Free Republic

PARIS - Didier Julia, the French lawmaker a reporter taken hostage in Iraq called for by name in a video released by her abductors, is seen as a maverick member of President Jacques Chirac's ruling party -- and someone with close ties to Syria and the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. The 71-year-old representative of the Seine-et-Marne region outside Paris first rose to prominence last September, when he headed an unofficial -- and unsuccessful -- mission to free two other French reporters kidnapped in Iraq. The failure of that venture, conducted from a luxury hotel suite in the Syrian capital...

PARIS, Oct 4 (AFP) - A French MP behind a failed bid to free two French reporters held hostage in Iraq defended his freelance operation Monday amid sharp official and media criticism that he may have endangered their lives.   Didier Julia, a 70-year-old member of President Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party, admitted before leaving the Syrian capital of Damascus for Paris that he had lost contact with the Islamic group holding reporters Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper and Christian Chesnot of Radio France International and he was now worried about their fate.   But he defiantly rejected the accusations...

TEHRAN --"Disarmament should take place in Iraq and Israel," said a member of the French National Assembly. In an interview with IRNA, Didier Julia a member of the French National Assembly said in Paris Tuesday that international law should be applied to Israel, Pakistan, India and other countries who possess nuclear arms. The member of the rightwing Union for People's Movement Party that composes the majority faction of the Parliament said, "U.S. is applying a double standard with regard to Israel and Iraq," he said. Didier noted that the main reason for U.S. attack on Iraq is gaining access to...