October 07, 2004

Chirac calls for lifting arms ban on China

French President Jacques Chirac is calling on the European Union to lift a long-standing arms embargo against China.

[...]
The European Union imposed the weapons' ban following China's 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing.

Today, European countries are divided over lifting the embargo, with Sweden and the Netherlands opposed to doing so. The United States is also against it.

If their past behavior is anything to go by--and I'm sure that it is--the frogs are already doing arms deals under the table with the ChiComs and are just looking to the EU for "permission" to do so after the fact to make it all "legal" in the EU/UN sense.
Meantime, they're busing denying their illicit relationship with Saddam:
France says US claims over Iraqi bribes 'unverified'

France dismissed accusations made in an official US report that French businessmen and politicians received bribes from Saddam Hussein in order to influence government policy on Iraq, with the foreign ministry describing them as "unverified."

The study by the Iraq Survey Group said that the former Iraqi president paid millions of dollars in cash and petrol export vouchers to elicit help in his bid to end the UN sanctions regime on his country. France and Russia were the main targets because of their seats on the UN Security Council.

So, not only was France getting cheap gas, but they were making very lucrative arms deals with Saddam--key to the viabilty of the French economy.
And part of the huge bribe from Saddam was their vow to veto any moves towards resuming the war on Iraq on the UN Security Council:
Saddam and the French Connection

[...] SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.

Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.

And yet De VILEpin gave his "word" to Secretary of State Colin Powell that France would NOT veto the use of force against Iraq in the UNSC, even interrupting him in the middle of his daughter's own wedding to do so!
The swine! (which is an insult to pigs!)
And not content with dressing down President Bush in the world forum, as he's done at the D-Day commemoration in Normandy, the G8 talks in Georgia and at the NATO conference in Turkey (as well as not bothering to attend President Reagan's funeral), Chirac engaged in some trash talking of American culture in the capital of France's former colony, Vietnam:
US culture 'choking' the world

French President Jacques Chirac warned on Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged.
[...]
The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values.

This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe".

I'm afraid Jacques's a little late to the party--English is already the universal language and last time I looked, French wasn't the main language of Vietnam, either.
(Guess Chirac decided to forgive and forget the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 which began their end as the colonial power in Vietnam.)
Even attempts by the French to ban "Franglais," the mixture of French and English which everyone in France actually speaks, were quite unsuccessful!
No one forces anyone to buy American cars, American McDonald's burgers or American Hollywood films in other countries, Jacques!
They choose them because they like them.
But be it our military or our cultural "hegemony," old Jacques and most of his countrymen seem to be quite against the United States and our role as its only superpower.
Fine.
But let's stop calling them our "ally," how's about it?