Le Bulldozer

I've always liked the French president, Jacques Chirac. I imagine that he is like an imposing, yet deeply kind, grandfather. I can just picture Christmas with Grandpa Chirac at his home in Bastille, in Paris:

"Bonjour grand-père Chirac! Joyeux Noël! Où mes cadeaux sont (where are my presents)?"

One of reasons that I like Chirac is because of his vision of a "multi-polar" (not to be confused with "bi-polar") world - that eventually the superpower of the United States will be balanced against other large unions such as Europe, China, India and eventually a South American pole. His views are of course somewhat unpopular with the present administration in the US (Donald Rumsfeld recently spoke fondly, I'm sure with some kind of agenda, of the "old Europe". Not quite so much of a playground threat huh, Don?)

So in three days Chirac will meet with Tony Blair in London, for what will be his first official visit to our country in over eight years. Apparently Chirac is intending to be blunt with Tony about our relationship with the US - he does not feel that it is possible that Britain can be an "honest broker" for the US. Hmmm...not sure I agree.

I was skimming through the papers this morning (looking for fashion news, getting sidetracked!) and found two really amusing quotes from Chirac. Isn't it nice when a politician has a proper sense of humour?

Musing on the old Anglo/Franco relationship - "I think we have always enjoyed hating each other...it has been a kind of violent love."

The other quote was in relation to the period in the 70s when he served as Agriculture Minister. During that time he negotiated Britain's entry into the European Community. He still harbours guilt over a comment he made, in French, about the British minister back then, believing that he did not speak French. He later found out that the minister, in fact, spoke the language fluently!

"I thought, that's a real example of British hypocrisy, hiding for two years that he spoke French!"