NELSON ASCHER sends this link to an article in The Guardian by Le Monde‘s correspondent there, and adds these observations:

This article by Le Monde’s correspondent in England is absolutely marvellous. First, the guy isn’t speaking as a journalist, but as a spokesperson for the government, and this is even stranger as, officially at least, Le Monde is a leftist paper while Chirac’s a rightist. You can see that he cannot make a single criticism of his own government, not even for the sake of looking a bit more balanced or objective. Then there is the arrogance that is so much more evident because he’s absolutely unable to see it himself. He is using with Blair the same tone Chirac has used with the East Europeans. It seems that right now every Frenchman is himself a Chirac, and any other country, even more powerfull ones, is just one small insignificant vassal. And right in the middle of all this arrogance what does he say? That his country’s doing what it’s doing because it is afraid of its own Muslims!!!! Wait: weren’t they the brave ones who were able to challenge the “hyperpower”? And according to him it’s Tony Blair who has reached the depths of despair. And then he confesses that there’s indeed a crisis in his own dear Europe. And so on…

One seldom sees such a childish and transparent display of wounded pride in what’s supposed to be a grown-up profession.

Indeed.