Tanker deal revives anti-French talk

BY ROB HOTAKAINEN | MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS • Published March 17, 2008

WASHINGTON — No one wants to bring back freedom fries, but the French are under attack again. This time politicians from Kansas and Washington state are leading the charge. They’re irked that they’re losing thousands of jobs after the Air Force awarded a $35 billion contract to the parent company of French-based Airbus to replace an aging fleet of aerial tankers. Hills’ controversy

The contract has become the latest cause celebre on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers from the two states arguing that the Air Force erred by not giving the contract to The Boeing Co., the local favorite and Airbus’ rival.

Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback says it makes no sense to give a military contract to a country that hasn’t always seen eye to eye with U.S. policy. That would be the war in Iraq, which resulted in French fries temporarily getting renamed in House of Representatives cafeterias.

“You don’t want your national defense dependent on foreign governments,” Brownback said.

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts calls the French a bunch of socialists. “We’re in the position now of subsidizing socialism,” he charged.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Democrat Patty Murray of Washington noted that if Boeing had won the contract, it would have created 44,000 jobs in the United States. By having the planes built in Toulouse, France, she said: “The U.S. government is leading those jobs to the guillotine.”

The U.S. plan is tantamount to “outsourcing” its military work, Murray said. And she said U.S. taxpayers would be financing “a European jobs program” that gave control of U.S. military technology to a foreign-owned company during a time of war.

The contract, which is the second-largest Pentagon program in history, was awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp., which teamed up with European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., the parent company of Airbus.

“I feel sorry to (hear) such comments,” said Emmanuel Lenain, spokesman and press counselor for the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., adding that the competition was won by “a European company, not a French one.” EADS is based in the Netherlands.

“For the bigger picture, keep in mind that there are 2,400 branches of French companies in the United States, employing about 450,000 people,” he said. “Given the size of the investments in both directions, the total volume of French-American exchanges exceeds $1 billion a day.”

Brownback said the issue deserved a full security analysis.

“What happens if the Europeans are not satisfied with what we’re doing in the Middle East?” he asked. “And they say, ‘Well, we’re not going to give you flyover rights,’ or if they refuse to sell spare parts for the tankers. We’re going to fight it.”

To be sure, everyone isn’t complaining.

Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said the Air Force chose the European company after conducting “an extensive competition to identify the finest aircraft available.”