Chirac puts Bush in place?

[brneyedgrl80]

This probably won't help relations.....

Angry Chirac puts Bush in his place

French president publicly carpets the US leader for pressing Turkey's case for EU membership

Ian Black and Michael White in Istanbul and Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Tuesday June 29, 2004
The Guardian

Jacques Chirac bluntly told George Bush to mind his own business yesterday when the US president urged European leaders to give Turkey a firm date for starting EU membership talks later this year.
Ignoring the determined effort to celebrate improved transatlantic relations after the Iraq crisis, the French president publicly rebuked Mr Bush at Nato's Istanbul summit for calling for special treatment for the Turks.

Mr Bush, he complained, "not only went too far but went on to territory which is not his own".

He added: "It's as if I was advising the US on how they should manage their relations with Mexico."

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,12667,1249663,00.html

 

[Hobbit]

So he's giving advice. It's not like he's making demands. Are the French really so uptight that they won't even accept friendly advice?

 

[freeandfun1]

Originally posted by Hobbit
So he's giving advice. It's not like he's making demands. Are the French really so uptight that they won't even accept friendly advice?

They can tell us what we should do but we can't tell them? Arrogance! lol:

 

[Zhukov]

that article, my emphasis

After denying Turkey even candidate status for EU membership for many years until it was finally conceded in 1999, EU leaders are due to decide at their next summit in December when it can begin formal negotiations, which will take at least 10 years.

A model of efficiency that EU.

 

[Annie]

http://georgemiller.blogspot.com/2004/06/how-to-insult-your-friends-and.html

Tuesday, June 29, 2004
How to insult your friends and influence nobody
Yesterday, the French President, Jacques Chirac, told President Bush to get his nose out of European business. Bush had told Turkish leaders that the United States is supportive of Turkey’s application to join the European Union.

Chirac lectured Bush: “He (Bush) has nothing to say on this subject. It is as if I were to tell the United States how it should conduct its relations with Mexico.”

Erm…No, it isn’t quite the same thing, Chirac. The United States is a continent-sized country of 300 million citizens sharing a border with a smaller Republic to the south. Both countries are sovereign states but with highly developed economic and demographic ties. It would be very surprising if either of these countries didn’t sometimes comment on the policies of the other. It would be absurd for France to do so.

France, on the other hand, is an economically stagnant country of 60 million. Turkey is an emerging democracy of 70 million dynamic and energetic people. France does not share a border with Turkey. Germany is by far Turkey's largest export market, followed by the US. Next comes Britain. France is sixth on the list. If France doesn't much like the look of Turkey, the Turks aren't much looking at France.

Only if one accepts the French conceit that they lead in Europe, does Chirac’s comparison with the US/Mexican relationship make sense. Chirac speaks for France, not for Europe, when he resists Turkish EU membership.

As long as the single State of Europe does not yet exist, the US, as a friendly democratic State, has every right to encourage another free and democratic nation to seek the benefits and prosperity in membership of the European economy.

Chirac's reaction to Bush’s statement is revealing of the French assumption that the Continent is its private sphere of influence. Someone really ought to tell the free nations of Europe that this is how the French see them. On second thought, there’s no need for anyone to tell them. The French President is doing a very good job of telling them himself.

Chirac has become a master of insulting the free nations of Europe. But this outburst, like the one last year in which he told those European nations who supported the Allied invasion of Iraq to “shut up,” reveals France’s growing weakness in the enlarged Europe.

If any country in Europe might have cause to feel annoyed at the US President’s comments in support of Turkish EU membership, it is Germany. Millions of Turks live and work there. But Chancellor Schroeder seems perfectly relaxed about Bush’s comments. Perhaps the Germans are not quite as afraid of the modern world as is France? Perhaps, despite their desperation to be tail to the French dog, the German’s would quite welcome Turkish membership?

France has much to lose over Turkish membership. The kind of Europe that could accommodate Turkey cannot be highly centralised politically and rigid and bureaucratic economically, as the French political establishment would like. The Europe that is emerging does not willingly wish to become a fortress that protects France from the modern world and the global economy.

Chirac’s increasingly hysterical and personalised bluster is a diversionary tactic for the benefit of the bewildered French people. Such public tantrums cannot forever delay the realisation that France has become isolated and ineffectual in both Europe and the world.

 

[Merlin1047]

Originally posted by Hobbit
So he's giving advice. It's not like he's making demands. Are the French really so uptight that they won't even accept friendly advice?

Mais oui. That thar's frenchie for "hell yes".