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| Europe | |||
| Chirac basks in warm glow of adulation | |||
| 2003-03-13 | |||
| From Al-Guardian. Get out the barf bags. Jacques Chirac basked yesterday in an unprecedented show of adulation as newspapers, commentators and politicians of all hues showered the French president with praise for his promise to veto a UN resolution giving the green light for an attack on Iraq. The possible longer-term economic and political consequences for France of the president's move, as well as the impact on world order as expressed in the United Nations, were largely ignored as the nation rallied proudly round a leader whom the Catholic newspaper La Croix compared to Nelson Mandela. Yes, line up to kiss the ring. But don't be surprised when "the possible longer-term economic and political consequences" that you currently ignore show up down the road and kick you in the ass. The contrast between Mr Chirac's domestic popularity and the travails of the British prime minister yesterday could not be more extreme. But analysts warned of severe diplomatic turbulence ahead as the United States, in particular, works out how to respond to what many here see as France's most deliberate challenge yet to US international ambitions. "Chirac: No" screeched the bright red front page of the left-leaning Libération, followed by the verdict: "A decision that will secure his place in history ... In step with public opinion, Chirac is the incarnation of opposition to American unilateralism."
Hand me the bag please. Quick!
The constant surrendering must just wear you down. The Communist leader, Marie-Georges Buffet, praised a "just and dignified decision". The opposition Socialist party's François Hollande hailed the president's pronouncement as "principled and proper", Mr Chirac's own UMP party lauded his "authority, clarity and strength". Even his arch-enemy, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said that he "approved such firm resolution to act against war".
We are too busy patting ourselves on the back for showing up the big, bad Americains. During a television interview on Monday, Mr Chirac played down the significance of a French security council veto, pointing out that the US had employed the tactic 76 times since the UN's foundation in 1946, Britain 32 times and France 18 times - the last in 1989 over Panama. He also insisted France was not anti-American. "To suggest so would be absurd," he said. Well, Jocko. A lot of Americans have become anti-French thanks to you. Add that to your resume. But France has not vetoed a US initiative since the Suez crisis in 1956. The political commentator, Alain Duhamel, said a French veto would be "a form of divorce" between America and France. Guillaume Parmentier, of the French Centre on the United States, said the political cost could be high. Washington would very probably "freeze France out on any number of political and diplomatic questions". Any number? How about ALL? French companies, which between them exported more than $28bn (£17.5bn) of goods and services to the US last year, fear a backlash. But companies, such as those in the defence and aerospace industries, that deal directly with the US administration will be hit, and France's tourism industry may suffer. Some analysts also say that France has little idea of the impact on the UN of the current crisis. Please don't bring this up while Jacques is basking in his hero worship. "What's at stake for them here, the bottom line of all this, is the way the international community manages future problems — France's whole vision of the way the world should be run," one diplomat said. "But what is that vision?" That vision: Beacause we know best, France should run the world and everyone should just do as they are told. It's so simplisme! One of the first words the French president uttered during his TV interview was "multipolar". The idea of four or five more or less balanced power blocs in the world had been "very much part of Chirac's thinking since the end of the cold war", said Mr Parmentier. The problem, said another commentator, Philippe Moreau Defarges of the French Institute for International Relations, is that no one — least of all Mr Chirac — seems to have worked out clearly how this new "multipolar" world might function. Well, so what. Excuse me while I bask. The UN will probably survive the crisis, but only after radical reform, Mr Defarges said. What it will look like afterwards is anyone's guess, "but if Mr Chirac has a coherent strategic vision on that question, he certainly hasn't exposed it". His strategy: If you can't beat them on the battlefield, take them on in the League of Nations, errr, UN. He'll "bask" for maybe another week or 10 days. Then the war will start, he'll become irrelevant again, and all that shit they aren't worrying about now, they'll really start worrying about. | |||
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 Bush is so fed up with the French that he's about ready to apologize to the Germans for Normandy!!! |
| Posted by: tcc 2003-03-13 21:53:16 |
| #9 Here's a thought for the payback: Multipolarism is the division of the world into opposing camps. France has been attempting to arm several of these camps with nuclear weapons. In short, French Multipolarism is the antithesis of world peace. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-03-13 16:29:09 |
| #8 Prior to World War 2 the artworld was centered in Paris. The artworld should move back to France (I wouldn't be hurt if half of hollywood uprooted as well). Let them show the Piss-Christ in the Louvre and discuss it's artistic merits. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-03-13 14:45:56 |
| #7 Perhaps the UN should move to France where it might be appreciated. Few New Yorkers would miss the UN and it doesn't bother France to have dictators running about. It'd be a short trip from UN offices in Paris to exile in the French Riviera. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-03-13 14:40:35 |
| #6 I wish I could take comfort in the fact that after the war we will give them their due, but Chirac is giving Bush such a thorough pounding he might be too busy wiping the blood from his face. |
| Posted by: g wiz 2003-03-13 13:42:07 |
| #5 Remember, Neville Chamberlain had the same universal popularity as Chirac now has in 1938 after the Munich Agreement giving the Sudetenland to Germany. Indeed when Churchill gave his famous speech against this betrayal of Czechoslavakia, he was nearly deselected as a Conservative candidate. In 1940, Chamberlain was ousted and Churchill became prime minister. So fortunes and popularity can change very quickly. France and Chirac are riding high on a bubble of unreality. When that bubble bursts ... |
| Posted by: A 2003-03-13 13:05:52 |
| #4 I'm french, and utterly disgusted by Chirac, but I won't give up Perrier and wine, mind you... Jacquouille is a serial loser who'd love a nobel piss prize, Dominique is a poet with delusions about re-establishing French Grandeur, 2/3 of the politicians are anti-US by nature (communists, trotskysts, gaullists, neo-fascists,...), Saddam is the best buddy of three presidential candidates (Chevènement, Chirac, Le pen), big business is drooling about future markets in Algeria, SA, Lebanon,... And everybody is afraid of the reactions of the 5 millions muslims unrestful community, but nobody will admit it in public. Same as before : we don't know where we're headed to, we're experiencing a unprecedented moral crisis, and we're in denial, period. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-03-13 12:38:06 |
| #3 "ardent defender of a multipolar world" Welcome to another 50 years of war. Thanks, jack. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-03-13 12:20:34 |
| #2 My inlaws have given up Perrier and French wine and that's really something because they are both from France! If Chirac can tick them off then he is really in trouble. |
| Posted by: Sam W 2003-03-13 11:53:27 |
| #1 We're witnessing the end of the "West". There is no longer a "Western World" composed of North America and Europe. Now there's just the Anglosphere, old Europe and new Europe - with no common goals and few common interests. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-03-13 11:46:11 |