Chávez Receives Warm Welcome from Chirac, Villepin, and the "Compañeros"

"This third meeting of the year shows the close, human and personal relationship that unites the two leaders," the Venezuelan ambassador to Paris, Roy Chaderton Matos, told AFP.

Sylvia Zappi tells us that Hugo Chávez went on to meet, nay to have supper with, Dominique de Villepin, and that, after meeting with his fans, the "friends of Venezuela" and self-declared "compañeros", including one (none less than Jean-Pierre Chevènement, whose nickname in France is Le Che) who sealed a request of his with a laugh:

Give us the recipe for winning elections seven times in a row.

I have no doubt that Alain Krivine, Jean-François Kahn, Bernard Cassen, Gérard Miller, Marie-George Buffet, and their fellow leftists could learn a lot about making democracy more "productive" (and society more "efficient") from the likes of Chávez and Fidel Castro.

Update: Apparently there was nobody — in the government or outside of it — to give their Venezuelan friend a statement of principles (French or otherwise) ; in fact noone seemed to have any disagreements with Chávez at all…