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Anorak News | ‘Aux Armes, Citoyens’

‘Aux Armes, Citoyens’

by | 22nd, February 2005

‘TUESDAY: it must be Brussels.

”Remember – it’s Beiruit, not Bayreuth”

And hark! What’s that delightful tune coming up from the streets and playgrounds of Paris and wafting over the flats to meet touring George Bush’s cocked ears?

Why, if it’s not La Marseillaise, the French anthem of liberte, egalite, fraternite, which, as the Guardian reports, has just been made compulsory learning for all French school children.

Curious indeed that while the political leaders of the USA and France are, as the Times says, patching things up, shaking hands and issuing a joint statement calling on Syria to pull its 14,000 troops out of Lebanon, French children are being instructed to learn a war song.

As American children are pledging an allegiance to the flag and trotting out the mantra about ”one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”, young Gaston is giving full throat to: ”Form in battalions. March, march! Let impure blood water our furrows.”

Little wonder that the Telegraph should equip a piece on Bush’s meeting with Chirac with a sidebar headed ”A Hate-Hate Relationship”, and lists a series of comments made by each side about the other.

We note the French official who claims George W Bush ”has never got over his Oedipus complex”; the French Soir newspaper that looks at the USA and France and says ”their mutual animosity is enormous”; and Dominique de Villepin, French foreign minister during the Iraq war, saying he was not going to answer the question of which side he wanted to win.

But that was then, and now the Independent hears Bush and Chirac unify to call for a ”free, independent and democratic Lebanon”.

And if they don’t get it, the Americans may rally their troops, and the French may sing a rousing song…’



Posted: 22nd, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink