The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.

The survey of six nations, carried out for the International Herald Tribune daily and France 24 TV station, said 44 percent of French people thought badly of themselves against 38 percent of U.S. respondents who had a negative view of the French.

I think we can work with this.

At a farewell meeting Tuesday with outgoing French leader Jacques Chirac, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the West Bank city of Ramallah would name a street after him.

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“The objective of this visit was to meet President Chirac and to thank this great man for all he has done for the Palestinian people,” Abbas told reporters after talks at the Elysee Palace.

 

Abbas said he told Chirac that Ramallah’s mayor had decided “to name of the one most important streets” in the city after Chirac. Chirac’s spokesman said the French leader appreciated that gesture of friendship.

A French court ruled Tuesday that an organization with far-right links can continue offering pork soup to the homeless, rejecting police complaints that the food distribution was racist.

Police banned the soup kitchen last month, arguing that the handouts discriminated against Jews and Muslims who do not eat pork on religious grounds.

The administrative court said the distribution was “clearly discriminatory,” but could not be stopped because the organizers offered to feed anyone who asked for help.

The mayor of Paris condemned the ruling and urged the police to appeal the ruling.

“Faced by this initiative which stinks of xenophobia, I want once again to express city hall’s desire to fight all forms of discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism,” mayor Bertrand Delanoe said in a statement.

The food handouts are organized by a nationalist group called Solidarity of the French (SDF). It says its “pig soup,” which uses pork fat for stock, is country fare much loved by French traditionalists.

Now that’s what I call soup Nazis.

And still on the topic of France and pork, I think that’s a pig with wings I see in the air…

An official report published recently by the French government says that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not bring an end to the threat of global terrorism.

The report, named “Internal Security vs. Terror Threats” is an official publication of the French government. The report says that “since Europe is closer and more accessible to the Middle East than the United States, it serves as an alternative to anyone seeking to attack the “distant enemy.” Europe contains a variety of appropriate targets, some of which are connected with the United States and with Israel, and a strike on one or more of these targets would draw huge international attention.”

In addition, the report says, Europe has a large population of Muslim immigrants which creates an area where there is direct contact with the conflict areas.

The report also says that “some of the conflicts in the Middle East are mentioned extensively in the rhetoric uttered by the Islamist terrorists. However, the resolution of these conflicts would have no effect on ending global terror, which is functionally disconnected from these conflicts.”

Sources in Israel have attributed great importance to this report and the that it separates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with other conflicts in the Middle East such as the situation in Iraq, from the phenomenon of global terrorism. This distinction in the report is important, they say, mainly because there are many in Europe and around the world who believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the root of global terrorism, and once that conflict is resolved, global terror will end.

An overweight passenger has sued Air France after being told he was too fat and had to pay for a second seat to accommodate his bulk.

Jean-Jacques Jauffret, a French scriptwriter, told Reuters on Wednesday he had felt humiliated by Air France staff who had measured his waist in public at New Dehli airport in 2005 and decided he was too big for a single seat.

A lawyer representing Air France told a court on Tuesday the company had a clear policy of asking obese passengers to pay for two seats.

“Let’s be objective. This man is fat,” lawyer Fernand Gamault told the court in Bobigny, according to Le Parisien newspaper. “He barely fits on the courtroom chair. How could he sit in an airplane?”

Objection! Insulting the plaintiff, your Honor.

In other French-related news:

The French are getting testy.

French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.

 

Wednesday, several days after meeting with an IDF general in Paris to discuss what he said was a “blatant violation of the cease-fire.”

 

Last weekend, Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, head of the IDF Planning Directorate, traveled to Paris and met with military officials to explain why the IAF flies over Lebanon despite the UN-brokered cease-fire.

 

Nehushtan, new to his post and previously deputy commander of the air force, told his French counterparts that Israel was conducting the flights to collect intelligence on Hizbullah positions in southern Lebanon.

 

According to the French officer, Nehushtan apologized for an incident on October 31 when an IAF fighter carried out a mock bombing run over a French UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon, almost prompting troops to fire anti-aircraft missiles.

 

“There was a reality on the ground and it was important for us to reaffirm what we had seen and explain clearly what are the orders of the French soldiers to protect themselves,” the French officer said.

 

The French told Nehushtan they would view further aggressive flyovers as a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

 

“No assurances were made to us that they [the IAF] would stop [the flights],” the French officer said. “The orders that the [French] soldiers have is that their weapons are for self-defense and if a commander will feel threatened, as it was about to happen on the 31st of October, he would have the right to use force.”

 

Milos Strugar, spokesman for UNIFIL, supported the French position, saying that according to the UN resolution, UNIFIL had the right to use force in self-defense, even against Israeli aircraft.

 

“UNIFIL has the right to take all necessary action to protect UN personnel in self-defense,” he said.

Contrary to Israeli hopes that the new multinational force in Lebanon will engage and disarm Hizbullah, the beefed up UNIFIL will not immediately open fire on Hizbullah guerrillas if they are on their way to an attack or even in the midst of an attack on Israel, the commander of the UN peacekeeping force, Maj.-Gen. Alain Pellegrini, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday in an exclusive interview.

 

While the new rules of engagement set by the UN allowed the new UNIFIL force to open fire in order to implement resolution 1701, Pellegrini said he would not automatically order his troops to open fire on Hizbullah guerrillas if they were spotted on their way to the Blue Line to attack Israel. The job of the new multinational force, he said, was to assist the Lebanese army and not to disarm or engage Hizbullah or even to prevent its attacks.

Dear Dave,

France24 (http://www.france24.com), the new international information TV network, would like to invite you to Paris to join a select group of bloggers from around the world to discover the TV network before its official launch, the 6th of December 2006.

 

- You will have the chance to visit the studios and meet the team before anyone else and participate in a special TV show dedicated to blogging.
- Feel free to bring your camcorder or camera… This event will also be for you a unique opportunity to meet bloggers from all over the world!
- To make this happen, we would be delighted if you could join us in Paris for an eventful week-end (or longer upon request).

- In addition to discovering the studios, you will meet the channel’s directors and take part in a dinner with influential international bloggers.
 
Practical information:
- Place: Paris , France
- Dates: Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd, December 2006
- Program:
  – Saturday : Arrival at airport and transfer to your hotel 
    - 2pm ‚Äì 6pm>> Visit of the Studios & special TV show recording
    – 8pm >> Dinner (with several other renowned bloggers from France and abroad)
  – Sunday : Free time, then transfer to airport

 

- Plane tickets & booking, transfers, Saturday dinner and one (maximum two) hotel night(s) will of course be offered. If you wish to prolong your stay, we can also adapt the dates of your return tickets.

Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported.

“A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses,” Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Already this year, Japan’s embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors – including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them.

Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French ‘Sun King’, Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying.

“Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis,” psychologist Herve Benhamou told the paper.

The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed “Paris Syndrome”, was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said:

“In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them … People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling.”

And to think I got off lightly with a mild case of anti-French neurosis..

Foxman receives highest French honor

Let me guess..The Not Too Bad for a Jew award?

Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) received the French Legion of Honor from French President Jacques Chirac in a ceremony held at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday.
 
A statement released by the Anti Defamation league says that the award, the highest military and civilian honor given in France, “was given to Foxman for his lifelong service to combating anti-Semitism and prejudice, and for working to build bridges and understanding among nations and people.”

But the biggest joke – besides the words “French” and “honor” appearing in the same sentence – is Foxman’s response.

During his acceptance speech, Foxman thanked President Chirac and the French people for their “strength, moral courage and friendship to the Jewish state and people.”

Nice going, Abe. You just continue to kiss French tushie while targeting the real anti-Semites of the world.

Update: Here’s an example of the French showing their “strength, moral courage and friendship to the Jewish state and people”:

Commanders of the French contingent of the United Nations force in Lebanon have warned that they might have to open fire if Israel Air Force warplanes continue their overflights in Lebanon, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

They’re practicing their skills in observing and taking photos.

Tomorrow they begin honing their renowned skills in videotaping.