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September 17, 2005

Satire from the Financial Times

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The Financial Times, whose credentials as a comedy site are limited, publishes a satire today at the expense of France and the foppish Dominique de Villepin, its new Prime Minister. In the guise of a speech by to the people of Europe, outlining his alternative vision for Europe. It serves as a guide to French anti—Anglosphericism. The FT requires a subscription, so here are some excerpts within the fair use limit.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson   6 30 05

At times like this mere words are not enough. Only bloated rhetoric will suffice....

On Jacques Chirac: Even our No vote was simply a demand for him to be even more assertive. In seeming to spurn him, his grateful people were in fact hugging him even closer to their breasts.

The threat from the outside world has never been greater. We face the forces of globalisation. They're everywhere, really; all over the globe....

Only collective action and state aid will make the EU Airbus fly. Only by ignoring referendums can we save our democracy. Only by shutting out the rampaging hordes of Chinese textile workers brandishing cheap T—shirts, linens and sundry affordable consumer goods can we secure growth. We must stop them staying over there and taking our jobs. As the old civil defence slogan ran: we must Protect and Survive....

We have created the euro and done what we can to destabilise it. Now we must do the same for the European Central Bank

...the Common Agricultural Policy which safeguards our food supply by holding down the cost of exporting it.

If we build up our own defence capacity we will have something we can fail to use.

Europe is a testing ground for new political and economic ideas. So let Europe speak out; except for Britain—region> and its eastern European lackeys, which should shut up.