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Britain
Blair Thought Chirac ’Out to Get Him’
2004-01-26
British Prime Minister Tony Blair thought French leader Jacques Chirac was "out to get him" by exploiting acrimony over Iraq to supersede him in Europe, according to extracts of a new biography of Blair published on Monday. "I’m convinced he believed the conflict with Chirac had expanded beyond Iraq to become a contest for the political leadership of Europe," author Philip Stephens told Reuters. "Chirac hoped that Blair would be toppled."
Surprise meter’s reading "0.000".
Stephens’ view of the tense Anglo-French relationship was the most revelatory part of sections of his biography: "From Tony Blair," to be launched early next month. In extracts published by the Financial Times, Stephens traced the growing feud early last year when Britain’s support of the coming U.S.-led war in Iraq was bitterly opposed by Paris. "During the next few months Blair came to believe — partly on the basis of reports from British intelligence — that the dispute over Iraq was in fact a proxy for a much more serious contest," Stephens wrote.
Would the French ever NOT have ulterior motives for any action they take?
"Chirac, these reports said, had decided that Blair had usurped his own position as the natural leader of the world Europe. It was time for the French president to re-erect reassert himself and to clip the wings of perfidious Albion.
Tony’s the eagle here, Jacques more like a buzzard.
"Unsurprisingly, French officials dismissed this peasant analysis. But Blair came to believe it, telling close aides that Chirac was ’out to get him."’ Relations between London and Paris hit their lowest point days before the war when the British government accused France of scuttling a U.N. resolution authorizing military action. Stephens wrote that "snippets of the French president’s private conversations reported to Blair suggested that he would like to see him burned at the stake fall" at that time. The pair had previously clashed over EU farm subsidies.
Of course they clashed. They stand for two radically different things -- Tony’s for liberty and freedom.
The "exquisite irony" for Blair was that Chirac’s tough line then gave him an excuse to go to war without U.N. approval, plus a useful propaganda boost at home in "rekindling the national tradition of hostility toward France," the author added.
Not seen since 1815!
"’It would be so much easier if the vote was about war with France,’ one Blair loyalist only half joked as the prime minister scrambled for votes," Stephens wrote.
And Britain has a Nelson or two in the wings, I’m sure!
Although tensions remain on Iraq and some EU issues, Paris and London have engaged in plenty of pretend diplomatic fence-mending since last year’s low, and Blair and Chirac have gone out of their way in public to avoid exchanging blunt instruments demonstrate mutual politeness.
Sad to say that Chirac will probably last in office longer than Tony. But I know which one is our friend.
Posted by:Steve White

#7  GK - on the money
Posted by: Frank G   2004-1-26 6:51:50 PM  

#6  Gasse Katze

The electoral system in France is such that what really matters are not elections but control of the dominant party in the right or the left. For now the left is in a virtual coma. So the question is if someone can wrestle control of UMP from Jacques Chirac. The interior minister Sarkozy is trying to do that but he has an uphill struggle despite his popularity (don't forget that tyhe people who control eembership in UMP are Chirac's creatures). His best argument is that if Chirac is reeelected in 2007 he will be really, really old by end of term. If Chirac suffered a stroke it would be better.

Another point is that Sarkozy is first generation French: Hungarian parents who fled Hungary in 1956.
Posted by: JFM   2004-1-26 6:07:36 PM  

#5  Yeah, Para, sweet machine, and when it says "0.000", you damn well know that you haven't been surprised.
Posted by: Steve White   2004-1-26 5:18:21 PM  

#4  Steve, you got one of those new digital surprise meters? Cool. I gotta get me one of those.
Posted by: Parabellum   2004-1-26 4:10:44 PM  

#3  London circus penetrated again?
Posted by: Shipman   2004-1-26 3:33:32 PM  

#2   The next time you get into a debate w/someone convinced the Iraq War was for oil,hit them with the "Russian conspiracy".A)they think you are strange for not agreeing w/them,B)they won't respond to facts or logic,C)so have some fun and return idiocy w/idiocy.THE RUSSIAN CONSPIRACY:It was "British intelligence" that was mentioned in State of Union speech that got Pres.Bush in trouble.It was "British intelligence" that prompted Blair to go to war w/Iraq.And now it appears "British intelligence" was sowing discord between the two most active Western European leaders.The Soviets had once deeply penetrated the British intelligence community.What if the Russians have once again done so and the whole Iraq War was a Russian plot?One part was/is designed to stop a remilitarized European Union with expansion that would put it on Russia's borders.Splitting apart France and England would stop the Union cold.The second part was designed to enmesh the US in a Chechnya-type quagmire(so they misread US capabilities-it happens).A further hoped for result,would be defeating an interventionist President(and by implication American Interventionism)by getting allies in US to attack Pres. over misleading intelligence.Successful result of plot gives Russia time to rebuild by keeping Europe fragmented and suspicious of each other and by getting the US to abandon any policy of "unilateral" involvement in the world.

Conspiracy theory,everyone should have one.
Posted by: Stephen   2004-1-26 3:24:22 PM  

#1  'zactly how did that analysis go again Dr. Frank?
"Tony,you're not being parnoid. That bastard Jacques is really out to get you?"

JFM, how about Chirac? Can he stay in power through another election?
Posted by: Gasse Katze   2004-1-26 12:48:00 PM  

00:00