PHILO-AMERICANISM SWEEPS PARIS

France eyes 'new alliance' with White House (Colin Randall, The Telegraph, October 26th, 2004)

The French government said yesterday that it would seek a "new alliance" with whomever won the US presidential election next week.

A diplomatic chill has characterised exchanges between Paris and Washington over the past two years as a result of French opposition to the war in Iraq. But the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, said that the two countries needed to forge a new alliance. This alliance "must be based on mutual respect, which is not allegiance", he said.

Mr Barnier declined to express a preference between President George W Bush and his Democrat rival, Senator John Kerry. His brief remarks on French television indicated both the importance Paris attached to building a better understanding with America, and the likely limitations of any immediate improvement.[...]

The Left-wing newspaper Libération yesterday said that victory for Mr Bush would maintain America as an arrogant, imperialistic super-power guided by "a handful of ideologues hungry for adventure but deaf to the planet". Putting Mr Kerry in the White House would "perhaps" mean a more multilateral approach.

I was talking to the wife the other day and suggested we should forge a new alliance–one based upon mutual respect rather than those tiresome old promises of allegiance. Party time!!