Posted on 02/07/2003 3:28:16 PM PST by MadIvan
“THE game is over,” President Bush told Iraq on Thursday.
“It’s not a game, and it’s not over,” Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French Prime Minister, shot back yesterday. Thus the war of words between dovish France and hawkish America grew more rancorous.
There are three men in the world who would be wise for reasons of personal safety not to show their faces in America: Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and M Raffarin’s boss, President Chirac.
Middle America, egged on by hostile television networks and editorial writers, has been whipped into a rage against what is perceived as betrayal by the vain and preening French or, as they are now being characterised, “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”.
France was rescued by America in both World Wars, US commentators note as French obstructionist tactics at the United Nations thwart the campaign to get Saddam.
They mutter darkly about Germany’s anti-Americanism, but the vitriol has been almost exclusively directed at the French: the leader of the Franco-German “axis of weasel”.
“Let’s beat up the French,” the conservative co-host of CNN’s Crossfire programme declared on Thursday night. The audience cheered.
Later a viewer’s e-mail was flashed up on screen: “I understand that the French UN Ambassador was told to stop waving his hand in the air because it was inappropriate to surrender at the UN meeting.”
Bill Sammon, the White House correspondent for the Washington Times, said: “The Administration has come to the realisation that writing off France is not a bad thing politically . . . I think it plays pretty well.”
The British journalist Christopher Hitchens summed up US feelings in The Wall Street Journal: “Chirac. . .is a positive monster of conceit. . .a man so habituated to corruption that he would happily pay for the pleasure of selling himself.”
France is shrugging off what the left-wing daily Libération labelled “le frog-bashing” as a manifestation of the primitive prejudices now prevailing in a country with which it has a long tradition of rivalry.
Gallic commentators have taken a more detached view, seeing America’s anger as proof that Paris must be doing something right with its moral stand in favour of “peace”, while the US air waves and news pages have filled with anti-French vitriol in recent weeks.
“It’s a little tiresome,” one French diplomat said. “The Americans always throw tantrums like this when they don’t get their way.”
The condescension in this statement proves everything that the Americans are saying to be absolutely true - Ivan
But what did hit home was the dismissal by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, of France and Germany as “old Europe”.
The conservative Le Figaro, which has become even more anti-US than Libération, noted yesterday that France had replaced Iraq as the obsession of the “pen-wielding war-mongers” of the White House.
“The toughening of Washington’s position has confirmed the expected return to page one of an odious little character with a black beret, a cigarette in his mouth and baguette under his arm: France has not finished paying for the affront which it has inflicted on the muscular diplomacy of Uncle Sam,” it said.
The more outrageous American gibes are a source of French amusement.
M Chirac’s aides chuckled after Rush Limbaugh, a radio host, said that no one should trust a country with a Foreign Minister named Dominique de Villepin. With his aristocratic airs, the elegant M de Villepin is viewed even in France as a little hard to take.
The media have made much of the US tabloids’ dismissal of France with the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” insult. Le Figaro nicely translated the line, which comes from The Simpsons television cartoon, as: primates capitulards et toujours en quête de fromages.
The media have also been struggling to decode a now famous New York Post headline denouncing France and Germany as “The Axis of Weasel”. Le Figaro translated this as l’axe des faux jetons — literally “the axis of the two-faced”.
There was also some admiration yesterday for the wordsmiths of the White House who are making good use of the English that is understood even by the French in President Bush’s statements. His “the game’s over” on Thursday night needed no French translation in a country long devoted to English-language café video games.
Over Iraq, the French are distinguishing between “good Americans” and “bad” ones. The latter are written off as right-wing fans of “le cowboy Bush”, such as George Will, a columnist who wrote this week that France was now performing “a manoeuvre which it has been perfecting since 1870: retreat”.
Good Americans are anti-war Democrats, Hollywood stars and the think-tank experts who give sympathetic replies in impeccable French to the anti-American rants of listeners on French radio shows.
After 5 min. I still have tears in my eyes...
But now Germany is casually included with Libya and Cuba by an American Secretary of Defense listing nations that offer us nothing useful as we prepare to defang Iraq. That after dismissing Germany and France as "Old Europe" just the week before. And the mere mention of France before an American audience elicits hisses of contempt.
The harumphing of the Germans and the elaborate condescension of the French mark their rising awareness of a sea change in international politics. Taking free shots at America from behind the safety of the American military umbrella was a good game, and it lasted a remarkably long time.
But now it appears that game is over.
primates capitulards et toujours en quête de fromages.
I can do better than that. Try:
Fromage mangeant lache singe-crapauds.
I mean even the Charles De Gualle came up a little bit short.
I think it's just wonderful.
And I am of French descent on my father's side, and so have a French last name. (Jenerette)
One of the best things my ancestors did was get out of France and come to the US. It was probably the greatest gift they could have ever given to their decendants. I am forever in debt to them.
Thankfully I have some other blood mixed in, mostly English on my mother's side...which of course I am much more proud to identify with.
The French disgust me.
Breaking News...
French to join war on Iraq
Clinton News Network | 30 Jan 03 | John Smith
Paris - In a stunning reversal of policy, French President Jacques Chirac announced today that the French government will be supporting the War on Terror after all. Five hundred soldiers from the elite L’Abandonnement du Field d’Honneur Battalion (French Surrender Battalion) of the Legion Etrangere (Foreign Legion) are in the process of shipping out to Iraq where they will assist the elite Iraqi Republican Guards in their inevitable surrender to the overwhelming might of the American Armed Forces. “Eet ees important to be haughty and insufferable when surrendering,” said Colonel Philippe de Peepee, the Commanding Officer of the Surrender Battalion, who has personally surrendered in over 200 battles going back to Dien Bien Phu in 1954. “We French are the world masters at surrendering, n’est ce pas, not like you arrogant Americans who never surrender. Ha, I spit on your filthy American victories.”
President Chirac also announced that his government will be sending 3000 advisors from the elite Force du Collaborateur Francaise (French Collaboration Force) to assist the Iraqis in collaborating with the Americans while pretending to be part of a non-existent resistance movement.
Stay tuned for updates to this breaking story....
Look, in days of Olde when people still attended C of E (that is, before the lamentable rise of Roy Jenkins), this could be grounds for a cross between football hooliganism and a No Popery riot.
The Frogs are just being plain stupid. When time comes to divvie up the spoils, they'll have to get in line behind the Russians.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
(yes, it's frog legs.)
Unlike the Brits, Americans will put their antipathy into action.
French products for sale in the U.S. will go begging and Americans will avoid vacations in France.
The Frogs were already complaining last year about Americans staying home.
Incidently, there is a report that Senator Richard Lugar — a real foreign-relations heavyweight in the GOP — has warned France and Russia that if they don't come on board they will be excluded from post-war participation in the Iraqi oil business.
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