Chirac's New Attack - The Sequel ...

So the crazy old French cockerel still can't resist cackling at his own corny jokes, eh?

This week, the French president, Jacques Chirac has been taking another swipe at we Brits and our food. According to Jacques the lad, all the British ever serve is old warmed-up stews and similar stuff. Well, that's rich. He should merely take a look in a mirror if he want's see some really, old warmed-up stuff.

It seems to me that this mean old man's timing is as tasteless as his humour. During this week, of all weeks, he should have buttoned his lip and kept a very low profile. For it was this self same week, 20 years ago that another excrutiating excuse for a French president did the dirty on others. And I do mean dirty.

Remember Greenpeace? Remember their flagship, Rainbow Warrior? Remember it's innocent, environmentalist cum peace activist crewman who was murdered in cold blood? Remember one of Chirac's French presidential predecessors, named Mitterand?

Here's This Old Brit's blogger-memory-jogger

Felling of a Warrior.

Twenty years ago this week Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French agents in Auckland harbour. Paul Brown, who had sailed with the Greenpeace flagship just days earlier, recalls the worldwide shock at a callous act of state-sponsored terrorism - and asks why so many questions remain unanswered.

Does that toll any bells for thee, mon cher ami?

Or, does this?

The 11 crew had taken on Greenpeace's most ambitious campaign in its history, moving a contaminated people to a safe haven. The Americans, whose 1956 Bravo bomb had covered the people of Rongelap island in radiation, had removed all the population's thyroid glands to prevent cancer killing them and were using them as guinea pigs to see what further effect continued radiation had on their health.

An increasing proportion of children were being born deformed. The island's elders appealed to Greenpeace for help, and I had signed on as a deckhand for a month to report the evacuation for the Guardian.

Or perhaps this little snippet?

In the shock of the news of the sinking all these memories and thoughts swirled through my mind. My job was to write the story, the facts as known, but there were not too many of those. This was July 11 1985, before mobile phones. New Zealand was still a long way away. In Auckland it was the middle of the night and every telephone line to Greenpeace's New Zealand office was jammed.

Or, maybe this one does.

By September 22 the game was up. Prime Minister Laurent Fabius admitted that the French secret service had ordered the attack on the Rainbow Warrior and the French defence minister Charles Hernu, a close ally and friend of Mitterrand, resigned, accepting responsibility and saying the president was not involved. We know now that this was not the full truth either: a recent confession by the former head of the Secret Service claims that Mitterand did, in fact, sanction the attack after all.

Well, whether your name is Jacques or not, dear reader, you should certainly see the rest of the article I'm quoting from here. It was published today, in the Guardian. For the whole sordid story, simply click at the end of this piece.

Oh, but wait. Don't do anything just yet. I almost forgot to pass on some important advice I have for Jacques, regarding how best to avoid in the future, having his super-sensitive stomach turned.

Simply refuse to eat any of our awful, Brit food.

Instead, eat shit, Chirac.

( Gaurdian Rainbow Warrior link:)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1529039,00.html