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What French papers say
Two cartoons on the front page of Le Monde this week sum up France's morbid amusement at the progress of the war in Iraq. Thursday's paper showed an American soldier striding over piles of bodies of women and children muttering to himself: "This sandstorm's awful."Paint 'em black, make it a mountain and call it Anywhere, Francophone Africa... Today's shows President George W Bush at the controls of a plane shouting to parachutists as they jump "Watch out! It's full of Arabs!" French satire at its most biting... French television coverage has focused heavily on the suffering of Iraqis, especially those Even as the regime reportedly murders more civilians than its own propaganda tells us we've killed unintentionally. In Paris Match this week, the editor, Alain Genestar, writes: "War is ugly. This one, like others, should be condemned. But to this ugliness is added this unhealthy rejoicing at the difficulties faced by those who decided to launch war. "Here and there, never, of course, officially in the chancelleries, but in the streets and demonstrations, people take pleasure in mocking the American troops for their suffering, their mistakes and reverses as if these obstacles in the path of war prove they are right to be against Bush." It's getting hard to distinguish between the Paris Boulevade and the Palestinian Street lately. The loss and damage to Apache helicopters early in the conflict prompted French parliamentarians to joke in private that the Americans would have been better off with French helicopters. I suppose they do fly you backwards out of a sticky situation backwards faster than anyone else's. VSD, a popular magazine normally full of minor celebrities on holiday, put on its cover this week a picture of American soldiers walking with their heads down through a sandstorm. The headline read: "Apocalypse now: Bush's mad crusade leads us towards a humanitarian catastrophe." Or you could say the opposite. In fact what do they mean "us"? Far as I'm aware there aren't any Frogs in Iraq. Seems like the suffering's "theirs" until the US/UK move in, now it's "ours". Pierre Lellouche, the most vocal opponent of President Chirac's stance on Iraq within his parliamentary party, said of his fellow deputies "seeing the Americans and British get a bloody nose makes them happy. "They don't understand that if they lose, all the dictators, all the tyrants, all the proliferators will have a field day. Then what is the advantage for France in chaos?" Trouble is, Lellouche, I think they do understand. Anarchy can be synonymous with multipolarity, Chirac's utopia. President Jacques Chirac and his diplomatic team find themselves in the awkward position of criticising the war, hoping for its swift conclusion and yet knowing that a successful conflict will be seen as a defeat for French foreign policy. And we're going to enjoy watching you squirm. Le Monde's editorial yesterday said that whatever the outcome of the war, the difficulties already experienced have destroyed the hopes of American neo-conservatives that this war would be a model for toppling dictators throughout the Middle East. It's a bit early to quantify the effect of the dfficulties. But models are there be readjusted. Posted by: Bulldog 2003-03-28 |
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