FRENCH "PRINCIPLES":

France talks peace but sends warships east (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 04/02/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Watch what Jacques Chirac does, not what he says. Meeting Tony Blair for an awkward mini-summit in Le Touquet today after months of Anglo-French skirmishing, the French president continues to bask in his star role as Europe's "conscience" and leader of restraint.

His public posture is to resist the slide towards an "unjustifiable" war that is opposed by the citizens of every European state.

But early today a French armada including an aircraft carrier, nuclear submarine and other warships slipped out of Toulon and headed for the eastern Mediterranean. [...]

Geoffrey Van Orden, a Tory MEP and vice-chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, predicted that M Chirac would come off the fence once he had guaranteed France's share of the post-reconstruction and oil contracts in Iraq and, more important, once he had exploited the acute vulnerability of Tony Blair, who is struggling to prevent his loyalty to America from shattering his European policy.

M Chirac is walking a political tightrope at home, where public opinion is set against any military action not sanctioned by the UN and where an immigrant population of four million Muslims exercises an unspoken influence on policy.

Anyone who'd quarrel with the notion that France is being led by its fear of its own Muslim population, rather than leading according to French principles, should read Theodore Dalrymple's definitive essay: The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris (Theodore Dalrymple, Autumn 2002, City Journal). Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2003 1:00 PM