'We Want To Believe'.(World Affairs)(Bernard Kouchner)(Interview)

Byline: Tracy Mcnicoll

Bernard Kouchner on France's efforts to unite Europe, without quite confronting Russia.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was on the ground in Tbilisi less than 72 hours after the Russo-Georgian war began and helped negotiate Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial six-point accord. Kouchner, a 68-year-old physician, long took on humanitarian crises as an activist. But now his idealist image is being tested by realpolitik. He sat down with NEWSWEEK's Tracy McNicoll in Paris to discuss how the European Union can manage Moscow. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Are the realpolitik demands of your foreign-minister post today alien to the idealism you're known for?

KOUCHNER: The word realpolitik is a little pejorative. I don't believe our policy deserves that qualifier. We completely changed transatlantic relations, which have become a lot more trusting, easier. I was very proud to be with the U.S. Congress when Sarkozy described our relations with America. Is that realpolitik? No. It's what we really thought. Was stopping the war in Georgia realpolitik? You could say that. But above all it was urgent. We had to stop those tanks rolling toward Tbilisi. We had to demand an immediate ceasefire, otherwise Tbilisi was taken and Saakashvili's regime would fall. Was that realpolitik? It was crisis policy. Realpolitik would be deciding things against one's own convictions.

Until recently the top threat seemed to be Iran acquiring a first nuclear weapon. Now the talk is of avoiding a new cold war.

I think cold war is a very poor term--that trying to reason in terms of bloc against bloc isn't right. The way the Russians reacted to Saakashvili and invaded Georgia wasn't right either. And we condemned it strongly.