The recent divergence in US and French policies with regard to Iran should come as little surprise, given French President Jacques Chirac’s policy that France’s “relations with the United States will never be submissive.” Yet The Independent has posited that France ’s change of mind may in fact be connected with the presence of French peacekeepers in Lebanon – that is to say within range of Iran’s military proxy, Hezbollah. There may be some truth to that assertion, but it is perhaps more instructive to look at France’s Iran policy over the last few decades, the better to round out the context.

In the 1980s, France sided with Iraq during its conflict with Iran, with severe consequences. Between February and September of 1986, seven separate bomb attacks were carried out within France, killing 10 and wounding 152, with each attack accompanied by demands to release five Iranian prisoners. Four years later, these prisoners were indeed pardoned by François Mitterand, despite domestic opposition to the move.

By 1991, the French government had ended a dispute over Iranian investment in the French Eurodif Uranium Enrichment facility, and had further solidified trade relations with Iran, thereby conveniently replacing the Iraq export market that had been isolated after the Gulf War. And in 1993 the French government astoundingly refused to extradite two Iranians wanted in Switzerland for the assassination of Iranian political exiles, instead opting to ship the two men to Iran, a decision the Quai d’Orsay justified on the grounds of “national interest.”

Since then, the French government has consistently pursued policies of cooperation and engagement with Iran, in stark contrast with the United States, which has labeled Iran amongst other things a rogue nation. The French Iran policy likewise differs from one particularly admirable European nation in this regard, Denmark.

In 1996 Denmark withdrew from critical dialogue with Iran when then-Prime Minister Niels Helveg Pietersen came to the sensible conclusion that the dialogue was itself proving counterproductive, and the Danish Parliament quickly lost patience with the European Union’s Iran policy and the worsening human rights situation in Iran.

For France, “national interest” heftily outweighed these considerations. (For more information on this topic, the reader is directed to Peter Rudolf’s essay “Critical Engagement: The European Union and Iran,” in Richard Haas (ed.), Transatlantic Tensions: The United States, Europe, and Problem Countries, Washington, D.C., 1999.) Thus, France’s seemingly harder line on Iran earlier this year was more the exception than the rule, but it is misleading to attribute the reversion to diplomatic form merely to the presence of French peacekeepers in Iran’s neighborhood.

Rather, setting economic incentives aside, France has ample reason to recall previous Iranian-sponsored terrorism on French soil. If this is the case, it is reasonable to assume that regardless of its rhetoric the French government feels itself hamstrung when it comes to confronting very tangible security threats emanating from Iran. Whether French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, who recently stated that “Iran does not have the right to test nuclear weapons” and that “all options must remain on the table,” will be in a position to turn the tide remains to be seen.