Vive La France

Oh dear, I reckon Australians won't like this one bit:

PETER CAVE: Within 10 days of arriving in Australia, the new French Ambassador says the invasion of Iraq is to blame for breeding terrorism around the world.

His Excellency Francois Descoueyte stopped short of saying "I told you so," but he does say that France has been vindicated in opposing foreign intervention.

In his first English-language interview since arriving in Australia, he told Josie Taylor that democracy can't be achieved in Iraq while foreign troops remain there.

FRANCOIS DESCOUEYTE: In the case of Iraq I think we stick to our analysis, but it was not proper to attack Iraq without international authorisation by the UN.

Frankly speaking, we would have liked to be wrong, and we would have liked promises that Iraq was going to be turned into a peaceful democracy quickly. We would like this to be true, but unfortunately we have been right.

I say unfortunately because now you know, France is much closer to Iraq than say Australia or the US and we see now terrorism being rather bred than starved by this action.

So we are worried and we are not at all… we don't brag that we were right. We are quite worried that we were right. (from the ABC's AM Programme)

Australians didn't rename their chips "Freedom Fries" like the unspeakable Americans did, but still: the pro-war, gung-ho, let's kill them dirty Ayrabs faction back in 2003 was amazingly vocal, strong and, needless to say, totally unblemished by any kind of direct experience or knowledge of terrorism whatsoever. It wasn't much fun being a European in Australia back then.

Unsurprisingly, you hardly hear anything from them on the topic of Iraq these days. As usual.

As Monsieur Descoueyte surely knows: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.