蓝月星雨
本人信奉之蓝人准则：但求三餐不愁。睡大觉，喝小酒，穿花衣裳。
By CATHERINE FIELD,
Herald correspondent 13.03.2003
法国外长多米尼克×德维尔潘，那个一手培植了法国在伊拉克问题上大胆的抵抗美国策略的人，就象是来自另一个时代的人物。
在这个外交部长们通常因为毫无棱角而成为乏味党棍的时代，德维尔潘突出得如同一个时代的错误。他宛如一个文艺复兴时期政治家的活化石， 博学多才，满腔热血。
甚至连他的外表都是个错误。1.9米的身高使他显得鹤立鸡群；运动型的瘦削身材；永远彬彬有礼但又充满激情；满头华发、巧于辞令，目光咄咄逼人。
两个世纪前，他可以成为一个剑客，一个剑锋如他的智慧一般锐利的火枪手，一个可以像赢得女士们的芳心一样轻而易举地结下仇敌的男子。
当德维尔潘出现时，一句老话――“玉树临风，风流倜傥”－－不知为何常常掠过脑海，一些外交官出于一种既崇拜又嫉妒的心理，把他称作“佐罗”。
德维尔潘的剑术在过去几个月中为实现当今最异想天开的外交策略而发挥得淋漓尽至：告诉踌躇满志地准备单边发动战争的世界头号“烧级大国”回到多边的框架中来解决问题。
上个月，在安理会上跟美国国务卿鲍威尔“变脸”时，德维尔潘有过一番激动人心的表现，宣称“战争最终意味着承认失败”而赢得了安理会成员们热烈的掌声。
作为对美国所谓“旧欧洲”的回应，他针锋相对地表明对战争的反对是“来自一个古老的国家，知道什么是战争，什么是占领，什么是野蛮。”
据说鲍威尔对德维尔潘的表现由震惊而发展成怒不可遏，这个法国人从此成为一些美国媒体憎恶的对象。
传媒界的评论家们动用各种词汇把他形容为“油滑”，“不严肃，爽口型外交”并且（据华尔街时报刊登的一篇文章）是“一个地地道道的自大的怪胎，萨达姆的卑鄙的皮条客，一只企图咆哮的耗子”
德维尔潘根本不上钩。他花时间去解释――用他在美国磨炼出的出色的英语――法国坚持运用外交手段而不是战争来解决问题，并且重申他的国家和美国之间长期的友好关系。
当希拉克领导的保守派在国会成功地击败了占有多数席位的社会党之后，德维尔潘仅仅在十个月前才登上国际外交舞台，但是他在国内早就因为充当希拉克总统的左膀右臂而声名远扬。
无论是对还是错，在过去8年中他一直为希拉克的重要决定出谋划策。失败的例子包括在他的建议下，1997年解散议会，导致了社会党人的胜利和其后五年的权利共享。最近，德维尔潘又由于把法国军队派到西非的象牙海岸而受到指责，因为军队在那里陷入了日渐升级的血腥冲突之中。
这种类型的行动具有典型的德维尔潘风格，他热切地相信意志力并坚持法国的影响。
德维尔潘有着不知疲倦的口碑。在过去十个月里，他出访了七十多个国家。
工作之余，他还继续进行学术探索。他即将出版自己撰写的关于他所崇拜的英雄拿破仑传记的第二卷（第一卷受到评论家们的热情接纳），他还撰写过几本关于法国当代文学的著作，自费发表过两本诗集。收集非洲雕塑和古籍并分享希拉克对中国瓷器的喜爱。
他的助手据说被他弄得筋疲力尽，因为他可以一天只有四个半小时的睡眠。
周末时，他喜欢跑步，而且可以一口气跑十公里而脸不变色。
希拉克和德维尔潘之间的关系最近受到了仔细的审视。
尽管德维尔潘在伊拉克问题上的策略风险重重并偶有失手，但据说他得到了希拉克的全盘支持。“他理解问题的速度快得惊人，”希拉克曾这样评价德维尔潘，“很难找到一个象他这样既是一个出色诗人但同时又可以是一个卓越的军事指挥官的人。”
原文见下方
13.03.2003
By CATHERINE FIELD, Herald correspondent
PARIS - French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, the man who has moulded France's bold strategy of standing up to the United States over Iraq, is like a man from another age.
At a time when foreign ministers are usually tedious party loyalists memorable only for their blandness, de Villepin stands out as a kind of anachronism. He is a living fossil of times when politicians were Renaissance men - intellectual omnivores who also had fire in their bellies.
Even his appearance is anachronistic. Standing 1.9m, he is commandingly tall; athletically slim; unfailingly polite and charming but also passionate; silver-haired yet also silver-tongued and wolf-eyed.
Two centuries ago, he would have been a swordsman, a musketeer whose blade would have been as sharp as his wits, a man who would win ladies' hearts as easily he would make male enemies.
An old-fashioned word - "dashing" - somehow always comes to mind when de Villepin makes an appearance, and some diplomats, with a mixture of admiration but also envy, have taken to calling him "Zorro".
De Villepin's rapier skills have been on impressive display in the past few months as he carries out one of the boldest diplomatic strategies of recent times: to do nothing less than take on the world's hyperpower just as it is pumped up for a unilateral war and to tell it to work within the multilateral framework.
In a faceoff with US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations Security Council last month, de Villepin gave an electrifying performance, getting a loud round of applause for declaring "war is always the sanction of failure".
He skewered America's criticism of "old Europe", noting that opposition to the conflict came from "an old country that has known war, barbarity, oppression".
Powell is reported to have been stung to anger by de Villepin's show and the sardonic Frenchman has become a hate figure for some American media.
Press commentators have variously called him "oily", that he "lacks seriousness [and is] diplomacy-lite" and (this in the Wall Street Journal) "a positive monster of conceit, the abject procurer for Saddam the rat that tried to roar."
De Villepin never rises to the bait. He takes his time to explain - in excellent English that he honed in America - the reasons for France's insistence on diplomacy rather than war, and reiterates his country's enduring friendship for the US.
De Villepin only came to international prominence 10 months ago after the Socialist-led majority in Parliament was routed by President Jacques Chirac's conservatives. But he is well known at home, where for years he has worked as Chirac's right-hand man.
Right or wrong, he has been the architect of almost all of Chirac's decisions of importance over the past eight years. The failures include his advice, as secretary-general to the presidency, to dissolve Parliament in 1997, which led to a Socialist victory and five sterile years of power-sharing. And de Villepin has been recently criticised for sending French troops to intercede in the former West African colony of the Ivory Coast, where they are getting sucked into an increasingly bloody civil feud.
Such actions are typical of de Villepin, who believes fervently in the philosophy of willpower and the assertion of French influence.
De Villepin has a reputation for tirelessness. In the past 10 months, he has visited more than 70 countries.
After a day's work, he carries on with his intellectual pursuits. He is about to publish the second of a four-volume biography of his hero Napoleon (the first volume was given a rapturous reception by critics); he has authored several books about contemporary French culture; and he has also written two self-published collections of poetry. He collects African sculptures and antique books, and shares with Chirac a love of Chinese porcelain.
His aides are said to be exhausted by de Villepin, because he can get by on just 4 1/2 hours' sleep.
At weekends, he likes to go jogging, and can do a 10km haul without breaking a sweat. He has admitted that he has little time to spend with his wife and three teenage children.
Chirac's relationship with de Villepin has come under close scrutiny of late.
Despite de Villepin's occasional missteps and risk-laden strategy on Iraq, he is said to enjoy Chirac's total support. "He understands things at fantastic speed," Chirac has said of de Villepin. "It is very rare to meet a man like him who at the same time is a good poet and a very good commando leader."