Prime Minister Stephen Harper was invited to France’s 2009 D-Day memorial because French President Nicolas Sarkozy felt sympathy for Mr. Harper’s political troubles, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
The reasons for the invitation are included in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Paris, where a French official explains that Mr. Sarkozy didn’t invite German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Second World War memorial because the French would then be obliged to invite leaders from Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic, and give them all a chance to speak at the long ceremony.
But Mr. Harper and Britain’s then-PM, Gordon Brown, received invitations because of political need, according to the explanation the Americans received from senior French official Jean-David Levitte.
“The cases of the UK and Canada were exceptional, he added, because both Gordon Brown and Stephen Harper were in such political trouble at home that the survival of their governments was at stake,” the cable records Mr. Levitte as explaining.
That Mr. Sarkozy reached out to help embattled foreign colleagues with a little ceremony shows the sense of club among world leaders. But the fact that he treated Mr. Harper the same as Mr. Brown, who was turfed out of office this year, shows that just over a year ago, other leaders felt Mr. Harper's government was on thin ice.
In June of 2009, Mr. Harper’s government was just pulling out of a tough six months, and still not sure if they would survive the summer without an election.
Mr. Harper had just survived a potential opposition coalition at the end of 2008, and scrambled together a stimulus budget a month later as the economic recession took hold.
By spring, debates over expanding employment insurance, bailing out auto makers, and fears the recession would get worse helped Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, then newly in charge, take a lead in the polls over Mr. Harper’s Conservatives.
The Conservatives responded with a heavy round of attack ads against Mr. Ignatieff, and the public mood turned against an election. After the D-Day memorial, in late June, Mr. Ignatieff only managed to climb down from election ultimatums by agreeing to talks with the Tories on EI.
