The Financial Times reports this morning that:
“Jacques Chirac, France’s president, has threatened to use nuclear weapons against any state that supported terrorism against his country or considered using weapons of mass destruction.“.
According to the FT Chirac’s actually words were:
“The leaders of states who use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider [...]

North Sea Diaries:
Raffarin, as expected, is to get the chop. Le Monde reports:
In a televised speech on Sunday evening, President Jacques Chirac announced that he had ?noted? the significant No vote on the European Constitution and that he would make a decision ?in the coming few days? about his government? Jacques Chirac said he [...]

When I first came to Belgium, one of the things that genuinely surprised me is how people seem to think Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is a children’s programme. Admittedly, the title doesn’t exactly say “socially relevant drama”, but I doubt that the show’s success on American TV would have been possible without the age [...]

This thing got a lot of attention from US rightist blogs. I was rather puzzled why would do something like that, no credible explanations were advanced. Now, via Mark Kleiman, I learn it was apparently all wrong. Should have guessed.

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My Bulgarian ‘assistant’ still won’t let me forget Chirac’s last faux pas: that the biggest favour the candidate countries could do for themselves was to stay quiet. It looks like we’re going down the same road one more time. I really don’t think it is possible to effectively ‘buy’ opinions. I mean in the [...]

[Nota Bene: Due to the deeply inane nature of JavaScript, clicking the "continue reading" link may not display images linked to posts. It doesn't work for me in Mozilla or IE. If you click on the permalink, you will see all the content.]
Reader Christophe Kotowski sends a link to today’s International Herald-Tribune (a.k.a. [...]

Today’s Le Monde points out the odd dichotomy in American policy towards “Old Europe.” It seems that the US has been playing nice with Germany and giving the French government the cold shoulder.

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