...No one conversant with Chirac's neo-Gaullist style of discourse could fail to hear the multiple allusions to the United States in the above. Just who, after all, is this ambiguously "important partner" that France has to encourage – or even "obligate" [engager] – to make the "choice of cooperation rather than confrontation"? The reference to the "poles of power" likewise leaves little room for doubt. "Poles of power" is a programmatic term of neo-Gaullist discourse. According to the latter, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and hence of the "bipolarity" characterizing the Cold War, the United States remained the single "pole of power" in a "unipolar" [sic] world. It is in order to correct this, in the neo-Gaullist vision of things, perilous situation that an independent European military capability has to be developed, thus rendering the EU itself an alternative "pole of power" to the United States. Not coincidentally, Chirac's speech ends with a plea for the development of just such a unified European military capability, at whose service he pledges to put France's nuclear forces. It is not only Chirac's rhetoric – which, while emphasizing the increasing "imbrication" of the interests of the EU countries, carefully avoids mention of the transatlantic relation – that makes clear the practical implications of this project for NATO. France's recent actions in blocking a planned NATO-EU meeting on anti-terrorism efforts does so as well.

Whereas the "old" American media remained resolutely obtuse to the point of Chirac's speech, evidently the French authorities themselves wanted it to be at least partially understood even by the American public. Thus, France's state-controlled AFP news service (for details of the AFP's relation to the French state, see here and here) issued its own English-language report on the speech. The AFP's helpful title: "Chirac's nuclear warning a signal to the US"...