Word: frenchness
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...have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war.' BERNARD KOUCHNER, French Foreign Minister, pressing for tougher sanctions against Iran's nuclear program. Kouchner has since accused the media of distorting his statement...
...There's no Belgian nation. There's no Belgian anything.' FILIP DEWINTER, leader of the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, on a plan to redivide Belgium into Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, the two regions that united to form the country in 1830. Polls show as many as 40% of Belgians support the plan...
That's left Northern Rock hanging. But while the bank may have been brazen to rely so heavily on the markets, as a solvent lender with a good quality loan book, the hit it has taken from the subprime mess was unexpected. While French, German and Dutch banks have come clean in recent weeks over their direct exposure to low-quality U.S. real estate loans, it was the barren money markets those loans helped create that upset Northern Rock's model...
...Critics of such tough talk point to Iraq as evidence that diplomatic swagger can lead policy astray. "We mustn't send the wrong signs to the Bush Administration; it doesn't need us to be encouraged towards war," sarcastically warned former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose impassioned anti-invasion speech at the United Nations in February 2003 gave wings to his political career before Sarkozy's ascent stymied it. "There are rules on how to use force," concurred Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which leads negotiations with Tehran. "I would hope that everybody would...
...tied up in Iraq with an unpopular war," explains François Heisbourg, special advisor to the Foundation for Strategic Studies in Paris. "Sarkozy and Kouchner are trying to tell them, 'Yes, it is. Believe it and fear it as much we do. Only you can prevent it.'" The French government's alarm directed not towards Tehran alone, but also towards Russia and China, whose support for tougher sanctions is viewed as vital in pressing Iran to renounce its program. But the message doesn't appear to have changed minds in Moscow, where Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov reiterated...