Chirac flees summit in a fury over use of English

[Elok]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But he doesn't mind speaking Spanish if the crowd is Spanish/Hispanic.

Well, no. Spanish isn't his first language, so he has an excuse for not speaking it properly. He probably seems a lot less stupid to latino voters.

Speaking of "preserving" a language is absurd. Languages are like animals; if one stops moving and shifting around for too long, it's probably dead.

[Kidlicious]

I can understand they want to preserve their culture, but to do something this incredibly stupid at an international summit blows my mind.

I want to slap him upside the head, and lecture him about timing.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
@ Chirac

I think European nations giving up their languages and starting to use English is an unfortunate blow to the world's cultural diversity but it seems it is inevitably going to happen.

you're going to have to settle on 1 language for the EU, and it will either be English, French or German.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I am not dead yet

Think you'll go for a walk huh?

[Mercator]

Thumbs up to silly Chirac for making politics more interesting to watch.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Whoha
you're going to have to settle on 1 language for the EU, and it will either be English, French or German.

See, that's what I don't get. Are they still talking about the EU as though they want to unify it into a real political force? Right now they seem kind of like the U.S. was under the Articles of Confederation, just a loose-knit alliance. And I doubt they'll ever be more than that. They don't have the common identity to make it work, any more than the Iraqis do.

I've never been to Europe, but it's always been my impression that all Good Europeans smolder with repressed hatred for each other, a hatred which has not flared into war for the past fifty years only because of their common fear and loathing of America and the Soviet Union. They were once the jewel of the world's civilizations, and now they're just second fiddle to those fat, overbearing brutes across the pond. So they take turns clinging to their traditions, looking down on each other and the outside world, and trying to find out how they turned into such a joke without admitting any fault on their own part.

I think I remember somebody (Dave Barry?) once comparing Europe to a boarding house whose residents have been living together for way too long--but they can't move out. They hate their neighbors' habits, their smell, their way of speaking, everything. They know, on some level, that they've picked up each others' habits, but that just makes them even more grouchy. They've given up direct antagonism, which just makes it worse, but they're too tired and bitter to extend the olive branch for old grudges. So they just sit in their own rooms, act superficially friendly when socializing can't be avoided, and sulk.

Every once in a while, two of them bump into each other by chance, and are forced to make awkward conversation. They talk about work, their plans for the day, but eventually they run out of things to say. Neither can express his own deep loathing for his neighbor, or for himself, but for the sake of relief they tacitly agree to verbally abuse some third party, either within the boarding house or outside it. When they finally part, each returns to his room, puts on his headphones, cranks up his favorite CD, and relishes in putting down an exact mental catalogue of everything his "friend" just did that annoyed him...

[Dauphin]

That analysis seems wrong imho. Most of the 'hatred' has become a good humoured national past time of taking the piss out of your buddies, not a seething resentment.

[VetLegion]

What is the deal with Finnish food anyway? Am I wrong or have Chirac and Berlusconi both been ridiculed it at some point?

[VetLegion]

Elok, what a weird and failed analysis

[TCO]

USA! USA!

[DRoseDARs]

Chirac on the overwhelming presence of English as the lingua franca on the Internet:

[Richelieu]

I DEMAND THIS THREAD BE TRANSLATED IMMEDIATELY!!!!

[TCO]

Cherchez la femme!

[Dis]

President Chirac, who recently denounced British food as the worst in the world after Finnish

the man is a genius

[civman2000]

Languages are like animals; if one stops moving and shifting around for too long, it's probably dead.

[Pekka]

What I find funny is when French start crying about Dubya. They should shut up and take care of their own problems first. Disrespecting everyone in the EU time after time, by the leaders that is, is unacceptable.