François Hollande's lesson on how to offend a country's national hero

Canadian's amongst you will be familiar with the name Kevin Vickers and will probably be able to put a face to the name.

And there's a fair bet that those of you from other countries will at least know what the 58-year-old is famous for, even if you don't know what he looks like and the name doesn't immediately ring the proverbial bell.

Vickers is the sergeant-at-arms at the House of Commons of Canada in Ottawa.

Kevin Vickers (screenshot CBC news)

And on October 22, he was the man who killed gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who had earlier fatally shot a soldier, Nathan Cirillo, guarding the national war memorial in the capital before going on a shooting rampage in the nearby parliamentary building.

Vickers has since been hailed as a hero, both at home and abroad, proving that the largely ceremonial role he normally plays also has an accompanying serious element in being "responsible for safety and security" within the grounds of the parliamentary building.

Indeed, as if to emphasise just how far Vickers' fame had spread, Hollande, paid tribute to him during a speech to parliamentarians from both chambers of the Canadian parliament on Monday, "saluting his courage" and saying that Vickers was now "a hero across the world".

François Hollande addressing parliamentarians in Canada (screenshot BFM TV)

Hollande, sometimes not always up to speed on who to praise or to whom his condolences should be made (see the last sentence in this post) while on an official trip, seemed to have been well briefed by his accompanying advisors during his state visit to Canada- the first by a French president since 1987.

Or had he?

Because just moments before, Hollande had, according to a report on Europe 1, appeared to all but ignore Vickers - or at the very least not recognise the man he would later describe as "a hero across the world."

It happened as Hollande entered the parliamentary building with apparently both the presidents of the senate and the house of commons there to greet him.

They were accompanied by...well, none other than Vickers who would, in his role as sergeant-at-arms, shortly afterwards show Hollande and the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, to their seats.

And all Hollande could offer Vickers - in terms of a personal face-to-face tribute - was a simple handshake...of a man who seemingly hadn't a clue who the other person was.



And that, dear reader, is a classic Hollande lesson on how to offend your hosts while on an official visit and yet another example of his seemingly muddled understanding of protocol or grasp on international events.

Remember his recent renaming of the Syrian town of Kobane as "Konabe?

Or, while on a trip to Japan in 2013 the tribute he paid to the Japanese nationals who had died in the Algerian hostage crisis earlier in the year by referring to them as "Chinese"?

François Hollande renames Kobane, "Konabe"

Even if you're not especially interested in what's making the news, the chances are that you've heard of Kobane.

The town on the border of Syria and Turkey has been the scene of fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish defenders for the past month and has received extensive coverage internationally.


So you would think that leaders from around the world would not only be familiar with what's happening there but would also be able to say the town's name properly.

All right, there might be differences in spelling, accents and stress between different languages (and those helpful people at Wikipedia provide a few alternatives) but there's surely consensus as to the order in which both the letters and the three syllables come.

Right?

Wrong.

Not, apparently, if you happen to be the French president, François Hollande.

François Hollande at the Institut du monde arabe (screenshot from Le Petit Journal on Canal +)

Proving once again that he is a verbal law unto himself, Hollande managed to mangle the town's name not once, but twice, during and after a speech he gave at the Institut du monde arabe (Arab World Institute) on Tuesday.

Kobane in Hollande-speak became Konabe.

And both he and his advisors seemed oblivious to the fact that he couldn't pronounce the town's name correctly.

You can hear Hollande's gaffe from 12 minutes 45 seconds until 13 minutes 45 seconds - the  "L'instant président" segment of the "Le Petit Journal" on Canal + with host Yann Barthès broadcast on Tuesday evening.

Classic Flanby...unless, as Barthès pointed out, Hollande really was referring to the village of Konabe in Japan (yes, it exists).

Now that brings back memories.

Wasn't it in Japan back in June 2013 that Hollande, while wanting to pay tribute to the 10 Japanese nationals who had died in the Algerian hostage crisis in January of the same year actually expressed his condolences to the Chinese?

Valls en déplacement pour un parking - Le Petit Journal du 14/10

Welcome to Geneva - Switzerland's capital, according to TF1

It would seem that France's main private television channel, TF1, has decided to follow a lead set by the country's president, François Hollande, in showing just how geographically challenged it can be at times.

Remember Hollande's gaffe back in June while on a trip to Japan when he mistakenly expressed his condolences to the Chinese rather than the Japanese for those killed during a hostage crisis in Algeria in January?

Well, TF1 decided to go closer to home for its foot-in-mouth blooper.

It came during a recent pre-recorded (and therefore perfectly editable) lunchtime news report as part of a delightful series "La France à bicyclette".

It took viewers on a trip around Lac Léman (or Lake Geneva if you like, because it's one and the same thing) from Lausanne to...Lausanne. A round trip.

Gorgeous scenery - both on the Swiss and French sides - although guess where the traffic was a little more difficult?

Cyclists take to the streets of the "Swiss capital Geneva" (screenshot from TF1 report)

Breaks for meals and meet-ups with other halves - enjoying the countryside and a leisurely lunch before setting off again to the encounter the liveliness.....of the capital, Geneva!

Listen at two minutes and three seconds.




Now, it might be all right for far flung countries and their broadcasters to get things wrong geographically speaking - and CNN certainly has in the past and will probably also do in the future

But how can a French reporter get his (in this case) information so obviously wrong about a country with which it shares a border and to some extent a culture?

Easily probably, especially if there's nobody around to take a listen to the piece before it's broadcast.

French president François Hollande confuses Japan with China

You know from time-to-time how you hear a story about a singer who greets fans at the beginning of a concert with, for example, a massive "Good evening Clermont-Ferrand" when the gig is taking place almost 150 kilometres away in the city of Saint Etienne.

That happened to one of France's "favourite" (well at least most successful over the decades) singers, Johnny Hallyday, in December last year.

It's understandable perhaps, given the punishing schedule of a tour and musicians don't necessarily have a huge entourage of speechwriters and advisors keeping tabs on what they're saying.

Not so for political leaders.

They rarely travel without an army of flunkies on hand.

François Hollande speaking at a press conference in Japan (screenshot from AFP report)

And there's really no excuse when they get things ever-so wrong and that must be especially true when they're French.

After all the country is famous and proud for its tradition of diplomacy, isn't it?

"French is the language of..." and all that.

So François Hollande's gaffe while on an official visit to Japan last week surely counts as one that'll ensure the French president is top of the class for a while yet when it comes to diplomatic blunders.

Hollande was speaking at a press conference in Tokyo and, while referring to the Algerian hostage crisis in January in which 10 Japanese died said...well take a listen for yourself.




Yes, you heard correctly. Hollande said "Chinese" rather than "Japanese" - and didn't even bother rectifying his mistake.

What a chump!

Chinese tourists take a roundabout pilgrimage to Lourdes - 800 kms away

It's easily done isn't it?

You arrive at an airport, rent a car, complete with GPS or SatNav, and tap in your destination.

If you're lucky the thing will direct you to exactly where you want to go without any problem.

If you're not, or are hopeless at following instructions, then you could end up taking a route which will allow you to see a little more of the countryside than you had intended.

The chances are though, that you'll eventually reach where you want to be.

Both scenarios of course rely upon your having entered the correct town or city.

But there remains another possible outcome: arriving miles away from your intended journey's end.

(screenshot Mappy  - the green flag is Paris, the yellow one Leuhan, and the red flag is Lourdes)

That's exactly what happened this past weekend to a group of Chinese tourists who had arrived at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris from Los Angeles and decided to hire a car with a GPS, to drive to the southwestern town of Lourdes.

Except they ended up over 800 kilometres away in the village of Leuhan in Brittany, in the west of the country.

As the regional daily Ouest France reported the five women had indeed entered Lourdes into the GPS but they had forgotten to include the number of the département: hence they arrived in the village where the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes can be found.

An easy mistake to make!

"They got out of their car and asked me where they could find their hotel," Manée Peron, the owner of the village bar-tobacconist Ti Manée, told the newspaper.

"But when I looked at the reservation slip they showed me I saw that they were looking for Lourdes in the southwest of France and I told them they were in completely the wrong place."

Not surprisingly the women were apparently more than a little fed up but reprogrammed their GPS, and were on their way once again...to the correct Lourdes.

Let's just hope their rental contract allowed them unlimited mileage.

Satire - France seen by foreigners and the French

Perhaps you recall a recent post here, "Europe according to bigots".

It featured satirical maps by Bulgarian-born graphic designer Yanko Tsvetkov and illustrated how the continent was viewed by others around the world by relying on clichés and stereotypes.

There's a similar set of maps doing the rounds concentrating specifically on La Belle France - as it's seen not only from abroad but also by the French.

Of course they're not to be taken seriously, but hidden behind the caricature isn't there just a slight element of truth?

For the Japanese, the country is portrayed as just one big tourist destination while the Chinese are only interested in Paris and its suburbs because both give them the chance to get their hands on businesses at a knock-down rate.

From the French point of view, there's one showing environmentalist and anti-globalisation campaigner José Bové's view of a country covered in McDonald's outlets for example.

And another emphasises Parisians' blinkered view that the City of Lights is the centre of the Universe and anything else is...well provincial.

Here are a few screengrabs showing UK and US views as well as those of some French.

Click on the images to enlarge

(screengrab from wikistrike.com)

(screengrab from wikistrike.com)

For the rest you can go here.

Dominique Berger - France's last natural latex inflatable doll maker

France has a reputation for producing expensive high-quality products from foie gras to champagne, jewellery, perfume, fashion and so the list continues.

But a little-known area in which one particular man is struggling to keep the Tricolore flying is in the manufacture of high-calibre inflatable dolls.

Dominique Berger and "Kelly" (screenshot from France 3 report)

It really is summer in France - even though the weather in many parts of the country and the rest of Europe come to that, might indicate otherwise.

But that's another story.

Proof of which season we're in is provided by the seemingly traditional attempt by the media, in all its guises, to scrabble around for just about anything to fill the column inches, airwaves, bulletins or whatever.

You know the sort of thing; the normally "And finally" stories that might appear at the end of TV news bulletins throughout the year but which seem to be the bread and butter of journalists during the slower summer months.

As the weekly New Yorker magazine wrote in an article last year, in the summer journalists "Fall back on old standbys like animals, folk heroes, strange crimes, the gruesome quirks of the elderly, overly obsessive coverage of celebrity weddings, and, of course, mass hysteria of a non-life-threatening nature."

The more off-the-wall the better, and if there's a smidgeon of sex involved...well, bingo!

And that's exactly what television viewers in France were treated to during the evening news on France 3 television on Tuesday with an item looking at one man's struggle to manufacture a top-quality product in the face of cheaper, lower-grade competition, primarily from China.

Inflatable dolls.

Yes, according to the report, the international market for the modern-day "dame de voyage" as they were apparently known in the 17th century, is dominated by the Chinese (did you know that?)

But a former baker from the north of France is reportedly putting up a valiant struggle.

Dominique Berger gave up kneading the dough to pursue a career in inflatable dolls eight years ago.

As the French website Rue89 reports, Berger used his savings to buy out a company that had closed its doors because of falling orders and decided to aim for the high-end of the market with his all-latex "Kelly".

"Kelly" in production (screenshot from France 3 report)

And he's apparently the only person left in Europe, let alone France, manufacturing Domax inflatable dolls made of natural latex.

"If you look closely you can see there are no seams," Berger proudly told France 3.

"Dolls made in Asia on the other hand have seams on the side and are made of plastic," he continued.

"And that means it resembles more a woman than it does a plastic buoy (yes, he really said that)."

At between €250 and €690 depending on the model, Berger's dolls aren't exactly cheap when compared to the apparently average-priced €40 of the Chinese-made competitor.

And while business isn't exactly booming with 80-90 latex dolls produced each month, Berger, who works alone and prefers it that way, says he can make a living and he believes in his product.

"I could double production by working twice as hard, but I prefer not to," he said.

"I'm self financing and work to order."

So there you have it. Not the first, and certainly not the last, in a long line of silly summer stories.

Jeannie Longo - a 58th national title for the 52-year-old

What is there left to say about French cyclist Jeannie Longo?

Sporting legend is such an overused expression, but if anyone deserves to be described as such, it's her.

Jeannie Longo (screenshot from BFM TV report)

On Thursday the 52-year-old (let's put that in capitals for those of you who might not have been paying attention; FIFTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD) once again beat women more than half her age to win the French national time trial at Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France.

And as the regional daily La Dépêche du Midi says we're all running out of superlatives to describe her remarkable career.

Thursday's win - her fourth consecutive time trial title - brought her total tally of national road and track crowns to a mind-boggling 58.

Indeed the stats for her career at national, world and Olympic level are staggering.

Alongside those 58 national titles she has also 13 world championships victories to her name and four Olympic medals including one Gold in the 1996 Road Race at the Atlanta Games.

Speaking after Thursday's race Longo told reporters that she hadn't been that confident about being able to hold on to her title.

"It went well, but I wasn’t entirely confident today. I didn’t feel great," the women French journalists affectionately refer to as "Super Jeannie" or, with a degree of reverence in alluding to her age "Super Grannie", told reporters.

"This 58th title gives me immense pleasure and I'll admit to feeling a little nostalgic on the podium because (19)58 was also the year I was born."

So with title number 58 under her belt the question on many people's lips is whether she'll have another bash at the Olympics in London next year.

In Beijing in 2008 she narrowly missed out on a medal after she finished fourth in the Road Time Trial.

And although she's not yet mentioning the word retirement, Longo is hesitant to make any promises about next year.

"I'm not really sure I want the stress of international competition," she told reporters.

"If I were to train for the Olympics it would mean another year of stress...and I have a house to finish building," she continued.

"At this rate, I'll be living in a trailer for goodness know how long."

While the Olympics might remain a question mark in her diary, one more title beckons.

Longo is due to ride in the French national road race on Saturday.

She certainly puts the rest of us to shame.

Sarkozy confuses Alsace with Germany

It's surely not the sort of mistake anyone in France would want to make in public, let alone the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nicolas Sarkozy in Truchtersheim, Alsace (screenshot from BFM TV)

But on Tuesday during his latest round of New Year's wishes, a slip of the tongue caused Sarkozy momentary embarrassment and brought about a somewhat hollow laugh, as the free daily paper 20 minutes described it, among those in the audience.

It happened in the town of Truchtersheim in the eastern French département of Bas Rhin in Alsace.

It's a region which borders Germany and one, which along with neighouring Lorraine, changed hands several times between the French and the Germans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

After the end of World War II Alsace once again officially became part of France.

Sarkozy was addressing an audience as part of his New Year's wishes, this time to the country's agricultural sector and those living in rural areas and he was talking about the difference in (agricultural) competitiveness between France and Germany.

"I can accept that it's difficult to compete with China and India but not with Germany," he said.

"And I'm not saying that just because I'm in Germany ('Allemagne" in French)...er I mean Alsace," he quickly corrected himself before, as a blogger on the national daily Le Monde wrote, "He tried to make light of his mistake."

Lapsus : Quand Sarkozy confond l'Allemagne et l'Alsace Vidéo LCIWAT sélectionnée dans Actualité

Humour perhaps that wasn't necessarily in the best of taste as he made a reference to the programme he has put in place to provide more suitable care for those suffering from Alzheimer's.

Too late though for making light though.

Too late though.

The deed had been done and the moment recorded...for doubtless wider distribution on the Net.

As the weekly news magazine L"Express reminds readers, 2010 was certainly a rich one in terms of slips of the tongue most (in)famously perhaps European member of parliament Rachida Dati's "inflation-fellation" blunder during a television interview.

But confusing Alsace and Germany, although at first sight appearing a trivial mistake, and certainly not an intentional one is (to say the least) "unfortunate given the history of the region."

Court allows couple to wed in spite of parents "Napoleonic law" bid to stop marriage

Here's a warning wealth word reading if you're a foreigner wanting to marry a French national.

Make sure you have the approval of your future in-laws because if they're not happy with the upcoming nuptials they might seek recourse in an archaic law preventing the marriage from going ahead.

"Not possible," you might be thinking, especially if both the prospective bride and groom are beyond the age of consent.

Wrong.

Image from Wikipedia, author - Musaromana

It can, and indeed did happen in November when the parents of the groom-to-be, Stéphane Sage, stepped in to prevent him from tying the knot with his future intended Man Sin Ma (known as Mandy) from Hong Kong.

The couple are both in their mid-20s but Page's parents objected to his choice of bride and resorted to a law dating from 1803 to stop the marriage from going ahead.

They succeeded and the ceremony was postponed while the couple went to court to have the legal objection overruled.

The problems for the couple came to a head in November just hours before they were due to be married in the town of Meylan in the southeastern French département of Isère.

The banns required by law had been removed from the town hall as Sage's parents, disapproving of the marriage as they reportedly thought Mandy was "only interested in gaining French nationality to be able to stay in the country" had successfully sought to have them withdrawn just as was their right under article 173 of the civil code.

It states that "The father and the mother, or by default the grandparents, may oppose the marriage of their children or descendants even if they've reached the age of majority."

Archaic and anachronistic perhaps, belonging as it does to Napoleonic times, but the parents were fully within their legal rights as it has never been repealed.

This week though the couple succeeded in having the decision overturned and a court ruled that they were free to marry as "There was no objective reason to justify the (parents') decision."

Sage's mother and father now have one month in which to appeal the ruling and, if what the 25-year-old told Agence France Presse is true, then both he and his fiancée are surely on tenterhooks waiting for their next move.

"At first they said Mandy only wanted to marry me to get papers," he told AFP.

"Now they're accusing her of being a spy for the Chinese government."

That's what happens when your prospective "in-laws from Hell" come from a country which has far too many laws on its books.

You have been warned.

World's oldest living twins aren't French but Belgian - or are they?

A couple of weeks ago the French media was paying tribute to Raymonde Saumade and Lucienne Grare as the pair celebrated their 98th birthday and entered the "Guinness World Records" 2011 edition as the oldest living twins.

It was a story that caught the imagination of many broadcasters and news outlets around the world and one which definitely appeared to have legs.

The TV cameras showed up, journalists seemed to fall over themselves to discover the secret of the sisters' longevity, which they revealed included the odd tipple by drinking "whisky or pastis, and mixing in a bit of exercise".

The pair certainly seemed to make a fine couple as they basked in their new-found notoriety.

Except it transpires that Raymonde and Lucienne aren't the world's oldest living twins, even if they will officially appear as such in the next edition of the "Guinness World Record".

According to Belgian media, there are a couple of sisters living in the French-speaking part of the country, Wallonia, who last weekend celebrated their 100th birthdays.

Screenshot from Belgian television, Gabrielle Vaudremer and Marie Hendrix - the world's oldest living twins?

And naturally the country's television cameras were on hand to film Gabrielle Vaudremer and Marie Hendrix as proof that the world's media and the "Guinness World Record" book had got it wrong.

The oldest living twins are Belgian.



Or are they?

You see Gabrielle and Marie, although definitely two years older than Raymonde and Lucienne (they have the birth certificates to prove it) hadn't taken the necessary steps to make their claim official.

A "formal application" has to be made for a record to be entered into the publication and although Craig Glenday, its editor-in-chief, has "invited all twins who able to prove they're over the age of 98 to submit an approved request" for the moment it's the younger French sisters who are officially the oldest living twins - if that makes sense.

Just for the record there is apparently another pair of French twins, Paulette Olivier et Simone Thiot, who are eight months older than the "record holders" but they're happy allowing Raymonde and Lucienne to grab the limelight by preferring their peace and tranquility and refusing to talk to the media.

And to complicate matters even more, the Belgian twins (Gabrielle and Marie in case you've lost track) were actually born near the northern French town of Beauvais before moving to Belgium as children.

So are the world's oldest living twins French or Belgian?

Or perhaps neither as the French website Le Post points out that according to the "Shanghai Guinness World Records" book, sisters Qiao Junior and Qiao Senior turned 105 last year.

Sarkozy spin or a cave in to Chinese pressure?

It’s hard enough for any of us to stick to our principles at the best of times. Imagine how much harder it must be then for a politician, regardless of his or her political hue.

Of course it can help assuage guilt and shed a completely different light on your own decision when your partner holds opposing views and is able to exercise “independent’ actions over which you apparently have no control.

And as he beamed from the stands of the Olympic stadium in Beijing on Friday at the opening ceremony of the Games, similar thoughts could well have been passing through the mind of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

You’ll perhaps remember that the poor man had problems deciding whether he should pitch up at all. Back in March he said he was “shocked” by China's security clampdown in Tibet and urged Beijing to re-open discussions with the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

He then ummed and aahed for a couple of months, all the while not making it clear what he would do. Finally he ignored the decision of Germany’s Angela Merkel, who took the moral high road by refusing to attend, and said he would indeed show up. Which he did.

Sarkozy could have been forgiven for brimming with Gallic indignation a couple of days later though, when the Chinese ambassador to Paris, Kong Quan, told the French media that there would be "serious consequences" for Sino-Franco relations if he decided to meet the Dalai Lama personally during the exiled spiritual leader’s visit to France in August.

Instead Sarkozy remained quiet – seemingly a recently-discovered tactic in his diplomatic armoury, although it could also be interpreted as simply being “vague.”

Quiet that is just before his “appearance” at the opening ceremony, when his office at the Elysée palace released an official statement that showed once again he is a master of wheedling himself out of a conundrum

The solution to the dilemma? Twofold. First a carefully worded announcement from the Elysée palace that Sarkozy wouldn’t be meeting the Dalai Lama, while making it look as though it was the latter’s decision but cleverly not expounding on the reason.

And then phase two and the real answer to his dreams: Enter stage Left, politically and socially in the form of none other than France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

For it is she and not he, who will be present as the Dalai Lama opens a Buddhist temple in southern France on August 22.

A cave in from Sarkozy, a jiggling of the first lady’s calendar or some deft diplomatic footwork that appears to keep all sides happy and prevents any loss of face?

Whatever the case may be, it sure hasn’t done Sarkozy any harm having Carla at the Elysée palace.

Sarkozy's "astonishing" Olympic announcement

So it's official. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will be attending the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing,

After a "productive" 30-minute meeting with the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, Sarkozy's office officially released the news on Wednesday that it had already leaked to the French media last Friday.

To many in France, the news will have come as much of a surprise as suddenly discovering that the Pope is Catholic.

Basically it was always on the cards right back in March when Sarkozy first started digging himself into something of a diplomatic hole by saying he was shocked by China's security clampdown in Tibet and urging Beijing to re-open discussions with the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

That of course opened a Pandora's box of speculation and thus began for the next month a huge domestic debate in the media as to "whether he would/should" or "whether he wouldn't/shouldn't" attend the opening ceremony.

Sarkozy didn't really help matters that much by staying silent and letting the rumours rumble along.

He remained tight-lipped in early April when his junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said in a newspaper interview that Sarkozy had set three indispensable "conditions" for Chinese authorities to meet before he would confirm his attendance.

Yade later backtracked, maintaining she had been misquoted. That led to (even more) speculation from some quarters that Sarkozy was playing a clever game of testing the political waters without actually getting his feet wet himself.

And then of course a few days later there was the disrupted passage of the Olympic flame through the streets of Paris, when demonstrators forced its journey to be cut short - right there in the glare of the world's media. Not a peep was heard from Sarkozy's office at the Elysée palace.

It wasn't until forced by circumstances that later the same week Sarkozy finally broke his silence and officially linked his presence at the opening ceremony with the resumption of talks between Chinese authorities and the representatives of the Dalai Lama.

He had moved on from March's "all options are open" approach to something resembling more of an ultimatum.

"France will do everything to encourage such talks," he said. " There are still several months to go (before the opening of the games) and there's no time to lose.'

"It'll be in light of the resumption of such a dialogue that I'll decide what will be the conditions for our participation."

That re-opening of a dialogue has been promised, so Sarkozy is - as far as he's concerned - off the hook.

Part of the problem in all of Sarkozy's manoeuvrings of course has been not so much what's at stake politically or diplomatically, but most importantly economically.

And that has brought with it into question the far wider issue of what constitutes French foreign policy and whether it's based on principles or pragmatism.

Sarkozy came to office assuring the former, but so far has shown himself only credible in delivering on the latter.

His election promise was to make respect for human rights the focal point of this country's foreign policy. But instead there has been a string of billion Euro deals done with trading partners no matter how questionable their human rights records might be; countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and of course the biggest one of all......China.

On a visit there last November Sarkozy clinched contracts worth €20 billion to French industry and he doesn't want to do anything to endanger those deals.

It also leaves his foreign minister - yes there is one in the shape of the much respected humanitarian and hugely popular Bernard Kouchner (who incidentally has found himself rather at odds with his track record as a man who has always been a firm supporter of Tibetan rights and counts himself as a friend of the Dalai Lama) in rather a weak and unenviable position.

French foreign policy has long been established as the domain of the president. And (for once) Sarkozy has stuck with tradition, proving himself to be the country's greatest salesman along the way.

Of course the story is far from being finished. There's still the thorny issue over whether Sarkozy will meet the Dalai Lama who is due to visit France between August 12 and 23.

What might have been all right for US president, George W. Bush - who will be at the opening ceremony, or for Germany's Angela Merkel - who won't, might just prove unacceptable as far as China is concerned, should Sarkozy decide to follow both leaders' example and greet the Dalai Lama officially.

There have already been less than veiled warnings of "serious consequences" from the Chinese embassy in Paris, which will doubtless require some interesting diplomatic tip-toeing à la française over the next couple of weeks to get around that particular conundrum.

For the moment though, Sarkozy is all set to take his place in Beijing among the invited dignitaries on August 8 wearing both his French presidential hat and that as the representative of the 27- nation European Union, of which France currently holds the six-month rotating presidency.

Whoever said that sport and politics don't mix? They seem a perfect combination almost made for each other.

Paris delivers blow to French Olympic charm offensive

The Dalai Lama has been made an honorary citizen of Paris.

On Monday the city’s council passed a resolution made be the mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, to bestow the symbolic title on the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet.

The timing couldn’t have been more pertinent or sensitive. It came just hours after the arrival in China of the first of three emissaries to be sent this week by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

He’s going all out - short of getting on a ‘plane himself – in a full blown diplomatic charm offensive to try to ease tensions after several days of anti-French protests in town and cities across China.

That job may well have been made a little more difficult by the decision back in Paris, which Delanoë - a leading candidate to win the race to become the national leader of the opposition Socialist party later this year – said showed support for the people of Tibet and their struggles.

Sarkozy’s centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party is in the minority in the French capital and had opposed the adoption of the resolution.

In a double whammy, unlikely to have been welcomed by Sarkozy, his emissaries or more importantly the government in Beijing, Paris councillors also bestowed honorary citizenship on the dissident Chinese political activist Hu Jia. Earlier this month Chinese authorities sentenced him to three years imprisonment for inciting subversion of the state.

Hours before the vote in Paris, the first of Sarkozy’s three emissaries had arrived in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

Christian Poncelet, the president of the French Senate, was in the city to deliver a personal letter from Sarkozy to the wheelchair-bound athlete, Jin Jing.

She has become a powerful symbol of anti-French sentiment in China ever since pictures were transmitted of pro-Tibetan protesters trying to grab the Olympic torch from her during her leg of the now infamous relay in Paris.

In the letter Sarkozy said he condemned the attacks that had been made on Jin Jing as she tried to protect the torch and understood why the Chinese felt hurt by the incident.

Later this week both former French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, and Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic advisor, Jean-David Levitte, are due to arrive separately to continue the Gallic charm assault.

The president himself still hasn’t made the one gesture that would surely take the steam out of any of the “spontaneous” anti-French demonstrations, neither officially sanctioned nor condemned by Beijing. Namely making up his mind to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics games in August without setting any conditions for Beijing to reopen talks with the Dalai Lama.

That of course would require a certain loss of face as far as the French president is concerned, All he has said on the matter so far is that France would do everything to encourage talks, and that he would make a decision on what conditions he might attach to his attendance based “in light of the resumption of such a dialogue.”

Those words don’t seem to have worked their magic so far and given Sarkozy’s unwillingness to make a decision one way or the other, he is perhaps only succeeding in making a diplomatic spat even more complicated to resolve.

Sticking plaster to heal Olympic row

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is to send not one, but two emissaries to Beijing this week in an attempt to heal the growing diplomatic squabble between China and France.

After the recent apparently non-orchestrated spontaneous anti-Western, and in particular anti-French demonstrations in China, Sarkozy seems to have decided that it’s time to bring a little calm into play.

Those demonstrations were against allegedly biased Western media coverage of the Chinese security clampdown in Tibet and in particular at the protests that took place in Paris at the beginning of this month as the Olympic torch made its way through the streets of the French capital.

Sarkozy has chosen a contrasting couple to do this country’s bidding in what for him is a somewhat unaccustomed mild-mannered counter attack.

Next weekend he’s sending his diplomatic advisor, Jean-David Levitte, to sweet talk the Chinese authorities. No great surprise on that front perhaps as Levitte is clearly the right man for the job. He’s a former French ambassador to the United Sates and a recognised “Sherpa” or personal representative of Sarkozy, responsible for preparing the president’s participation at international summits.

The other emissary however is something of a surprise. It’s the former prime minister and current vice president of Sarkozy’s ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who will be arriving in China on Wednesday.

On first sight that decision isn’t so extraordinary, after all the two men belong to the same party and were in government together under Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

But Raffarin, while not exactly condemning the current president over the past year, has not held back in his criticism of Sarkozy’s personal style and some of his policies.

What’s more, Raffirin will also be delivering a letter from Chirac, apologising for his being unable to make a planned trip to China himself on medical grounds.

That should go down well with the authorities in Beijing, as Chirac remains immensely popular there. And it might bring an amused smile to the face of many commentators here in France who know how little love is lost between the former and present French presidents.

Further proof, if it were needed, of how canny a political operator the present incumbent can be when it suits him.

In fact the whole business of sending emissaries to China is something of an interesting departure for Sarkozy. If this had all happened a couple of months ago when he was still in his supersonic omnipresent presidential phase, he would more than likely have boarded the first Beijing-bound plane himself to try to sort out the problem.

This then is perhaps more evidence that the newly presidential Sarkozy is calmer, more measured and statesmanlike and actually allowing others to do the jobs for which he wasn’t elected.

Olympic war of words heats up

The French supermarket giant, Carrefour, once again found itself at the centre of anti-West protests as demonstrations took place in towns and cities across China at the weekend.

But the chain wasn’t the only specifically French target. There were also rallies outside the country’s embassy in Beijing and the French Lycée.

There are signs however that the Chinese government wants to put a brake on events getting out of hand by urging its citizens to express their “patriotism with calm and responsibility.”

Meanwhile on Saturday there was also a pro-Chinese rally in Paris, as well as several other major cities around the world, calling for solidarity with China and the Olympics.

While the protests were against apparent bias in recent Western media coverage of Beijing’s security clampdown in Tibet, the French seem to have been singled out over and above other countries - particularly in China itself.

The Chinese government while not overtly encouraging displays of nationalism hasn’t exactly been forthcoming in playing down the tensions. It didn’t try to intervene in a citizen-led Internet campaign to boycott Carrefour, and has allowed state media to carry stories and pictures giving the impression that Western coverage of China’s dealings in Tibet and Darfur has been totally one-sided.

At the heart of the matter are of course the upcoming Olympic games and China’s appalling human rights record.

Beijing was far from amused by the events that took place in Paris earlier this month as the Olympic torch made its way through the streets of the French capital. Protesters demonstrating against China’s policy in Tibet and its refusal to reopen talks with the Dalai Lama forced the organisers to cut short the route of the torch, turning the whole thing into a public relations fiasco.

While the anger is certainly not just confined to anti-French sentiment, this country is a relatively easy target -– and an important one.

To begin with it is sensitive to the number of billion-Euro contracts lined up with China for some of its major industrial groups including Airbus, Alstom and Areva. Paris won’t want to cause a diplomatic storm. And the Chinese authorities know just how vital those deals are to France.

Carrefour – France's largest supermarket chain - itself has already invested heavily in China and potentially has a lot to lose, making it a relatively easy and “soft” target. It has more than 120 hypermarkets and 280 discount stores throughout the country.

On the purely political front, France is likely to be a big player immediately before the games start in August. And that of course matters to the hosts of this year’s Olympics.

France takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union in July. Any decision its president, Nicolas Sarkozy, might take about whether to attend the opening ceremony in Beijing could hold sway with leaders from the other 26 countries. And that’ll be especially true if – for once – they prove able to present a united front on an international issue. They’re not renowned for it.

Sarkozy’s popularity ratings are currently low in the domestic polls even after almost a month out of the celebrity headlines. And he’ll be eager to give his office a boost in July, by which time he will have been in power for just over a year.

Turning his attention to the leadership of Europe might just do that for him.

One thing’s for sure though. Anyone who had hoped that talk of an Olympic boycott in whatever form it might take, would simply fade into the background the nearer the games approached, would be sadly mistaken.

For the moment all eyes are on how far Beijing is willing to allow protests to escalate – just enough to “concern” the French even more probably. Meanwhile, many will be hoping that Sarkozy finally makes known his decision as to whether he’s going to turn up for the opening ceremony – one way or the other.

Olympic boycott squabble escalates

A threat against French business interests in China is gathering steam after the launch of a campaign to boycott the supermarket chain, Carrefour.

In a message circulating on mobile 'phones and the Internet, the company has been accused of providing financial backing to the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama.

Carrefour has denied the rumours as "false accusations" and has stressed that it has always supported Beijing's candidature for this summer's Olympic games.

Although the campaign doesn't have official backing, China’s government hasn’t exactly condemned it either.

On Tuesday Jiang Lu, a spokeswoman from the foreign affairs ministry, said France should pay attention to how Chinese citizens felt.

"We hope France will listen carefully to the voice of the Chinese people on a number of recent problems and take an objective and impartial position, respecting the facts and distinguishing between right and wrong, as have a number of countries that understand and support the measures taken by the Chinese government," she said.

"Friendship requires an effort from both sides," she added. "The people can express their opinions if they respect the law, and recently they've been doing just that. It all has a reason,"

For its part, the French foreign ministry has downplayed the threats saying the call for a boycott of French goods wouldn't have an effect on economic relations between the two countries.

Recent events though won't really have helped those relations, at least not as far as Beijing is concerned.

First there was the attempt to disrupt the ceremony in March to light the torch in Greece at the site of Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient games.

That protest over China's human rights record was orchestrated by members of the Paris-based Reporters sans frontières (Reporters without borders) and its outspoken general secretary, Robert Ménard. He quickly found himself on a 'plane back to France, while the Chinese, broadcasting events back home with a slight delay, hastily slotted in some still shots of ancient ruins to avoid exposing the domestic audience to the edited "live" kafuffle.

Then there were demonstrations in Paris as the torch made its way through the streets of the French capital. Once again human rights, China's security clampdown on Tibetan monks and its refusal to reopen talks with the Dalai Lama, were at the heart of the protests.

And matters have certainly not been helped by the refusal of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to rule out a boycott of the opening ceremony. His policy of "it's too early to take a decision" was made even more confusing by claims and later denials that he had set reopening of talks with the Dalai Lama as a condition for his attendance.

Anti-French sentiment has also been stoked up by the domestic media in China with pictures of pro-Tibetan protesters trying to grab the torch from a disabled Chinese athlete during the Paris relay juxtaposed with a reminder of how good Franco-Sino relations were under the former French president, Jacques Chirac.

Carrefour is not the only French company that has been targeted by Chinese Internauts, but with more than 120 hypermarkets and 280 discount stores throughout the country, it certainly has potentially the most to lose.

Other French companies coming under threat from similar campaigns include luxury goods firm LVMH and cosmetics giant L’Oréal.

The great and the good might insist that sport and politics shouldn’t be mixed as they take the moral highroad, but that's going to require a hard sell to convince the French business community and appease what appears to be a growing portion of the Chinese public.

For a better world

Apparently sport is not the right arena in which to express concern for human rights according to the French national Olympic committee (CNOSF). Its president, Henri Sérandour, has banned this country's athletes from wearing a badge with the slogan "Pour un monde meilleur" (For a better world) during this summer's games in Beijing.

Sérandour, told L'Equipe television that such a move would contravene the Olympic charter, which he said, "Precluded any tangible demonstration of any kind during (Olympic) competition and the opening and closing ceremonies."

It's a sad reversal of a statement made by the same man just a couple of weeks ago after French athletes decided to adopt the badge, which depicts the slogan above the five Olympic rings.

Back then Sérandour said he would fight for the sentiment for a "better world" not only within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but also "as a message for the 2008 games and beyond."

But he now seems to have caved in to pressure and changed his opinion to fall in line with that of the IOC, which has assured Chinese authorities that although athletes are free to express their personal views in public, they won't be allowed to under the aegis of the games.

While Sérandour's decision might be binding on French athletes, it's far from receiving universal support from others who have spoken out about the need to separate sport from politics.

France's junior sports minister, and former national rugby coach, Bernard Laporte, called the move regrettable and said he didn't find the badge at all aggressive in its declaration.

"It doesn't attack China and on the contrary it borrows from the declared objectives of the IOC itself,' he said in a radio interview.

The badge was a compromise as originally the organisation representing France's Olympic athletes had proposed wearing a green ribbon in support of human rights. But that was considered too overtly "political" by the CNOSF and scrapped.

Some might see an interesting difference of priorities at play here. The preamble to the United Nations charter guarantees the right to freedom of expression, as does European and French law.

But a private money-making organisation such as the IOC has a different set of rules and principles, in which the logos of sports equipment manufacturers who help finance the games clearly carry more weight than an expression of support for human rights even in the mildest of forms.

So on the one hand while the Chinese will be allowed to pursue a largely propaganda-inspired ceremony having greatly ignored international wishes for reopening a dialogue with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and improving their human rights records, freedom of expression won't be extended to individual athletes.

Sérandour's decision means that French athletes will in effect be forced to toe the IOC line that rejects political, religious or racial propaganda.

France's part, and in particular that of its sportsmen and women, in this whole masquerade is probably far from over even if the country's political leaders have been more than diffident in deciding whether to attend the opening ceremony.

Let's just hope that the gagging of athletes doesn't extend to any French gold medal winners who choose to belt out the national anthem, which includes a line to rise against tyranny.

Sarkozy's Olympic message

Up until now the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has remained pretty reticent about whether he's planning to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing in August. But on Tuesday, he finally broke his silence and tentatively called on the Chinese authorities to reopen discussions with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

"France will do everything to encourage such talks," he said. " There are still several months to go (before the opening of the games) and there's no time to lose.'

"It'll be in light of the resumption of such a dialogue that I'll decide what will be the conditions for our participation."

By explicitly linking his presence at the ceremony with the reopening of talks, Sarkozy has moved on from the only statement he had made on the matter so far a couple of weeks ago, when he said that "all options were open."

That's a slight change in rhetoric perhaps, but not exactly encouraging to those who have been urging a boycott in protest over China's security clampdown in Tibet.

Sarkozy remained silent over the weekend as his junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said in a newspaper interview that the president had set three indispensable "conditions" for Chinese authorities to meet before he would confirm his attendance. Yade later backtracked, maintaining she had been misquoted.

And there was not a peep from his office at the Elysée palace on Monday after demonstrators cut short the journey of the Olympic flame as it chaotically passed through the streets of Paris.

Commenting for the first time on those protests, Sarkozy said that although the sight of the athletes and the torch being whistled and jeered had saddened him, it was normal in a democracy that people should be allowed to express their opinions. The solidarity shown with the Dalai Lama and Tibet was understandable, and that was proof, as far as he was concerned, to call on China to reopen discussions with the Dalai Lama to "find a political solution."

While Sarkozy played down the impact Monday's demonstrations might have diplomatically and above all economically on relations between Paris and Beijing, his sentiments were not necessarily being shared elsewhere.

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said the protests had made diplomatic relations between the two countries a little more complicated. A somewhat extraordinary declaration for some of Kouchner's critics, who view it as rather at odds with his track record as a man who has always been a firm supporter of Tibetan rights and counts himself as a friend of the Dalai Lama. Besides, who ever said diplomacy was easy?

There was also some anxiety from within the business community over potential fallout from Monday's incidents. French industrial giants such as Airbus, Alstom and Areva all have billion-euro contracts lined up with the Chinese, but know that Beijing can always take its custom elsewhere.

Sarkozy has given himself some breathing space, upped the ante just a tad and, without promising anything, not excluded the possibility of boycotting the opening ceremony.

A minister’s word

How satisfying it must be to sit back and watch members of government apparently trip over their tongues. It’s all the better when you’re trying to stay out of the limelight a little in an effort to revamp your image and improve your popularity ratings.

That might be the cynic’s interpretation of what has been happening here in France over the weekend, and what the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been doing. But it might not be too far off the mark.

First there was the interview the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, gave the French national daily, Le Monde, on Saturday. In it, she’s quoted as saying that Sarkozy had set out three conditions which the Chinese authorities had to meet for him to attend the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing.

They had to open talks with the Dalai Lama, free political prisoners, and put an end to the violence against Tibetans and launch an investigation into recent clashes there. These conditions were “indispensable” she told the newspaper.

Then Yade backtracked on what she is reported to have said, claiming she was misquoted and insisting the word “conditions” was never used.

But the paper is sticking to its story and maintains that it accurately reported what was said. So it’s the word of the junior minister against that of one of the most respected newspapers internationally. That could be a tough call especially as neither politicians nor journalists are blessed with the best reputation in the world.

Although it’s hard to imagine that Yade spoke (or didn’t) without the full knowledge of her boss, let’s not forget that she has been in trouble before. When she criticised Libya’s human rights record during a visit to France last year by that country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, she was hauled in to answer to Sarkozy, but held on to her job.

During his short term in office, Sarkozy has been criticised for putting economic concerns and billion euro contracts ahead of human rights, both with China and Libya. In “allowing” Yade to speak out and then do an apparent volte face, Sarkozy manages to give the impression that he is indeed concerned with humans rights without actually having to make a statement himself. In a sense Yade plays the role of a spokesperson, saying and retracting without damaging Sarkozy’s image.

There has been no comment from the president’s official spokesman at the Elysée palace regarding Yade’s interview – a fact that for many speaks volumes.

But Yade’s immediate boss – the foreign minister and internationally respected humanitarian, Bernard Kouchner, was quick to react. He insisted that France would impose no conditions on China about whether Sarkozy would attend the opening ceremony, as that would be counterproductive to keeping a dialogue going over human rights.

“The president will decide according to how the situation (in Tibet) turns out,” Kouchner told French television. “ How that evolves must be followed but all possibilities remain open.”

The chances are this story will still be making the headlines on Monday when the Olympic flame is due to pass through Paris. It’ll be interesting to see whether Yade joins protesters in the streets of the French capital, or whether she feels she has said more than enough for the moment.