AXIS OF WEASELS
FORMER PM DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Posted on 09/04/2007 1:13:55 AM PDT by Cincinna
PARIS -- Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin Monday warned President Nicolas Sarkozy that it would be a "monumental error" to back US President George W. Bush on Iraq.
Villepin, who was former president Jacques Chirac's foreign minister during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, said in an interview with Europe 1 radio that Sarkozy must keep "his eyes wide open" and "remain clear-headed" about Iraq's future.
"It would be a monumental error to lend backing, today, to the Bush administration on Iraq and on many other issues," warned Villepin, who served as prime minister from May 2004 to this year.
Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner took French foreign policy in a new direction, last month, when he paid a visit to Baghdad, offering to help stabilize the country and mediate between the warring communities.
It was the first visit by a senior French official since the US invasion that France fiercely opposed.
In a major foreign policy address last week, Sarkozy called for a clear timetable to be set for the pullout of foreign troops from Iraq, saying the withdrawal would allow the international community to take on a wider role there.
Sarkozy's address was widely seen as signaling a shift in France's foreign policy toward a more pro-American stance, in particular on Iran's nuclear program, which he described as the most serious crisis in the world today.
While Villepin said he was not opposed to Sarkozy's views, he added that "in the field of foreign policy, there are areas where we can do better."
He singled out a July address on Africa that Sarkozy delivered in Dakar, which was criticized after the French president said Africans had turned their backs on progress.
"I am critical of Nicolas Sarkozy's Africa policy," said Villepin, adding that France, under Chirac, had built a reputation as "the country that best understands Africa and loves it the most."
"Let's be careful not to send the wrong signals, based on interpretations that are eminently questionable," he said.
It’s because they have so many fools like Dominique de Villepin that I hate the french so much.
Still not willing to purchase french wine or anythinkg else french.
Villainpinhead the corrupt, degenerated, effete Baroness of Vichy isn’t in any position to speak to Sarkozy on Iraq (or any other issue). He is one big sour grape.
LOL! In Liberia 2002 people were demonstrating against Chirac and France while asking Bush for help. In Ivory Coast Africans were driving out Frenchmen. France was beloved by tyrants and had the most favourable ratings on the "Arab street".
Villepin may soon get his just desserts.
He is currently out on $250,000 bail, after having been indicted in l’Affaire Clearstream, in which he tried to smear and discredit Sarko.
It obviously didn’t work, Sarko was elected, and it is sour grapes for forked tongue , silver haired weasel.
Buy the Bordeaux, pop the Champagne cork, the French have opted out of the Axis of Weasels.
Bwahahahaha! Bwahahahaha! French Atrocities in Africa
Villepin is undeniably delusional.
Villepin needs his back stabbing, Arab whoring ass kicked up to his shoulders....
Mercifully, he no longer holds any power and is under investigation for Clearstream which could send him to jail or self-imposed exile in a North African country of his choosing.
I’m hoping that Robert Mugabe offers asylum to Villepin and a fancy state dinner.
With Villepin in the big pot, perhaps with onions, snails and mushrooms, as the main course.
Although I’m not sure even Mugabe could stomach something like that, lol
Villepin tries to shut down the wine industry once again.
We fart in your general direction. We are socialists - no matter we have no power, we have an opinion. We have lots of opinions.
The French and good people through and through. I’m not going to judge them by their idiot politicians lest they judge me on the merits of Ted Kennedy and Hillary.
Villepin’s not in jail yet?
Too bad Idid Amin isn’t around anymore for that.
Saddam and Son’s Defense Team.
I am deeply involved in an intense love/hate relationship with France and always give a lot of attention to information about her treacherous, cynical, and malevolent behavior toward virtually all other countries. This is such an extensive record stretching far back into history -- it sometimes takes my breath away. And, of course, the hypocrisy, which this writer touches on, is one of its most amazing features.
At least since World War II, France has taken pride in leading the world in self-righteous criticism of the U.S., all the while avoiding much attention to her own crimes which are orders of magnitude more depraved than anything in modern U.S. history. Most FReepers know enough to despise France, but I fear that if they were really well-informed of the full historical record, they would want to put Iraq on the back burner and invade France NOW.
I just watched the film The Battle of Algiers for the second time last week. It dramatizes the French policy of using real, old-fashioned torture -- we're not talking sleep deprivation or physically harmless "water boarding" here -- we are talking electrical shocks, blow torches, and such. This was not a matter of a few isolated incidents unearthed by a Seymour Hersh type; this is a matter of a routine policy of putting captured FLN terrorists under intense physical torture immediately after their capture to obtain the maximum useful, real-time intelligence. I don't believe that there is serious dispute as to the accuracy of this film, although strictly speaking it would be called "historical fiction." (Representative characters rather than real names.)
My point here is not simply to trash the French for the use of torture, which many here would probably approve against urban guerilla-terrorists much like the ones we face in Iraq. My point is that France is filled with indignation every time an American cop violates someone's "civil rights" or a soldier puts panties over a POW's head, but France herself has an extraordinary record -- EXTRAORDINARY -- of brutality in her former colonial empire as well as in France itself. (For an account of dozens of dissidents murdered in Paris by the police and dumped into the Seine in 1961, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 )
When I started this rant, I was thinking about an image from the French colonial empire in Indochina between the world wars. A gorgeous, long, slow, and many think "tedious," film about that period is 1992's "Indochine" staring Catherine Deneuve and Vincent Perez. Deneuve's character operated a rubber plantation with the help of Vietnamese slaves and the French navy. In one scene, a whole slave family of "troublemakers" was being slowly executed/murdered by drowning while other slaves were forced to watch. They were locked into wooden stocks that were in tidal water. Their heads were just out of the water as they waited for it to rise. We all know that it is very hazardous to take one's history from the movies, but I came away believing that the Indochinese empire was literal "slavery," savagely enforced. As we all know, the French wanted to ~retain~ their colonial empire even after their shabby performance in WWII and only came to their senses in Indochina when they were militarily defeated. Then, of course, they became shrill critics of the U.S., which, perhaps unwisely, was actually trying to do the world a ~good~ deed in thwarting communist expansionism. (Indochine really is a gorgeous movie ...Netflix.)
I apologize for this rant which intended -- in the beginning -- only to say that the article about the recent French experience in Africa is interesting. I know that most people reading this thread know a lot about France and don't need to be badgered. But, hey, I managed to stay away from the Vichy period, which is the mother load of French shame. (I can not even address the "love" part my "love/hate" feeling toward l'Hexagone...think of it as being like a beautiful young girl who has everything going for her but is in love with some low-life punk.)
This fancy dressed pretty boy (or whatever Brit Hume called him) is another example of you choosing the opposite of whatever his position is, and you being right.
“the country that best understands Africa and loves it the most.”
As the showed in Algeria.
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