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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| India gives French envoy an earful |
| 2005-05-06 |
| India gives French envoy an earful India has expressed its displeasure at the insinuation by French envoy Dominique Girard about Air-India's decision to purchase aircraft from Boeing. Foreign secretary Shyam Sharan used a scheduled meeting with the French ambassador for a reproof to him. Sources say Girard was on the defensive and claimed he had been misquoted. Acknowledging the meeting, the MEA spokesperson said: "The foreign secretary drew his attention to the press reports and told him that if these reports were correct, the French ambassador's remarks were not in keeping with diplomatic propriety." Sharan's annoyance reflected the deep resentment within government over Girard's outburst over Airbus losing the $7 billion deal to arch rival Boeing. Civil aviation ministry, in particular, is bristling with resentment. Although its minister-in-charge told The Times of India that since this was a deal between two corporate entities, government would rather stay out of it, his officials are angry with the French for imputing motives to a sovereign nation. It may not have a political fallout until the G-8 meeting in June, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would meet French president Jacques Chirac on the sidelines. But the strong riposte by India seems to have already led Airbus to ponder if Girard's intervention was going to hurt its cause by making the authorities here averse to reopening the Air-India deal even if they wanted to check out allegations of foul play. |
| Posted by:john |
| #5 The French envoy missed a golden opportunity to STFU. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-05-06 23:33 |
| #4 Wish I coulda been there, must have sounded like an argument between Apu and Clouseau. |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2005-05-06 20:10 |
| #3 Well, the photo appeared in the preview anyway! (here's the link): http://www.france-in-india.org/Gallery/Photos/%7BC5693654-A88B-4A9B-AF75-15132EC2D663%7D.jpg |
| Posted by: Sheik Abu Bin Ali Al-Yahood 2005-05-06 19:51 |
| #2 Judging from this photo, it appears that Dominique is a man. |
| Posted by: Sheik Abu Bin Ali Al-Yahood 2005-05-06 19:50 |
| #1 This doesn't have anything to do with the Hands-on-Training per above does it? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-05-06 18:48 |