Americans swamp French Embassy 'It never stopped, it was crazy,' said diplomat after 1,000 calls

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 12 Feb. 03 | Staff Writer

[txradioguy]

France's resistance to U.S. policy on Iraq, capped off by its role in blocking U.S.-backed plans to bolster Turkish defenses against a possible Iraqi missile attack, is resulting in a massive outpouring of U.S. anger against France, evidenced by the 1,124 angry calls received by the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., in just one day.

Coming in the wake of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. on Iraq, the embassy felt under siege, reports the Scotsman newspaper.

"It never stopped. It was crazy. Unbelievable," said one French diplomat.

Although the embassy's Nathalie Loiseau notes that some letters and e-mail are supportive of Paris' position, she admits in a Financial Times report that some "would like to boycott France and French products."

With some U.S. talk radio shows openly calling for repatriation of America's war dead, noted the Scotsman, the phrase "if it weren't for us you'd be speaking German" has become a popular refrain.

"The French attitude is self-defeating," says Gary Schmitt of the Project for a New American Century, said the report. "They are undermining the credibility of the U.N. and now throwing NATO into disarray. I don't know if they realize how they're also causing a split in Europe. If you total up all the things they are interested in, you find that they're making a hash of all of them."

Meanwhile, as WorldNetdaily reported this week, France was found to be more unpopular among Americans now than at any time in the past decade in a new Gallup poll. Unfavorable opinions of France have jumped 17 points in the past year while favorable opinions have dropped 20 points.

American attitudes toward Germany, another European power unwilling to support the U.S. on Iraq, also have become more negative, according to the annual Gallup Poll Social Series Update on World Affairs, conducted Feb. 3-6.

In its editorial yesterday the Washington Post argued that France and Germany now "behave as if they share the same over-riding goal as the Iraqi dictator: thwarting U.S. action even when it is supported by most other NATO and European nations."

Great Britain ranked at the top of the list of 26 nations with a +83 percent favorable rating, while Iraq rounded off the bottom with a -85 percent score. Iran and North Korea, the other two nations identified by President Bush as comprising the "axis of evil," joined Iraq at bottom of the list.

Bush 'disappointed'

The White House yesterday scoffed at Paris's offer to fortify U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq after President Bush complained he was "disappointed" with France's refusal to cooperate with NATO.

The Bush administration's exasperation with Paris is affecting public perception, reported the Financial Times, noting as an example the New York Post's coverage of the international dispute. The paper ran a picture of WWII American soldiers' graves near Omaha Beach Monday, headlined: "They died for France but France has forgotten."

New York Post reporter Steve Dunleavy, depicted near the grave of a young American soldier, wrote: "The air is chilled, but I feel an unnatural glow of rage -- I want to kick the collective butts of France. These kids died to save the French from a tyrant named Adolf Hitler. And now, as more American kids are poised to fight and die to save the world from an equally vile tyrant, Saddam Hussein, where are the French? Hiding. Chickening out. Proclaiming, Vive les wimps!"

Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday that French President Jacques Chirac hadn't mentioned France's intention to block Turkey's request for NATO assistance during his meeting last week with Bush. He claimed Bush didn't feel exactly "blindsided," but rather "disappointed at the "setback" for both NATO and Turkey.

Clinton administration deputy national security adviser Jim Steinberg says anti-French feeling is increasing in the U.S., according to the Financial Times. Concerned that it could get worse, Steinberg added: "The next two weeks are going to have a profound impact on transatlantic relations. There is a consensus that whatever the U.S. has done wrong, it does not justify the way the French and the Germans are playing this."

[Gaelic]

Commes ils sauves Ireland? (Kinsale)

[txradioguy]

Not real up on my French, but I think what you said had something to do about the French helping us fight for our independence. If my interpretation was correct, yes that is true, no we haven't forgotten that either. It's still taught in our history classes. But what seems to have been forgotten by the younger generations in France, is that we fought to help maintain French independence twice in the 20th century. The military cemetaries there as you well know are filled with American soldiers who dies so that France would remain free. I think what angers most Americans most, is tha the younger generation in France is spitting on that memory and the government in Paris doesn't care.

[Gaelic]

Yes I was the only Irish kid in that school that didn't know a word of French. To survive I learned the language and their thinking. I had nuns that could not speak or understand English teaching me.

[Republic]

This is it for me. I agree. France disrupting NATO is the straw that did it....that kind of selfishness and lack of concern for the NATO alliance is beyond the pale. Let them suffer under the weight of their Muslim infiltration and stew in their own fancy sauce for a long time to come. As for this house...it is going to be strictly CALIFORNIA WINES and Wisconsin cheese.

[George W. Bush]

Actually both in France and Germany the conservatives wings have spoken out in solidarity with the U.S. against the policies of their governments...blah-blah-blah...

Oh, yeah, they're so conservative that they have proclaimed socialists and communists in government on a regular basis. So similar to the U.S., aren't they?

I've known some frogs. Nice enough people. But Lefties and French cultural imperialists, beginning to end.

France's strange behavior is reminiscent of someone who's concealing a crazy aunt in the attic. There's something very nasty in Iraq they don't want us to find. And the opportunity to split NATO in order to further their idiot notions of European supremacy are simply daft. The Germans, not the most politically astute people in the Western world, will naturally fall for it.

But the rest of Europe may be thinking long and hard about the new European Constitution and the upcoming referenda on it, given a good picture of what is likely to come if they approve it. NATO may be weakened but France and Germany and Belgium are damaged goods as NATO allies and will eventually wish they hadn't been so impatient to knock the U.S. down. It's going to backfire on them. First, they're not going to get a piece of the post-war Iraqi pie and they aren't going to get the existing Iraqi debts paid at all. They will have sought and earned the enmity of the ruling classes of both Turkey and the future Iraqi state. Not to mention Israel. And the approval of the strange new (French-dominated) European Constitution may fail or get bogged down for many years as a result of what they've done.

So you can have your damned conservative frogs and you're welcome to 'em.

[My2Cents]

America to France: "Consider yourself Freeped."

[meandog]

...meant as sarcasm (sarcasme, en francais)

[Mr. Mojo]

[txradioguy]

ok LOL! I gotcha. I knew I should have taken something other than Spanish in High School!

[katana]

I have to agree with you. Identifying all the French with the idiocy of their governing class (and it is a class) is no different than someone thinking CNN, the New York Times, and Peter Jennings represent the point of view of most Americans. It just ain't necessarily so.

On the other hand, there is nothing unhealthy about Americans letting the French government (their embassy) know what we think of them and making them pay a price for it by cutting them out of the world's largest market. Also, on the other hand, the French really should bathe more often.

[Gaelic]

The French should read "Le chanson Roland" and learn from Charlemagne's nephew. But what do you expect from a country that kills it's saints (Joan of Arc) anti Semetic (Dreyfus) and backs anti popes and sets them up in Avignon? Don't forget they tried to kill Le Marquis de Lafayette.

[George W. Bush]

Okay, just how rusty is my two wasted years of worthless French after 28 years? Let's see. C'est les Francais qui m'appel un cochon Irelandais quand je suis un eleve dans l'ecole St Georges. Le noms propre pour ces Francais est enfants chiennes.Le noms pour Chirac est Vichie.

It is the French who call me an Irish pig when I was a ____ in the St. Georges school. The proper name for the French is dog babies. The name for Chirac is Vichy.

Bon Dieu, mes amis, ces Américains ne se rendent pas compte comment la France les a sauvés quand ils combattaient pour leur indépendance...

Good God, my friends, these Americans don't realize how France saved them when they fought for their independence.

---

Francais. What a waste of time. I'll do my own puny part to make certain that the locally retiring French teacher is not replaced and that the language courses will not be replaced by distance learning options. Let the kids learn Spanish instead.

[Thorondir]

Their cheesy soil is not worthy to hold American fallen. Their land srpouts white flags instead of flowers. Bring our heroes home. Never defend France again!

[Johnny Gage]

Wahooo Newz - Nathalie Loiseau signals the surrender of the French Emabssy in the USA after a complete phone barrage by US residents upset with French support of Saddam Hussein.

[George W. Bush]

Nathalie Loiseau signals the surrender of the French Emabssy...

Wow. I guess it's really true that those French women don't shave much.

[ZinGirl]

"It never stopped. It was crazy. Unbelievable," said one French diplomat.

"so I surrendered," continued the diplomat, "I handed the phones over to the next American that walked through the door. I could not conceive of answering one more phone call about my country. I whined incessantly to whoever would listen".

[blam]

"France aint getting their way and I am a little concerned that they would rather destroy all aliances in the civilized world than get caught with their hand in the Iraqi cookie jar.

I agree. So it must be something worse than the hand in the cookie jar huh? Now, what could be worse? Evidence that the French provided intel to Saddam during Gulf War I? Hands on help with Saddam's nuclear bomb progam? Makes one wonder, huh?

[RobRoy]

Yes it does. As Mike Reagan used to say, "We shall see what we shall see."

[Gaelic]

We musn't forget that in WWII The French were killing our soldiers in North Africa. Vichy French, still French nonetheless refused to put down their arms and remained allied with their Nazi compatriots. Le Grande Charles, when he visited Quebec told the Quebecois that France stands behind them in becoming separate from Canada and united with France. You really can't trust them

[Colorado Doug]

Teddy Roosevelt's son's grave. Shot down defending France, WWl.

Teddy said that he was glad that his son could show what he was made of before he died. It's a shame that France has now shown what it's made of.