Free Republic

PARIS – Karen Hughes should be French - it would make her job easier. As the US undersecretary of State for public diplomacy returns home from her first foreign trip burnishing America's image in the world, she might feel a touch of envy at the glowing international reputation that France enjoys, highlighted in a recent study by the Project on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). In the survey of people in 23 countries across the globe, a majority or plurality in 20 described France as exerting a positive influence on world affairs. The US, by comparison, is seen as having a...

FRANCE gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials, documents unearthed in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry have revealed. The first Iraqi files to emerge documenting French help for the regime show that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington. The information, said in the files to have come partly from "friends of Iraq" at the French foreign ministry, kept Saddam abreast of every development in American planning and may have helped him to prepare for war. One report warned of an American "attempt to involve...