French Official Wants 'Lies' to Stop

AP | 16 May, 2003

[Happy2BMe]

By KIM HOUSEGO
The Associated Press
Friday, May 16, 2003; 8:43 AM

PARIS - Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview aired Friday that France wants "lies and calumny" published in both the U.S. and British press to stop.

To that end, Paris is taking an inventory of press accounts about France with plans to show they are untrue, de Villepin said in a France Inter radio interview taped Thursday night and aired Friday.

De Villepin stepped forward to personally address what France claims is a campaign of disinformation against it, revealed to U.S. officials this week in a letter from France's ambassador to Washington.

The letter by Ambassador Jean-David Levitte was sent to officials of the Bush administration and members of Congress. It was meant "to open up to them about the difficulties we are encountering and ... so that such lies and calumny stop," the minister said.

However, de Villepin broadened the charge, saying the British media, too, had carried disinformation.

"There is, in the American press and in the British press, a great number of articles, information that was without foundation, untruthful," the foreign minister said in the radio interview.

Among stories cited in the ambassador's letter were alleged French weapons sales to Iraq and a report last week that French officials provided passports to Iraqis trying to escape the U.S.-led invasion. Levitte called these "denigration and lies."

"We felt the need to make an effort of explanation to our American friends, and we will also do this with our British friends," de Villepin told France Inter.

"We can't accept that such criticism against France (further) develops," de Villepin said later from Brussels. The remarks were aired on France 2 television.

White House spokesman Sean McCormack denied there was any "organized effort" to plant information against France.

The accusation was the latest episode in months of tensions between Paris and Washington. Relations between France and the United States have plummeted since Paris took the lead in opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Britain was the United States' prime partner in the war.

De Villepin was on the front line in the dispute over the war, arguing the French case at the U.N. Security Council.

France will "take an inventory of this untruthful information and provide all the elements which clearly show that all of this is based on nothing," de Villepin told France Inter. Like the ambassador's letter, the minister noted that the alleged false information "often" was based on "internal sources" in the Bush administration.

"Between friends, between allies, it is important to have a relationship based on frankness, hiding nothing, explaining oneself," de Villepin said. "On the other hand, lies and calumny must not be accepted."

"We must avoid ... being governed by rumor," he added.

© 2003 The Associated Press

[Happy2BMe]

What worms - these French creatures are.

[maeng]

Here's a quarter.......

[maeng]

Here's a quarter.......

[Frank_Discussion]

Hey Dom, there's a way to achieve the goal: YOU Stop Talking.

[conservativecorner]

Screw the surrender monkeys!!

[Happy2BMe]

FRENCH DESECRATION OF BRITISH WWII EMANCIPATION GRAVES

By SIMON HUGHES

SICK French yobs daubed a swastika and vile anti-war slurs at a cemetery for 11,000 British troops.

The showpiece cenotaph at the graveyard in Northern France was smeared in red paint with the words: “Dig up your rubbish. It’s fouling our soil.”

Other slogans at the Etaples cemetery near Boulogne included “Death to the Yankees” and “Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood.”

And the vandals wrote “Rosbeefs go home” — the French insult for Brits is roast-beefs. Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush were also branded war criminals.

The graffiti was discovered by a shocked gardener and spotted by around 80 visitors. It was cleaned off the same day.

Roy Hemmington — spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission — said: “We are deeply offended. This is the strongest language and most vile graffiti I have witnessed at a war graves cemetery.

“The suggestion that the bodies of soldiers who died for France should be dug up is particularly foul.”

Most soldiers buried at the cemetery were defending France at the Somme and Ypres during World War I.

Another 122 are troops who died fighting the Nazis in World War II.

Among the dead are a winner of the Victoria Cross, 217 holders of the Military Medal and 69 holders of the Military Cross.

A number had been awarded France’s top military decoration, the Legion d’Honneur.

Roy added: “Almost every British regiment has war dead here. This insults just about the entire British Army.”

Anti-British feeling has been whipped up in France since President Jacques Chirac refused to let the UN back action against Iraq.

Last night Jim Kelleher, chief clerk to the Royal Fusiliers Association, said: “No sane person would do this. It is a disgrace. I have family buried in France and if I could get my hands on whoever did this I’d bury them too.”

Jeremy Lillies, of the Royal British Legion, added: “It is distressing.”

The Sun’s Military Adviser Major-General Perkins said: “It is despicable.”

Appalled local MP Jacques Lang said: “It is an attack on the memory of the British and American soldiers who contributed to the liberation of our soil.”

Police captain Thibault Martin added: “It is sick and cowardly.”

The shocking news comes as a new poll reveals that a third of the French want SADDAM to win the war.

A massive 78 per cent of 1,000 people in the poll by French newspaper Le Monde disapproved of the Allied action.

But 16 per cent “really wish for” a Coalition victory — while 37 per cent said they would prefer one.

[Numbers Guy]

"We felt the need to make an effort of explanation to our American friends, and we will also do this with our British friends," de Villepin told France Inter.

Friends?

[jalisco555]

French Official Wants Lies to Stop

Okay, Dom, stop lying.

[HEY4QDEMS]

with plans to show they are untrue

Sounds like they need Baghdad Bob.

LIES ALL LIES!!!

[maeng]

I wish the French would just go away! They are nothing but cry babies..

[Happy2BMe]

"We felt the need to make an effort of explanation to our American friends, and we will also do this with our British friends," de Villepin told France Inter.

TRANSLATION: Sacre' Bleu!! - Holy$hi$ - Did we EVER SCREW UP!! Bush may get reelected, we couldn't RUIN TONY BLAIR in the E.U., and another mass grave of 3,000 has been uncovered - we are in deep, DEEP FRENCH $HIT!

[Joe Boucher]

The french are friends of America. Now that is a lie.
The saudis are friends of America. Another whopper.

[Happy2BMe]

"I wish the French would just go away! They are nothing but cry babies.."

What America Has In Common With France

Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . . Blame and Spin . .

[blake6900]

De Villepin stepped forward to personally address what France claims is a campaign of disinformation against it, revealed to U.S. officials this week in a letter from France's ambassador to Washington.

Oh, yeah?! Wanna fight about it?!

Didn't think so...

[canuck_conservative]

Golly.

I seem to recall, in the run-up to the Three Week War, that the French governement / media told some outrageous whoppers of their own - Bush was out to take over the world, he just wanted to slaughter Iraqi children, it was all about oil, etc., etc.

I hope someone kept a list of all these French lies, just so we can throw it back in their hypocritical faces should the need arise.

Personally, I just roll my eyes and laugh at anything the French say now - they're totally irrelevant, and everybody (including them!) knows it.

[eureka!]

"Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview aired Friday that France wants "lies and calumny" published in both the U.S. and British press to stop."

Freeper eureka! said in a reply to this report that he wants the French to "quit whining, fess up to their complicity and join in the war on terror"....

[ConservativeConvert]

Blame the Jews...

[VRWC_minion]

Dear France,

You go first.

[Happy2BMe]

"Oh, yeah?! Wanna fight about it?!"

Chirac Is A Worm!

France has inspired Canada . .

Hotels feel pinch [Lose millions as U.S. biz cancels]

Viva La France - French Military History in a Nutshell (Including *WAR ON TERRORISM*)

[DeFault User]

I suppose this French reaction was inevitable, right out of the Slick Willy Playbook:

Deny it.
Lie.
Claim your opponents are in a conspiracy against you.
Repeat.