Jacques Chirac, in his apparently never-ending search for more ways to demonstrate French stupidity and irrelevance, gets up and walks out of an EU symposium because the presenter, a fellow Frenchman, chose to deliver in English. Chirac interrupted the speaker, one Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the leader of the European business lobby UNICE, to demand why he was speaking English (all EU events are translated into all 20 official EU languages). Msr. Seilliere responded, "I’m going to speak in English because that is the language of business."With that, Chirac, followed by 3 of his toadies, marched out of the room, leaving 24 other EU ministers "stunned". But that's not the best part. The official French explanation was that all 4 Frenchmen had to urinate, or whatever, simultaneously.
Charles Bremner calls the rejection of English "a comic crusade" and says that the incident, "could be read as a fine example of France's Quixotic battle against reality," and, "it said more about the way that Chirac and the governing classes are out of touch with much of their own the country."
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TAGS: Jacques Chirac, France, irrelevant
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