What French papers say

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 03/28/03 | Philip Delves Broughton

[Pokey78]

Two cartoons on the front page of Le Monde this week sum up France's morbid amusement at the progress of the war in Iraq.

Thursday's paper showed an American soldier striding over piles of bodies of women and children muttering to himself: "This sandstorm's awful."

Today's shows President George W Bush at the controls of a plane shouting to parachutists as they jump "Watch out! It's full of Arabs!"

French television coverage has focused heavily on the suffering of Iraqis, especially those killed in the bombing of Baghdad The deaths have fuelled anger in the anti-war marches across France this week.

In Paris Match this week, the editor, Alain Genestar, writes: "War is ugly. This one, like others, should be condemned. But to this ugliness is added this unhealthy rejoicing at the difficulties faced by those who decided to launch war.

"Here and there, never, of course, officially in the chancelleries, but in the streets and demonstrations, people take pleasure in mocking the American troops for their suffering, their mistakes and reverses as if these obstacles in the path of war prove they are right to be against Bush."

The loss and damage to Apache helicopters early in the conflict prompted French parliamentarians to joke in private that the Americans would have been better off with French helicopters.

VSD, a popular magazine normally full of minor celebrities on holiday, put on its cover this week a picture of American soldiers walking with their heads down through a sandstorm. The headline read: "Apocalypse now: Bush's mad crusade leads us towards a humanitarian catastrophe."

Pierre Lellouche, the most vocal opponent of President Chirac's stance on Iraq within his parliamentary party, said of his fellow deputies "seeing the Americans and British get a bloody nose makes them happy.

"They don't understand that if they lose, all the dictators, all the tyrants, all the proliferators will have a field day. Then what is the advantage for France in chaos?"

President Jacques Chirac and his diplomatic team find themselves in the awkward position of criticising the war, hoping for its swift conclusion and yet knowing that a successful conflict will be seen as a defeat for French foreign policy.

Le Monde's editorial yesterday said that whatever the outcome of the war, the difficulties already experienced have destroyed the hopes of American neo-conservatives that this war would be a model for toppling dictators throughout the Middle East.

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[PokeyJoe]

Time to remove our war dead.

[exsolus]

Well, well. If things were different on Sept 11, 2001- If the buildings in France were to be destroyed by terroists through airplanes, certainly things would have been different for French. Moreover, won't it be linked to Iraq? Certainly France would have done something in middle east.

:-P

[MEG33]

The French are a hate filled bunch.

[Mister Baredog]

President Jacques Chirac and his diplomatic team find themselves in the awkward position of criticising the war, hoping for its swift conclusion and yet knowing that a successful conflict will be seen as a defeat for French foreign policy.

Well now, we all knew it would come to this, after all France is always defeated, it is their "right". It's going to get real ugly when we get to the Iraqi govt files.

[Burkeman1]

Le Monde is the French equivelent of the New York Times. It is moderate Left Wing (in France that means not quite Communist). But what Americans don't seem to gather is that the opposition to this war crosses ideological lines all over Europe. La Parisean- the conservative daily and the number two paper in France is just as anti war as Le Monde. Left and Right in Europe are united in being against our war in Iraq.

[DoughtyOne]

And when we do it, we shouldn't say a G.D. word to the people around us. We should just let them rant, moan, whatever! When it's over we shouldn't give them the sweat off the family jewels ever again!

[longtermmemmory]

The french are going to try and steal the peace.

[modhom]

Left and right in old Europe maybe.

[Eala]

the opposition to this war crosses ideological lines all over Europe.

As does anti-Semitism. I was shocked a while back when, on a trip over there, I heard the most awful things trip off the tongues of people with whom I'd been acquainted for years. Now, maybe, I can understand how the Holocaust came to be.

[Burkeman1]

We don't even have public support in the Central Europeon regimes that support us- their governments do- but majority opinion doesn't. The Polish government just told Bush and Rumsfeld to shut up and not talk about their special forces successful taking of an oil platform- why? Because two thirds of Poles are against the war.

[Burkeman1]

Haven't been there recently- But when I was in Russia in 90' I was shocked at the blatant racism.

[laz17]

The French are among the most odious, perverse, depraved, corrupt, and evil people on the face of the earth. I cannot even begin to verbalize the utter disgust that they inspire in me. To be perfectly honest, I value the life of an Iraqi far, far more than I do that of a Frenchman. While most Iraqis do not support Saddam, 90% of France supports Chirac. Post-war Iraq will be a far better country than France can ever pretend to be.

REGIME CHANGE IN FRANCE!

The French: A people slimier than the snails they eat.

[MrPeanut]

When I was 15 my family toured Europe. The people of all the countries we visited treated us great- except the French. They denigrated us. My older sister was in tears because she spent four years learning the French language only to find out the people were pigs.

[MEG33]

That's sad.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

[old3030]

The loss and damage to Apache helicopters early in the conflict prompted French parliamentarians to joke in private that the Americans would have been better off with French helicopters

Why don't they ship us some? Obviously they're not men enough to use them.

And another thing -- early in the conflict -- it's been a friggin' week!

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

[modhom]

I saw a recent poll where 70+% of Europeans think we are at war primarily over oil. They are simply wrong.