France: End of the Mitterand Doctrine?

By Lorenzo Vidino

Over the last few weeks French and Italian sources have spoken of the possible end of the so-called “Mitterand doctrine.” The doctrine, created in the early 1980s by then French President François Mitterrand, granted asylum to those members of the Red Brigades and other Italian left-wing terrorist groups who renounced violence, or, as Mitterand said in a famous speech in 1985, “broke with the infernal machine” of terrorism. Despite predictable and intense criticism from Italian authorities, the policy has been observed by all French government after Mitterand, whether socialist or conservative. Since the 1980s many (some claim more than three hundred) Italian militants have benefited from the policy, creating a new life for themselves across the Alps. For many of them the statute of limitations has run out and they are, therefore, free from the reach of Italian justice. But others, whom Italian authorities sentenced to life in prison or want for crimes to which the statute of limitations does not apply, have not been so lucky.

Since 2002, in fact, Italian authorities have engaged in a new legal/political battle to obtain the extradition of some of the militants. Two high-profile assassinations carried out by the so-called New Red Brigades led the Italians to re-focus their attention on left-wing terrorism and some links to militants who had received asylum in France were uncovered. A list of a dozen names, some of them accused of still being engaged in terrorism, was handed by the Italians to their French counterparts and new extradition requests were lodged. The requests triggered complicated and highly controversial legal battles in French courts. While no militant had been extradited until then, in 2002 French authorities handed over Paolo Persichetti, who had been sentenced in Italy to 22 years for his role in the 1987 assassination of Air Force General Licio Giorgieri. In March 2005, the French State Council expressly stated that the Mitterand doctrine had no legal value. Most recently, Nicolas Sarkozy has declared that the Mitterand doctrine goes against the spirit of judicial cooperation between European countries and declared his intention of breaking with it. Right now French judicial authorities are deciding the complicated case of former Red Brigades member Marina Petrella, convicted for murder by Italy in 1992, jailed by France in August 2007 after 15 year in the country, and currently awaiting extradition to Italy. Sarkozy has expressed his desire to extradite Petrella, but also asked Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to pardon the former Red Brigades militant (the move has led some French leftists to dub Sarkozy as a modern day Pontius Pilate…).

Western countries providing asylum/tolerating the presence of terrorists wanted in other Western countries and even turning a blind eye to their continued activities is hardly a French exclusive. The now popular term “Londonistan” was coined (together with Beirut-on-the-Thames) in the mid-1990s, ironically, by French intelligence officials upset at the British government’s policy of harboring Islamist terrorists, including those who France deemed responsible for the 1995 bombings of the Paris metro. By the same token, Britain has had similar complaints towards the attitude of the U.S. government. London has accused Washington of providing a safe haven for Irish terrorists from as early as the 1850s, when hundred of “Fenians” formed groups in the United States to carry out attacks against Britain. And Italians, who have been so quick at criticizing the French, tolerated the activities of Palestinian terrorists on their soil for decades (just yesterday Italian daily Corriere della Sera ran an interesting interview with former PFLP spokesman Bassam Abu Sharif in which the militant openly recounted how Italian secret services allowed his and other Palestinian groups to operate in the country and transport weapons in exchange for the promise not to attack Italy—the fact has been recently confirmed by former Italian President and Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, who even said that the 1980 bombing of the Bologna station, which killed 85 people, could have been the result of the accidental detonation of two suitcases of explosives Palestinian militants were transporting by train).

The Mitterand doctrine presents differences from these cases, as its precondition was that only those who renounced violence could benefit from it. Its defenders claim that the Italian militants who have moved to France under its auspices have built families and lived a peaceful life since then and cannot pay for crimes committed more than 30 years earlier. Moreover, they claim that the French state cannot fail to maintain its promise and turn its back on those who relied on its word 25 years ago. Its critics counter these arguments with the right of the victims’ families to see justice been served. Moreover, judicial cooperation on extraditions and the respect of other member countries’ sentences have become cornerstones of the EU counter-terrorism strategy and the Mitterand doctrine runs directly athwart them. Soon France will decide on the Petrella case and, probably, on other similar, showing which argument will prevail.

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