africa. Question: is France well placed to assert the principle of the right to interfere in the event of failure to assist a population in danger? After all, Paris supported the regime of the assassinated president, Juvénal Habyarimana, and hastened the withdrawal of the Red Berets charged with evacuating Westerners from Kigali, when the signal for the slaughter had been given.”

L’Express of June 30, 1994

Next week, find the summer of 2004 in the archives.