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American Francophobia is not all it's cracked up to be. Actually it's not even a phobia. It is more like an expression of extreme distaste or disgust. Its character is evident in the invention of "Freedom Fries" or in the pouring of Bordeaux wine into sewers. It is theatrical and demonstrative. It tends toward ridicule. And usually it reacts to something very specific: it has a news peg. The latest peg was France's opposition to United States policies in Iraq. And repercussions from that confrontation are likely to overwhelm any partial reconciliations. They have already inspired a series of books...

When are we Americans going to wise up? How many times does the French government, led by Jacques Chirac (search), have to put all of us in danger before we get the picture? France is helping worldwide terrorism. Here's the latest. France has said no to Secretary of State Rice, who asked the Chirac government to designate Hezbollah (search) as a terrorist group. If France would do that, Hezbollah could not raise money in Europe, which it is now doing through various charitable fronts. There is no question Hezbollah is a terrorist group. It was responsible for killing more than...

<p>CNN liberal girly-man Bruce Morton just completed a segment on Inside Politics the point of which was to encourage Americans to stop boycotting French products.</p> <p>His pitch came in the course of a segment demonstrating - through poll results and conciliatory remarks by Condi Rice - that American attitudes toward France are thawing.</p>

The French have lost the initiative when it comes to selling and making their most famous product One of the most poignant moments in Sideways, Alexander Payne's Oscar-nominated film about a wine geek's mid-life crisis, takes places in a burger bar. Miles, the movie's balding, fortysomething anti-hero has fled his best friend's wedding after bumping into his ex-wife. Alone and miserable, he finds solace in a bottle of 1961 Chateau Cheval Blanc, sipped surreptitiously from a plastic cup. The choice of bottle is significant. The 1961Cheval Blanc is a remarkable Saint Emilion, and for Miles it represents something very special....

Paris – In A gesture likely to bring an apoplectic flush to the face of any dedicated claret drinker, French wine growers have proposed a desperate plan to prop up their slumping industry against New World competition by handing thousands of barrels to industrial distillers. It is the first time that grand wines protected by the Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) label have been treated in such a way. And as is usually the case with French agriculture, the vignerons are counting on their Government and Brussels to foot much of the bill for mopping up a wine lake of eminently...

* Air France * Air Liquide * Airbus * Alcatel * Allegra (allergy medication) * Aqualung (including: Spirotechnique, Technisub, US Divers, and SeaQuest) * BF Goodrich (owned by Michelin) * Car & Driver Magazine * Chivas Regal (scotch) * Culligan (owned by Vivendi) * Dannon (yogurt and dairy foods) * DKNY * Glenlivet (scotch) * Jerry Springer (talk show) * Krups (coffee and cappuccino makers) * Maybelline * Motel 6 * Motown Records * MP3.com * Nivea * Parents Magazine * RCA (televisions and electronics; owned by Thomson Electronics) * Red Roof Inns (owned by Accor group in France) *...

French wine exports are in their sixth successive year of decline. Thousands of winemakers have staged protests in the streets of France to demand government help over falling exports and a slump in domestic sales. Demonstrators in Avignon, Bordeaux, Macon, Angers, Nantes and other towns rallied behind black-draped tractors. They blame over-production, shrinking exports and a government campaign against alcohol abuse for what union leaders call a "crisis" in winemaking. France's agriculture ministry said it would meet industry leaders next week. The unions want the government to provide money for farmers wishing to move from vines to other crops and...

PRESS RELEASE September 23, 2004 Burn Baby Burn KOLE joins FOX’s Bill O’Reilly in his France Boycott Beaumont, Texas – KOLE (News Radio FOX 1340/1380 AM) FOX Morning Blend host Dominick Brascia announced this morning on his radio show that he will burn the flag of France and will join Bill O’Reilly of FOX News in his effort to boycott France. Brascia, along with co-hosts Debbie Wylde and Jeff Roberts, got angry after learning that, again, France was standing in the way of America’s War on Terrorism in Iraq. After putting together a list of all the problems America has...

Faced with what some are calling its greatest crisis for 150 years, France's most prestigious winegrowing region has decided to cut back the amount of wine it sells. The Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB), which includes legendary names such as Chateau Latour, Chateau Margaux and Chateau Haut Brion and countless smaller producers, independent wine merchants, trade unions and cooperatives, said yesterday that its members had agreed to limit sales from this season's harvest to 50 hectolitres (5,000 litres) per hectare. Anything more would be stored until the CIVB decided that conditions had improved. It is an unprecedented decision which will reduce...

Bill O'Reilly: No brie for me By BILL O'REILLY, Creators Syndicate July 5, 2004 Enough with France. That country is not a friend to the USA, or to peace-seeking Iraqis and Afghans. French President Jacques Chirac continues to block efforts by the USA and Britain to bring stability to former dictatorships and make it more difficult for homicidal terrorists to operate. Take a look at Chirac's recent resume: — Last week he blocked a newly created NATO strike force from going to Afghanistan to provide extra security for elections. Chirac said: "(the strike force) should not be used for troop...

Alors! Spilling Wine To Chastise France They were Americans exercising their right of protest, and they poured out their anger at France. As the French fought early last year to block United Nations approval for an invasion of Iraq, some Americans responded by boycotting anything French. Occasionally, they made a public splash of it, emptying bottles of French wine into sewers and rivers, while fellow Americans hailed or assailed their actions. Anthony M. Tola, above, drew a media spotlight when he poured a bottle of merlot into a toilet at his New Brunswick, N.J., restaurant and said he had earlier...

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Britain extended its lead over theU.S. as the champagne export capital of the world as U.K.drinkers' consumption of the French wine rose 8.8 percent in 2003. Champagne drinkers bought 34 million bottles in the U.K.last year, as popularity among young people increased for a thirdstraight year. The U.K. market is now almost twice the size ofthe U.S., the second-largest market, according to industry groupthe Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ``The younger generation have made it their drink,'' BrunoPaillard, co-head of the Epernay, France-based group, said in aninterview at the Champagne Information Bureau's annual tastingevent at...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi Shiite clerics called for a boycott of French products in protest at France's move to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia from schools. "I suggest that a fatwa (religious edict) be issued by (Shiite religious scholars in the Iraqi holy city of) Najaf, (the Iranian Shiite religious center of) Qom and al-Azhar (the Sunni Muslims' highest religious authority) ordering a boycott of French products," firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said. "If we cannot reach such a decision, we should at least threaten to do it," he told worshippers during his weekly sermon in Kufa near Najaf....

Boycott French products, says cleric From correspondents in Baghdad December 26, 2003 A Shiite cleric called Friday for an Iraqi boycott of French products in protest at France's decision to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia from schools. "We condemn the French government's decision prohibiting the Islamic veil and we demand the liberty that France says it embodies," Sayyed Amer al-Husseini told some 10,000 worshippers in the Shiite-populated Baghdad Sadr City district. "We encourage a boycott of French products and call on Muslims in France to continue wearing the veil," he said in a sermon at the main weekly...

PARIS - France's wine industry wants drivers to know: It's OK to have a drink for the road. Or three. The $18 billion-a-year wine industry is fighting back against a government campaign to discourage drunken driving. It claims the government is scaring people away from ordering a glass when they go out and points to a 15 percent drop in wine sales at restaurants. "People are so afraid of the police these days that they're not drinking any wine at all," Pascal Bobillier-Monnot, director of CNAOC national wine producers' association, said Friday.

French wine exports to Japan drop PARIS (Kyodo) Wine exports from France to Japan in the 12 months through July dropped 10.6 percent from a year earlier, according to wine producers' data made available by Wednesday. The substantial fall in exports to Japan has partly caused a 2.7 percent fall in France's overall wine exports, which stood at 1.51 million kiloliters for the year. A wine industry official attributed the slowed exports to Japan to the liquor tax hike in May and weak economic activity. Exports to the United States decreased 8.8 percent, reflecting anti-French sentiment following the French government's...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As vintners Down Under might tell their French rivals -- vive la difference, mate. In a battle pitting their upstart Yellow Tail brand against vintage Bordeaux, Australian wine makers are elbowing past the French as dominant exporters to a friendly U.S. market. Analysts attribute that reversal of fortune to the U.S. consumer's growing view of Australian wines as unpretentious and affordable. They are, in short, very un-French. The trend has been helped by patriotic Americans showing appreciation for Australia for backing the invasion of Iraq, while shying away from products from nations like France, which opposed...

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - They might hate French diplomacy, but Americans can't help but splash out on France's fine wines. Despite threatening to boycott French products when Paris opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq (news - web sites), Americans overtook Germans as the biggest spenders on France's Bordeaux wines in the 2002-03 sales year. The CIVB, a Bordeaux wine council, reported on Thursday a 77 percent rise in the value of the region's produce sold to the U.S. market in 2002-03. The increase was mainly due to demand for the 2000 vintage, which is popular because of the sentimental value...

Sales of French wines have been suffering in the United States ever since March, when some American consumers threatened boycotts to show their displeasure over France's opposition the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. But with the passage of time and changes in the global political situation, have French wines been recovering in the market? Not according to the latest figures on wine imports and retail sales. The six months of retail sales data available since March from Information Resources Inc. shows that French wines dropped in each of six periods through mid-August compared with 2002, yet Americans bought more table...

Polish troops have found four French-made advanced missiles in Iraq. Although the missiles are not considered weapons of mass destruction, their discovery surprised many as the UN had barred Iraq from importing arms after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The four Roland-type French-made missiles were discovered earlier this week, reportedly in the Hilla region near a highway. Experts say the missiles, fired from a mobile launcher vehicle, are highly effective against low-flying aircraft. "These missiles have a range of up to 9 kilometres. They can hit any aircraft," said Major Zbigniew Spiewakowski, Deputy Commander of 1st Combat Group. The...