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Yes, you might have heard it from one of those vaunted French diplomats. They sure have a way with words.
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Thanks for the links. But did you envision I might not have chosen this quote randomly?
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What makes it even worse is that, in my mind’s ear, I’m hearing your posts being read in a voice which is a strange combination of John Cleese’s French Soldier from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Maurice Chevalier, which can be a bit annoying, to say the least.
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You really have an issue with “unenglish” languages and accents. Not very convincing as an argument, IMO.
And indeed you’re right, the sky is grey here. And you look a lot as a francophobic, too.
There’s nothing infantile about having an independant foreign policy. Actually, I can’t see the advantage for a country of having a “dependant” foreign policy. Not voting in the US elections, I’d rather not have french policies decided by Bush. Actually, I would rather have them not decided by Chirac, either, but at least, I’ve a theorical say in the matter in this case.
Reflexively? No. Purposefully. Not reflexively, since as you would notice if you had other concerns apart from french accent, you’d notice that french and american policies are actually often in agreement. For instance recently about Lebanon and Syria. Purposefully, because it has been a deliberate choice and long-standing french policy to counter american influence, not because french don’t like hamburgers or english speakers, or out of jealousy, but because french governments think it serves France’s interests better.
Making an Euro being a motivation? You bet it is! You somehow believe that other countries are above that?
Yes, some did, that’s quite clear to me. Policy makers? I’m yet to see the name of someone who could have been involved in the decision-making re. Irak in 2002 in the corresponding list. The closest I’ve seen so far is a former interior minister who’s a personnal and political ennemy of Chirac, and an ambassador who were both sacked by Chirac after his last election. I’m at a loss to understand how they would have had a say in the president’s decision on this issue.
On the other hand, I remember quite well that the list of names of american citizens involved in the same scandal had not been disclosed, for some (mysterious??) reason when these lists were made public. Have they been since?
I remember the french government insisting on further inspections. I remember also the american administration opposing it. Rewrite history much?
Sure, the french government did so. But not because some random people had gotten money from Saddam’s Irak. Actually, the bussiness world lobbied in favor of supporting the american stance. First because there’s a lot of trade between France andthe USA, and they were worried that this whole french boycott thing would make lose them money, and more importantly for a reason that you and many others seem to completely overlook. Everybody knew that the USA was going to attack regardless. There wasn’t the slightest doubt about it. And everybody knew too, of course, that the invasion would succeed. And french companies wanted their share of post-war juicy contracts. That’s why they wanted France to side with the USA, and not against it, as you seem to believe.
As for the real reason to oppose the US stance there were many and perfectly sensible. Here they are :
-Oppose the US unilateralism (and with a french accent) and promote unilateralism. Because that is in France’s best interest, or at least judged so.
-France was worried (and it was’t the only country worried by that) by the long-term control of oil and gas reserve. Not about short-term contracts, but long-term control. Worried by the US control of the gas reserve of central Asia following Afghanistan, by the close relationship between Washington and Ryad, by the american policies in Venezuela and Nigeria, and in this case by the likehood of an american “lapdog government” being installed in Irak. France doesn’t want the USA do have a control of the oil faucet 20 years down the road. Nobody wants that, actually, apart, of course, from the USA.
-Though it always cautiously avoided to make any public statement about this, the unnoficial french position about WMD and more generally about the risk presented by Irak was that Irak probably had some WMD (or more exactly combat gases, like mustard gas), but that 1) These weapons were in all likehood old and present only in very limited quantity 2) The state of dereliction of the Iraki army was such that it couldn’t possibly be a threat even for its immediate neighbors, let alone for western countries. And of course references to the building of nuclear weapons were just laughed at.
-The french government was fully convinced that the USA would be totally unable to handle the situation in Irak after the invasion (and was clearly proved right, as you might have noticed), and worried that the resulting chaos could spread over Iraki borders and could destabilize the whole region.
- The french population was overwhelmingly opposed to an invasion of Irak. French politicians too keep an eye on the pools.
Indeed. Chinese market has been pretty attractive lately. Though nobody wants China to invade Taiwan. Not even french speaking french with a french accent. Actually, France would be perfectly willing to sell weapons to both sides. 
. Note that it’s not just about selling weapons, in reality. China has become very talented in using carrots to get things done. If you support their position, you can sell them trains, power plants, planes, etc… Possibly even Camembert.
Yes. Sure. Whatever.
Actually, you don’t even know who it hurts. It might be as well americans working for a “french” company or the Japanese stockholders of said “french” company Apart in the case of small businesses, like, say, cheese producers. (that is, when the boycotters correctly identified french companies, since lists of “companies to boycott” I saw included french-sounding companies that weren’t french, and excluded american-sounding companies that were french) . Anyway, it turned out that the boycott actually didn’t hurt much.
I won’t argue against the untrustworthy assholeness of french politicians, at least not of the current ones.
And what else do you expect, exactly? The old adage : “countries have no friends, only interests” still stands. OK. There are some rare cases when policies are actually decided on the basis of what is considered right or wrong. Or it’s somewhat taken into account. Or used as a pretense.
Actually, the french assistance was quite significant and a lot of money was spent on it. Now, I’m not sure how Louis XVI foreign policies 225 years ago are very relevant regarding current events. OK. It sounds nice to mention Lafayette in a speech during an official visit. I suppose it pleases part of the audience.
I’d have to go with ‘yes’ as my answer in both cases. It lets folks let off some steam and really there is usually not much effect one way or the other. Our two nations seem to have a love/hate thing going between us, and have for some time now. I think we both compete in the same markets, we both want to be THE power in Europe, to be Top Dog™. So, periodically we annoy the shit out of each other and then resort to this kind of infantile response to blow off the excess steam…then we can be ‘friends’ again (well, at least more friendly anyway).