Well, did he say it or didn’t he? I am referring to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. According to El País, Spain’s most reputable newspaper, Sarkozy told his fellow eurozone leaders at a May 7 summit that France would “reconsider its situation in the euro” unless they took emergency collective measures to overcome Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The source? Officials in Spain’s ruling socialist party, quoting remarks purportedly made after the summit by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister.
It would be extraordinary, if true – for two reasons. First, if France were to leave the euro area, European monetary union would have no reason to continue. It would collapse. And that would be like dropping a financial nuclear bomb on Europe. Secondly, it is inconceivable that France would consider it to be in its national interests to take such a drastic step. We are left to conclude that if Sarkozy really did utter these words, it was just a bluff to get Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to sign up to the eurozone rescue plan that was ultimately agreed in the early hours of May 10.
I have checked out the El País story with a few people. One high-ranking European Union policymaker who attended the summit says that the discussions were civilised, no one lost their cool, and no voices were raised in anger. Alas, I suspect this person is being, shall we say, economical with the truth. Because another person who was in close contact with the eurozone leaders says that the discussions were sometimes pretty heated and much of the heat was generated by Sarkozy’s interventions.
However, even this second person cannot confirm that Sarkozy threatened to pull France out of the eurozone. A third person, speaking with authority about Germany’s negotiating position at the summit, says Sarkozy made no such threat.
And that, I’m afraid, is where we are. We have an astounding report – but it comes from a newspaper quoting officials quoting a prime minister quoting a president from another country. It doesn’t even come close to meeting the necessary tests of historical inquiry.
And that is the problem with journalism, even if conducted as professionally as possible. We like to think we are making a stab at writing “the first draft of history”. But we don’t have anything like the full range of authoritative sources at our disposal to make this boast credible – not when we are writing stories on the same day or even a week after the events we are describing. For that, you need documents, transcripts, hard evidence – all the things that governments and central banks and European Union institutions, for perfectly good reasons, keep under wraps for many years. And even then, you have to weigh one account of events against many others.
A cool head is essential in turbulent times.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on