March 11, 2003
THE STRANGER:
Anti-war hero Chirac finds his destiny (Charles Bremner, 3/11/03, March 12, 2003)JACQUES CHIRAC was basking in ecstatic praise from virtually all of France yesterday after his Monday night pledge to defy America and veto a war against Iraq. [...]“In the eyes of the world he has attained the kind of stature that Mandela won in Africa,” La Croix, the Roman Catholic daily, declared.
Le Figaro called M Chirac a “white knight of peace, champion of all the oppressed of the Earth” and suggested that he might win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The talk from Paris dinner tables to works canteens was about pride in France leading the field in a moral cause. The mood, spurred in part by old Gallic reflexes against the “Anglo-Saxons”, reflected the belief that M Chirac had put France back on the map.
“Maybe Chirac stumbled into this, but the old dodger has finally done something great,” was a common refrain among intellectuals who had long regarded him as an unprincipled opportunist.
Le Monde, which until elections last year had led the campaign to expose M Chirac as corrupt, hailed the “nobility” of his cause in defending the international order against “the neo-imperialist Americans”. Liberation, another perennial opponent, the left-wing daily, marvelled at the way in which he was leading the world towards his vision of a multipolar, international order in the face of superpower hegemony. Serge July, Editor of Liberation, said that M Chirac’s intransigence was aimed at saving America from its own “fatal unilateralism”.
With the wind in his sails as never before in 35 years of high politics, M Chirac is in no mood to compromise over a new UN resolution, his aides said. Nor is he likely to rush to help Tony Blair, whom he views as an irritating rival and an adversary of the old EU core, which France dominates with Germany.
A few doubters did air qualms about a US backlash and the damage to Europe. La Tribune, a business daily, said that France’s veto was not justified by any national interests and it would look impotent when Washington launched its war. “France’s influence in the Security Council would be annihilated . . . It would inflict a terrible blow to the (UN) organisation whose role it wants to consecrate,” it said.
While the Socialist and Communist Opposition showered praise on M Chirac, Olivier Dassault, an MP in his UMP party and a boss in the family aerospace and media firm, said that thousands of businesses could be ruined by an anti-French reaction from the US.
Mandela, the Germans, the intellectuals, the left-wing press, the Socialists, the Communists...truly you can tell a man by the company he keeps.
MORE:
Chirac basks in warm glow of adulation: President takes plaudits for veto promise (Jon Henley, March 12, 2003, The Guardian)
Tacky Jacques (Daily Sun, 3/11/03)
Sounds like an excellent candidate for the Noble Prize for something or other, what was it they gave to Carter and Arafat?
Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson at March 11, 2003 11:58 PMThe higher they rise, the farther they fall....
Posted by: Barry Meislin at March 12, 2003 3:15 AMThe paper is called the Sun, not the Daily Sun.
If you're going to be consistent call it the London Sun.
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Posted by: abi babi at March 12, 2003 5:22 AMAli - How is it that London papers call themselves "The Sun," "The Times," "The Guardian," "The Independent," "The Telegraph," whereas American papers call themselves "The New York Times," "The New York Sun," etc., and yet we are the ones accused of thinking the world revolves around us?
Posted by: pj at March 12, 2003 8:26 AMThe papers you mention all aim for coverage throughout the UK so the London tag would be unhelpful since a regional designation usually indicates a much bigger focus on local issues than in the national dailies.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 12, 2003 10:07 AMWhy is it the Daily Telegraph?
Posted by: oj at March 12, 2003 10:15 AMSo M. Chirac has put on his armor. I wonder what he will look like when he comes to put it off.
Posted by: Henry at March 12, 2003 10:15 AMHopefully, like Joan of Arc.
Posted by: oj at March 12, 2003 10:40 PM