It Gets Worse/It's Been Worse

The AP reports that president Chirac says that to-morrow he intends to take "the opportunity to tell America and the Americans of the feelings of gratitude that are ours today. I will tell them that France says thank you and that she does not forget."

Yet with impeccable timing, the CSA poling company has released the results of a survey which found that 50% of the French public feel that France has no moral debt to the United States. This opinion is shared by 63% of those aged 18 to 24 years, 58% of those 25 to 34, 54% of those 35 to 49, 48% of those 50 to 64 and even 32% of those 65 and older. Among the professions, farmers thought this in the greatest majority (62%) while retirees and the self-employed were the least likely to share this view (39%). The study also found that 82% of the French felt that France was sufficiently grateful to the US and that as little as 3% admire the US.

Worse yet, the Figaro reports in a survey it commissioned which finds that 82% of French feel that Germany is France's strongest ally while only 55% feel that the US is a trustworthy ally. Thirty-seven percent (and 61% of National Front, i.e. fascist, voters) now feel that Iraq is the country that threatens them most (a head of Iran and North Korea.)

Strangely, fifty-seven percent of French people still feel that the D-Day landings were the event that has had the most profound effect on the present day, reports the AP, citing another CSA opinion poll. Seventy-two percent of French feel that the landings signify the Liberation of France.

Pro-American feeling often runs highest in the regions that saw the deadliest fighting and heaviest American sacrifices but in Caen, six local elected officials (Greens, Communists and members of the Radical Left Party — there are 47 seats on the regional council all together), will be leaving their places empty at the largest event of ceremonies at Arromanches to protest the presence of presidents Bush and Putin, they say. Regional Council vice-president Yannick Soubien, a Green, said, "The treatment of Iraqi prisoners by the Americans and the genocide committed by the Russians in Chechnya run counter to the values that unite us to-day to celebrate the victory against Nazism. We'll be at other ceremonies but not at those where Messrs. Bush and Putin will be." Alain Touret, another Regional Council vice-president, of the Radical Left Pary says, "It's no small thing to go against the feeling of unanimity brought on by the commemoration but, at any rate, perhaps we'll honor in a better way the sacrifice of all those young allies who shed their blood on our soil."

Le Monde's Benoît Hopquin has filed another historical report detailing the tribulations of decennial June 6 commemorations through the ages. "In the speeches, the memories and the behavior of those present, each commemoration has become a sort of snap shot of the mood on either side of the Atlantic," he writes.

"What remains of that dawn on June 6 1944 when everything seemed possible?" wrote Le Monde on that anniversary in 1954.

At that moment, France was beset with neurasthenia. The military defeat at Diên Biên Phú in Indochina a month earlier had profoundly shocked the country. Dreams of grandeur regained are wiped away and the "singing to-morrows" grow husky-voiced in the pettiness of the Fourth Republic.

In 1964, "the D-Day veterans returned to a France that was at peace once again and that was, frankly, ungrateful," writes Hopquin. President de Gaulle declined even to come to the ceremonies. General Omar Bradley and Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance were accompanied only by two cabinet minsiters (Veterans Affairs and Cooperation). In 1974, "though a reenactment with 2,000 participants was staged before a minister in fatigues, it all appeared a formality; so much so that a thousand French fighters and resisters lit a memorial flame in Washington rather than in Sainte-Mère-Eglise."

Springtime for Germany; Winter for the US

Well over a year ago, Le Monde's television critic Dominique Dhombres wrote the following incisive words:

ON JANUARY 22 1963, Charles de Gaulle embraced Konrad Adenauer in parlor of the Elysée Palace. This moving scene has been played repeatedly the last few days on every television channel in France, Germany and Navarre. We will see it again and again this Wednesday, on the fortieth anniversarty of the Elysée treaty. It is a deeply rooted image, just like the sight of Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand holding hands in 1984 at Verdun. Franco-German reconciliation made European construction possible and we all agree on that. Waves of editorials are crashing down on us on this occasion, including in this newspaper, and so much the better.

Is it possible to discern a false note from this necessary and just chorus? It comes from a lengthy stay in England by the author of these lines. Why, our British friends wonder, such passionate demonstrations of friendship? Churchill, Thatcher and, to-day, Blair never saw fit to allow themselves such effusive sentiments with their German counterparts. Why? The answer is not pleasant to hear. The British do not need to act in this way. They have no problem of memory with the Second World War. They won it.

And what of us? Françoise Giroud mentioned this national wound, which is probably beyond repair, in the surprising interview she gave to Philippe Labro on September 11 and which France 3 rebroadcast Tuesday evening. For a warlike country, such as France was, June 1940 has never been digested. De Gaulle, who knew better than anyone that we lost the war, had the extraordinary design of having the French believe they won it, but things like that don't work, she said. That is why the French, whom she remembered from her youth before the war as being so spruce, have become doleful and circumspect. [...]

If only Dhombres had the balls to publish a similar statement right now. It would be very much appropriate. The cartoon that W. posted below — monuments to French and German soldiers holding hands as hearts float upwards from between them. Bush appears on a landing craft and says, "Oh, my God. We've landed at Bègles!" (Bègles is the town in which the mayor, former Green presidential candidate Noël Mamère, has long threatened to marry gay couples) — is commenting on the same reality that Dhombres described in January of last year. And this is a phenomenon that is now startlingly strong and growing stronger.

Yet it is not simply love for Germany that is on the rise but also what appears to be a negative corollary, anger at the US — the incontrovertible reminder of the wound that Giroud describes. Perhaps you were expecting that, as the D-Day anniversary grew closer, increasingly powerful displays of emotion, reemerging as if unchanged from so many years ago, along with abundant witness accounts and personal histories, would flood the pages of newspapers, making the story of D-Day inescapable, and that grief and gratitude would almost entirely drown out acrimony and anti-Americanism, allowing for a brief but tender moment of reconciliation?

You'd have been wrong. It seems that in more than a few quarters, just the opposite is happening. NBC may planning two full days of D-Day coverage but this elegiac atmosphere sure hasn't contaminated the pages of Le Monde.

Indeed, an interesting set of parallel arguments occurred yesterday In the pages of the two papers of record. In The New York Times, former ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn wrote that he had "seen France at its most tragic in 1940" and that the French are "grateful." Almost as a rejoinder to Rohatyn, Le Monde published on the same day an essay by documentary filmmaker and screenwriter Alain Moreau who wrote about "the hidden face of some liberators." His essay contends that American GIs deployed in Europe committed some 17,000 rapes (2,500 of them in France) from 1944 to 1945. (Moreau's assertions depend heavily on a book by J. Robert Lilly, professor of sociology and criminology at Northern Kentucky U., who also points out that thousands of Italian women were raped by French soldiers.)

Not only did Americans rape on D-Day, they killed the innocent, too. On June 1, we were treated to a heart-rending portrait of a man who lost his entire family to allied bombs on the very day of the landings in a town that was 90% destroyed.

Continue reading "Springtime for Germany; Winter for the US "...

He forgot the one shaped like his favorite Paris backroom	Il a oublié la prison sous forme de son backroom préféré dans le Marais
The anti-Semite Willem shares one thing with the self-loathing George Soros: drawing a link between 9-11 and Abu Ghraib. Hey Willem, stick it in your glory hole, and break it off!	L'antisémite Willem partage quelque chose avec George Soros qui lui, pratique la haine de soi: établir un lien entre le 11-9-2001 et Abu Ghraib. Eh dis-donc Willem, enfoncez-le bien profond dans ton 'glory hole', et cassez-le net!
After the destruction of Abu Ghraib, what should the new Baghdad prison look like? The White House, the Roissy airport terminal, or the Twin Towers?

Answer: No, just you	Réponse: Non, uniquement vous
Question frequently asked by French readers: Do you hate all French?	Question fréquemment posée par mes lecteurs franchouilles: Détestez-vous tous les français?

The Big Nine-Three: Where the Wild Things Are

Au régal des vermines dans le 9-cube

Hey, he was probably humiliated or something. Isn't that always the case with these people? An inhuman scum in the Paris suburbs reminds us why it wasn't worth the bother to liberate the French. Some suburban kid stabs a Jew while yelling 'Allah Akbar'. The suburban filth that danced on 9-11 will be happy to know that the victim is in serious condition.

Bof, il était sans doute humilié ou un truc dans ce gènre. C'est toujours comme ça avec ces gens-là. Une vermine animalière dans le 9-cube nous rappelle pourquoi ce n'était vraiment pas la peine de libérer les franchouilles. Une chère tête blonde fwançaise de la banlieue poignarde un juif en criant 'Allah Akbar'. La caillera qui a dansé autour de Paris de façon endiablée au 11-9-2001 sera heureuse de savoir que l'état de la victime est jugé sérieux.

I got your 'root causes', swingin'!	J'ai tes 'causes premières', elles me pendouillent entre les jambes!
The French continue to seek out 'root causes' to terrorism, failing to see that their own fear and self loathing are root causes.	Les franchouilles (= 'France' + 'trouille') continuent à chercher les 'causes premières' du terrorisme car ils se voilent la face en refusant de voir que leur propre peur et leur haine de soi en sont les 'causes premières'.

MiF 3:16	Non abruti, c'est plutôt mon pied dans ton cul
Allah spreads the word.	Allah fait courir le bruit.

Sacred cows: I pulled my lip stick out, I was in her, Yeah! (as in 'Stick it in and leave it there')	Vaches sacrées: J'ai sorti mon baume pour les lèvres, j'étais en elle, Ouais! (comme 'Enfoncez-la bien, et laissez-la enfoncée')
Emmanuelle Béart made some ridiculous anti-American tirade on 'Tout le Monde en Parle' stating that she and Europe were waiting for the return of the true America or some such nonsense. She was her usual delirious dumb blond self. Tania de Montaigne, appearing on the book show 'Field dans Ta Chambre', never fails to trash any American novel that is translated into French, invariably accusing it's writer of being a hack who insults the intelligence of Zeropean readers. She's just written a book, the manuscript of which was probably written with her used Tampax on her make-up mirror before being submitted to her editor, about chicks that try to quit smoking. Here, smoke this pole. In fact, no one cares what these French broads have to say. The real question is: which one has the best cocksucker lips? The lucky winner will get down on a big ten inch.	Emmanuelle Béart a laché une diatribe anti-ricaine parfaitement riducule sur le plateau de 'Tout le Monde en Parle' déclarant qu'elle et toute l'Europe attendaient le retour de la vraie Amérique. Elle était fidèle à elle-même, c'est à dire qu'elle délirait comme la blondasse qu'elle est. Tania de Montaigne, chroniqueuse à l'émission littéraire 'Field dans Ta Chambre', ne cesse de dénigrer tout roman américain traduit en fwançais, systématiquement accusant son auteur d'être un rigolo qui insulte l'intelligence de ses lecteurs zéropéens. Elle vient de pondre un bouquin, dont le manuscrit était sans doute gribouillé sur le miroir de son poudrier avec ses serviettes hygiéniques usagées avant d'être balancé chez son éditeur, au sujet de gonzesses qui essaient d'arrêter de fumer. Tiens, fume cet havane. En fait, tout le monde se fout pas mal de ce que ces meufs franchouilles ont à dire. La question qui se pose est: laquelle a la meilleure bouche à pipe? L'heureuse gagnante aura droit, en guise de trophée, à la grosse bite à Dudule.
Emmanuelle Béart	Tania de Montaigne
In a drought with the drinks left out And the big shout She's a winner	In a crowd In a fixed out cloud In her big mouth She's a winner
Lyrics: Hoggboy, Urgh!!!, Or 8?	Paroles: Hoggboy, Urgh!!!, Or 8?

D-Day Softens Few Anti-U.S. hearts

Thomas Fuller has this in the International Herald Tribune:

Isabelle Bonhomme, a high-school teacher at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris, said her students had a "very simplified idea" of America.

"They have a vision of an America that believes it knows the truth and that tries to impose it on others," she said.

Americans "are people who need oil because of the way their economy works and thus they started the war in Iraq," she said, summarizing her students' views.

"There is a sort of consensus on this," Bonhomme said. "I've never had a student say, 'No, it's not true, Americans are not like that.'" …

Most French high school history textbooks are skimpy on the details of D-Day. They tend to focus closely on the challenges and dilemmas of living in occupied France. In a leading text, the Normandy invasion is described in just two paragraphs.

"On the Normandy coast, the Anglo-Saxons led operation Overlord," says the history text, "The World from 1939 to the Present Day," used by many students in their final year of high school.

The text notes the number of ships involved and concludes: "Surprised by the choice of location for the attack and dominated in the air, the Germans were not able to repel into the sea the Americans, Canadians and British who established three beachheads."

This matter-of-fact description seems to assume that students already know about D-Day; the book does not mention that it was history's largest amphibious military operation.

"Not a single American flag in Paris"

One of France's prettiest maidens just walked in the door.

She is énervée. Here, the girl (an apolitical cynic who is not particularly pro- or anti-American or pro- or anti-anything-at-all) explains why.

There is not a single American flag in Paris.

Not on the Champs-Élysées, not anywhere.

I don't care what the French think of Bush's policies. The minimum of respect would have been to put out the Stars and Stripes for the US president's arrival. It is not Bush who is arriving, it is the president of the United States.

The Champs-Élysées are filled with flags when any other leader arrives, no matter what their régimes' policies or what their leaders have done. They even turned the Eiffel Tower red…

But… the French they dare to resist the United States. Quel courage!

Tomorrow Bush lands in the shithole	Demain Bush débarque dans ce trou à merde
Ya know, in France.	En Fwance, quoi.
Stop complaining. On June 30th, Iraq will be all yours!

I always knew they were chocolate makers fudgepackers	Je me doutais bien qu'ils étaient des lopettes
Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine fully supports marriage for fudgepackers. The problem with Zeropean fudgepackers is that due to the fact that they cannot reproduce they have to recruit.	Le Monde Al-Jazira sur Seine soutient sans condition le mariage pour les fiottes. Le problème avec ces tarlouzes zéropéens est que comme ils ne sont pas à même de se reproduire, ils sont obligés de recourir au recrutement.

'Four French hostages to be released from Guantanamo'	'Guantanamo : Quatre otages français bientôt libérés'
You read that right. Le Figaro calls them 'hostages'. Rip them to shreds. Thanks to Matthieu.	Vous avez bien lu le titre. Le Figaro les appelle des 'otages'. Mettez-les en bouillie. Merci à Matthieu.

Increasing "dislike" of "the American occupation" has led to "a rapid increase in the number of attacks on American soldiers"

A citizen of Sadr-City whispers that "the Americans liberated us from Saddam, but they have brought hatred", we are told by Le Monde (which suggests this is the general feeling in Iraq).

In the meantime, France's fears turn out to be correct: George W Bush continues to make parallels between the intervention in Iraq and World War II. Dieu merci, we have defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie to set things straight: "Parallels are always difficult to make, even dangerous, when one is in circumstances that are completely different". (How lucky that the world has the French élite to put it on the right path.)

But an article in the New York Times seems to confirm the French people's legendary lucidité:

The … attitude toward the American occupation forces has swung from apathy and surface friendliness to active dislike. According to a military government official, this is finding expression in the organization of numerous local anti-American organizations … and in a rapid increase in the number of attacks on American soldiers. There were more such attacks in the first week of October than in the preceding five months of the occupation, this source declared.

I mean, what else do you need as proof that the invasion was a grave mistake? snorts David Kaspar on his Medienkritik.

Let's get out of here, asap.

Out of Germany, that is.

Germany?

Read the rest on David's Medienkritik

Lire la version française

No news from Iraq's other 8,000 towns and villages, nothing from Kurdistan, where complete peace prevails…

From John Keegan's Daily Telegraph article, History tells us that most conflicts end in chaos:

What monopolises the headlines and prime time television at the moment is news from Iraq on the activity of small, localised minorities struggling to entrench themselves before full peace is imposed and an effective state structure is restored. The news is, in fact, very repetitive: disorder in Najaf and Fallujah, misbehaviour by a tiny handful of US Army reservists — not properly trained regular soldiers — in one prison. There is nothing from Iraq's other 8,000 towns and villages, nothing from Kurdistan, where complete peace prevails, very little from Basra, where British forces are on good terms with the residents.

(Merci, Eursoc)

Use it like Charmin	S'en servir comme PQ
It's time to put the Geneva Conventions in the circular file.	Il est temps de ranger les conventions de Genève au vertical.

He was cured all right	Pour être guéri, il l'était
'... I would like to have tolchocked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons on their own floor.' Rip Them to Shreds. Some drawings of Willem were cut up real good at an exhibit in Chaumont. Of course, French indignation is expressed that such a thing can happen to an fartist who is anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist, and anti-American and benefits from the support of the Saddamites at Libération PropagandaStaffel.	'... je regrettais de ne pas avoir toltchocké plus fort ces deux-là et de ne pas en avoir fait de la charpie sur leur foutu plancher.' Tailladez-les en lambeaux. Des dessins de Willem étaient lacérés à une exposition à Chaumont. Naturellement, les franchouilles sont outrés devant ces actes gratuits contre un zartiste antisémite, pro-terroriste, et anti-américain et qui bénéficie d'un soutien sans faille de la part des Saddamites chez Libé PropagandaStaffel.

The "Irresponsible" President of the "Country Where Everything Is Built on the Dollar" Is the "Chief Culprit of the War"

We have nothing against the American people, I am often told, it’s only their leaders and their policies we disapprove of. Oh, I understand. Thanks for clearing that up. Thus, recently, one of Europe’s foreign ministers denounced America’s president as the “chief culprit of this war” and went on to bemoan the “American people” for having been betrayed by such an irresponsible leader.

Evoking America’s “historically unique and shameless ill treatment of truth and of right” as well as "a country where everything is built on the dollar", a European head of state added that the “so-called” president was “guilty of a series of the worst crimes against international law”and that "first, he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy, and slowly but surely leads mankind to war, not without calling God to witness the honesty of his attack."

But a question arises. Who were the courageous politicians making those stirring statements?…

Read more at www.eriksvane.com

Every war with fascism is our business	Toute guerre contre le fascisme nous concerne directement
Tell it to the French who think it's good for them but not for others. Kill faster. Total war.	Il faut le dire aux franchouilles qui trouve que c'est bon pour eux mais pas pour les autres. Tuer plus vite. Guerre totale.

Blog Bits

Jews Rounded Up at Roland Garros? Amélie Mauresmo, the last French contender at the French Open was soundly defeated 6-4, 6-3 by the Russian Elena Dementieva, prompting the Belgian Website Tribal to comment that "French hopes [have been] crushed." This may not be the only reason for dismay (and that's putting it mildly) at Roland Garros. The Jerusalem Post's Mike Lebowitz reports that "the revered home of the French Open near Paris is said to have been a holding facility for French Jews before they were moved eastward to the Nazi concentration camps." French resistance appeals for D-Day recognition The AFP reports that "veterans of the French resistance are still pushing for full recognition of their role in ensuring that D-Day and its aftermath were an overwhelming success." However, says the AFP, according to British journalist and military historian Max Hastings, 'Neither the Germans nor SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Forces) had ever taken the French resistance entirely seriously, regarding it as a nuisance force rather than as a central feature of Allied planning.'" Raffarin Warns Mamère on Gay Weddings According to a day's end roundup of news by the Associated Press, PM Raffarin warned Noël Mamère that he would incur "the sanctions provided for by the law" if he officiates an homosexual marriage in the town hall of Bègles (Gironde) on Saturday. This looks to get funny, very fast.

It'd be an awful shame if something were to happen to... In the same news roundup, the AP also reports that Nicholas Sarkozy, who has announced his intentions to run for the premiership, has expressed his desire for the ruling UMP to "own up to" defeat, should it happen, in the European elections of June 13. "I am one of those who feel that one owns up to a failure, especially if one is leader," he said at a joint press conference with former prime minister Alain Juppé. Raffarin often calls himself "leader of the majority." France to send more troops to Afghanistan The AFP reports that France has announced it will send another 3,000 troops to Afghanistan starting next August, at which point general Henri Bentégeat will assume overall control of Nato's International Security Assistance Force, a considerable addition to 5,500 currently serving as part of the force. General Bentégeat is also the man who has repeatedly claimed that either ISAF men or French troops have come close to catching to catching bin Laden. Bentégeat's claims and the sudden increase in troop levels might lead one to speculate that either he or France hopes to catch bin Laden (and if the guy's actually alive, I'll eat my shoe) in order to reshape diplomatic relations with the US. How might they feel vindicated in having resisted our entreaties to make war in Iraq while catching the man who harmed us so grievously. Just a thought... Let's also bear in mind that Bentégeat personally awarded a medal to Anatolii Kvashnin, architect of the Russian genocide in Chechnya. Air France to Fly 100 US WWII Vets to France for Ceremonies PR Newswire: Air France has a reserved a flight to-day to fly 100 American World War II veterans and their wives to France from DC so that they can participate in the D-Day commemorations in Paris and Normandy. Prior to the flight, a reception will be held for the passengers at French Embassy in Washington. On board, there will be specially prepared meals, custom in-flight films about the D-Day landing. Passengers will receive custom-designed hats and certificates marking the flight. Once in France, they will receive the Legion of Honor from Defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie and in Normandy they will receive the insignia of the Legion of Honor from president Chirac. Air France is also extending the period for reduced fares for all other veterans. (Only $704 from LA!!) Congressional Delegation to Travel to France A group of "at least 20" US lawmakers will lay a wreath at the American cemetery in Cambridge before traveling to Sainte-Mère Eglise (visit that link!) to witness a reenactment of the air-drop that began the landings. On Sunday, they travel to the ceremony at Omaha Beach for the larger ceremonies with presidents Bush and Chirac.