To find a precedent for France’s current diplomatic self-effacement, one would have to go back to the Suez crisis of 1956 or the Algerian war. Neither the international conference on the environment to be held in Paris, norPresident François Hollande’s bellicose, inarticulate speeches, norhis foreign minister’s incorrigible self-satisfaction (1) do much to mask France’s fall on the international stage.

That the country is following Germany’s lead in European affairs became evident during the Greek crisis. The foreign minister seemed almost entirely absent; the finance minister was voluble but ineffectual; Hollande limited his role to being Germany’s messenger boy, entrusted with getting Alexis Tsipras to accept Angela Merkel’s draconian conditions. Even in the US there was surprise at EU harshness towards Greece.

Then news broke that US intelligence services had spied on three successive French presidents, including Hollande. A French government spokesman immediately tried to play down the outrage — “We have to keep a sense of proportion. We don’t want to cause diplomatic ruptures” — before going to Washington to discuss the transatlantic free trade agreement. “France’s response is verging on the ridiculous,” said Henri Guaino, a rightwing member of parliament. “For some time, we’ve just been following US policy,” said former minister Pierre Lellouche, who is known for his Atlanticism.

The most striking alignment is between France and Saudi Arabia, close enough to cause occasional irritation in the US. Though France did not manage to stop the agreement in July between the five great powers and Iran, as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Obama-hating US neoconservatives wished, it was not for want of trying, and with remarkable ill grace (see Enter the new power brokers). With Syria, France’s desire to “punish” Bashar al-Assad owes less to the barbarity of his regime than the desire to keep in with the Gulf states (especially Saudi Arabia), which have vowed to bring him down. Yet the kingdom — Sunni fundamentalism’s birthplace (2), international banker, and spearhead for murderous repression of Shia in Bahrain and Yemen — fights against most of the human rights that France claims to champion elsewhere (3).

France’s choices do not primarily stem from faulty strategic analysis. They feed the paranoia of monarchs who fear being surrounded by Iran and its allies, in order to sell them more arms. Mission accomplished — prime minister Manuel Valls, on his return from Riyadh in October, tweeted: “France-Saudi Arabia: €10bn worth of contracts! The government mobilised for our businesses and jobs.”