Post by Bronx on Feb 20, 2003 17:20:24 GMT -5
I hate Chirac soooo much ...
PARIS (Reuters) - The Sun has opened a new front in a war of words with France over Iraq by attacking Jacques Chirac on his own turf in an edition handed out free in Paris that depicted the president as a giant worm.
"Chirac Est Un Ver" (Chirac Is A Worm) blared the paper's special front-page headline in French above a photomontage of an earthworm bearing his head and crawling out of a map of France.
"We think your president, Jacques Chirac, is a disgrace to Europe by constantly threatening to veto military action to enforce the will of the United Nations in Iraq," the Sun said on the front page of the Paris version, written in French.
Chirac is resisting U.S. and British pressure for a war on Baghdad, irritating U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair but winning strong support from the overwhelming majority of his own electorate in France.
A government minister called the Sun's tone contemptuous, aggressive and vulgar. Another said he was more sad than angry.
Many French broadcasters adopted a tone of bemused familiarity with the "frog-bashing" antics of the British press. One called it a cheap publicity stunt, noting that the special edition was not actually for sale in the French capital.
Echoing a line used last week by U.S. tabloid the New York Post, also owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the Sun recalled the sacrifices British and American soldiers made for France in two world wars. The Post made waves in France with a front-page photograph of American war graves in Normandy.
"British people feel Mr Chirac...is arrogantly strutting about trying to make France seem more important in the world than it really is. Are you not ashamed of your president?" the Sun asked, calling Chirac a hypocrite because in the end, it speculated, he would back down and support military action.
"When Saddam Hussein has gone, people in Britain and the rest of Europe will look at France and ask themselves whether France is much of an ally any more. People will ask themselves why anyone should bother with what France and its leader say."
"DISGUSTING"
Asked about the article, Chirac's spokesman Catherine Colonna told reporters, "Insults often say more about the people who make them than about those they claim to describe."
At Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Matignon Palace offices, ministers in Chirac's conservative government were shown copies of the paper by curious French journalists.
"It's disgusting," said Transport Minister Gilles de Robien.
Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the culture minister, said: "It's aggressive, very disagreeable, pretty vulgar and shows contempt for our country...I'd say they've been very badly brought up."
Reactions were similar on the streets from Parisians shown the special edition.
"The press should be free, but this is pretty disgraceful. It's pro-war propaganda," said 30-year-old waiter Bruno Sterne.
"It's really sad, but it doesn't surprise me coming from the Sun. I am proud of the president and his government. The British, on the other hand, should be ashamed of Blair who is an opportunist and does not fully represent his party's ideals," said Laurence Baroini, 26, a photographer's assistant.
Best known for an obsession with celebrity sleaze and sex scandals, the Sun also has a history of French-bashing and in 1990 ran the famous headline "Up Yours Delors", slamming then European Commission head Jacques Delors, a Frenchman.
Several thousand copies, identical to the 3.5 million or so sold in Britain aside from the front page, were given out in Paris, said the Sun's Lorna Carmichael:
"We're handing them out in places like the Champs Elysees. We've been getting mixed reactions."
PARIS (Reuters) - The Sun has opened a new front in a war of words with France over Iraq by attacking Jacques Chirac on his own turf in an edition handed out free in Paris that depicted the president as a giant worm.
"Chirac Est Un Ver" (Chirac Is A Worm) blared the paper's special front-page headline in French above a photomontage of an earthworm bearing his head and crawling out of a map of France.
"We think your president, Jacques Chirac, is a disgrace to Europe by constantly threatening to veto military action to enforce the will of the United Nations in Iraq," the Sun said on the front page of the Paris version, written in French.
Chirac is resisting U.S. and British pressure for a war on Baghdad, irritating U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair but winning strong support from the overwhelming majority of his own electorate in France.
A government minister called the Sun's tone contemptuous, aggressive and vulgar. Another said he was more sad than angry.
Many French broadcasters adopted a tone of bemused familiarity with the "frog-bashing" antics of the British press. One called it a cheap publicity stunt, noting that the special edition was not actually for sale in the French capital.
Echoing a line used last week by U.S. tabloid the New York Post, also owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the Sun recalled the sacrifices British and American soldiers made for France in two world wars. The Post made waves in France with a front-page photograph of American war graves in Normandy.
"British people feel Mr Chirac...is arrogantly strutting about trying to make France seem more important in the world than it really is. Are you not ashamed of your president?" the Sun asked, calling Chirac a hypocrite because in the end, it speculated, he would back down and support military action.
"When Saddam Hussein has gone, people in Britain and the rest of Europe will look at France and ask themselves whether France is much of an ally any more. People will ask themselves why anyone should bother with what France and its leader say."
"DISGUSTING"
Asked about the article, Chirac's spokesman Catherine Colonna told reporters, "Insults often say more about the people who make them than about those they claim to describe."
At Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Matignon Palace offices, ministers in Chirac's conservative government were shown copies of the paper by curious French journalists.
"It's disgusting," said Transport Minister Gilles de Robien.
Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the culture minister, said: "It's aggressive, very disagreeable, pretty vulgar and shows contempt for our country...I'd say they've been very badly brought up."
Reactions were similar on the streets from Parisians shown the special edition.
"The press should be free, but this is pretty disgraceful. It's pro-war propaganda," said 30-year-old waiter Bruno Sterne.
"It's really sad, but it doesn't surprise me coming from the Sun. I am proud of the president and his government. The British, on the other hand, should be ashamed of Blair who is an opportunist and does not fully represent his party's ideals," said Laurence Baroini, 26, a photographer's assistant.
Best known for an obsession with celebrity sleaze and sex scandals, the Sun also has a history of French-bashing and in 1990 ran the famous headline "Up Yours Delors", slamming then European Commission head Jacques Delors, a Frenchman.
Several thousand copies, identical to the 3.5 million or so sold in Britain aside from the front page, were given out in Paris, said the Sun's Lorna Carmichael:
"We're handing them out in places like the Champs Elysees. We've been getting mixed reactions."
