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Blair's fury with Chirac over Mugabe summit invite
Tony Blair bitterly accused French president Jacques Chirac of trying to undermine UK efforts to put pressure on Zimbabwe's dictatorial leader Robert Mugabe, according to newly released government files.
Papers released by the National Archives show Mr Blair erupted with anger when he learned Mr Chirac was insisting the Zimbabwean president should be allowed to attend an EU-Africa summit due to be held in 2003.
'But this is the opposite of what he said to me,' he scrawled in a handwritten note after No 10 officials told him Mr Chirac feared South African president Thabo Mbeki would stay away from the gathering unless Mr Mugabe was invited.
'Ultimately if France wants to take the heat on this they can and probably they are using it to damage the UK's standing in Africa in the belief (mistaken) that Mugabe retains credibility.
'But we should be seen to do all we can to protest.'
The row came as Zimbabwe was caught up in a worsening spiral of violence and economic collapse after Mr Mugabe instigated a violent campaign to drive the country's remaining white farmers from their lands.
Mr Blair's Labour government was at the forefront of international efforts to pressurise Mr Mugabe to end the chaos, implement democratic reforms and restore the rule of law.
The UK's intervention was, however, deeply resented by Mr Mugabe who argued that – as the former colonial power – Britain should be paying reparations to his country.
As the situation worsened Mr Blair noted that they needed to be 'pretty fierce on Mugabe' if they were to make any progress.
He was, however, warned by South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela that – as a veteran of Africa's struggles for liberation from colonial rule – Mr Mugabe still needed to be treated with respect.
'Despite the recent turmoil in Zimbabwe we must not forget that President Mugabe is a statesman who has made a major contribution not only to Zimbabwe's independence but to the liberation of southern Africa,' he wrote in a letter to the prime minister.
'He deserves our good will, support and advice. As friends we should be able to discuss the issue of land redistribution, the rule of law and violence frankly and constructively with him.'
Meanwhile, efforts to foster better Anglo-French co-operation on Africa were hampered by a deep personal antipathy between Mr Chirac and Britain's international development secretary Clare Short.
Sir John Holmes, Britain's ambassador to Paris, said Mr Chirac had taken him aside to complain that she was 'viscerally anti-French and 'insupportable''.
He contrasted her attitude with the good working relationship French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine had enjoyed with his British counterpart Jack Straw and before him Robin Cook.
'Vedrine and Cook had worked well together, and Vedrine and Straw were continuing in the same vein. But Ms Short was impossible,' Sir John reported the French president as saying.
'He had not liked to raise this with the prime minister because they always had lots of other things to talk about, but we needed to know the position. In typical Chirac fashion, he laboured the point for several minutes.'
When Sir John assured him that Ms Short's views had been 'transformed' in the light of a recent trip to the region by Mr Vedrine, the French president replied 'God be praised'.
