The Granddaddy Of Modern Day Globalism (And His Arch-Enemy)

Eleven years ago this week, BBC Radio 4 aired an incredible documentary, an investigation into European anti-Americanism. The journalist behind this project, Justin Webb, travelled to France to meet some of the most influential voices of the hate America fad. One of them was Hubert Vedrine, the former French foreign minister and the intellectual grandfather of modern day globalism.

“Within globalisation,” Vedrine said, “we need a set of rules which contain American power at the social level, the environmental level. That will become the real threat. It’ll even become a geopolitical tragedy if we don’t do anything. So my first reply is more rules within the international system and the multilateral system, which apply even to the US. It’s not against them, not against the United States, but a general containment strategy.”