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Thursday, April 17, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:47 AM:
Speaking of France (see below), here come your French news headlines:Le Monde: Iraqi Oil Divides UN. Front and center, Bush's call for an end to sanctions and the difficulty getting the UNSC to work together on anything. Further down:
[W]hile the deployment of American troops on the ground gives the US control in fact which would allow them to fashion the future of Iraq according to their design, it appears highly unlikely that the UNSC would accept relinquishing this key [the right to control oil distribution under "Food for Oil"], one of the few at its disposal for influencing the course of events.No mention, ahem, of France's economic interest in whether or not its exclusive deal with Saddam will be honored in this story.
Le Figaro: Pneumopathy [i.e. SARS]: The World Mobilizes to Conquer the Virus.
Libération: The "Peace Camp" wants to get together in the aftermath. And check out this subhead: "With respect to reconstruction, France and Germany will handle the US carefully from now on." The verb is "ménager" and here are summaries of your Larousse translations: 1) to be sparing with [money], 2) to treat or handle carefully, 3) to spare [one's pride, sensibilities, feelings; i.e. to humor one] and 4) to organize, manage. Looking at my Petit Robert, the definitions run from accomodation to outright indulgence. It's interesting that they picked this verb, as it makes the US a thing to be handled by Europe and carries the implication that we are a problem or we pose difficulties that must be dealt with. Absent is the idea of partnership; all but completely gone missing is the notion that the US must be approached as being in a superior position in fact. Libé, of course, is not France. But it captures a certain French attitude.
As a specialist in Hugo, I have to do a little reading, a little history, etc. One thing that strikes is the conviction of some Frenchmen (Hugo among them) that it was vital that France have a healthy democratic society or the world would have none to look to. In Paris, L'Avenir he dreamed of a democratic society where everybody had access to property, to freedom and to influence over their governance. He presumably failed to notice that a continent away they were busily working at it and were well ahead of the French, who had taken breaks for two monarchies, two empires and a military dictatorship in the middle of their great democracy experiment. Why they took these detours which held them back on their quest to be the exemplary nation eludes us, as their superior nature should surely have helped them to do otherwise, but France is, nonetheless, the exemplary nation only in its own mind and these views of self-superiority, which have already kept it from having a say in the war risk taking away its say in the peace to follow. The exemplary nation is, for good or ill, confronted with a nation that has the resolve, the force and the funds to make up for its lack of innate superiority, and the French are going to have to learn this.
Ouest-France: A Europe, 25 strong, born yesterday in Athens. About the enlargement of the EU, of course.
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