France's Policies Towards the Islamists Are Starting to Bear Fruit

Everybody remembers that the reasons for France's opposition to Washington in the Iraq crisis (besides for America's own good) was that showing understanding for the Muslim world (and the root causes) would lead to a far more fruitful relationship than the aggressive policy that the Americans were pursuing.

Strange, then, that Piotr Smolar (and Jean-Pierre Langellier) should now be reporting that

two months ago. Abdelmalek Droukdal [the new emir of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat] pointed at France as being Islam's "enemy nr 1" … the most troubling part of the Uclat report [Unité de coordination de la lutte antiterroriste] concerns "the Islamists' perception of France's foreign and domestic policy." "Our country is one of the most criticized by the Islamist movement on the planet".

Meanwhile, Richard Schittly and Michel Bôle-Richard reports on Bernard Planche, a French hostage in Baghdad. As for Catherine Bédarida, she notes that during a speech by Saddam Hussein at his trial, the sound was cut off. The France 3 journalist's comment?

The rest of his declaration was censored by the United States

Since the dictator had been talking about being beaten and tortured (by the Americans), the logical conclusion that the viewer must make is self-evident: America's policies — once again — are wrong, hypocritical, treacherous, criminal, and self-defeating. If only the Yanks would listen to the French, things would go much better for them…