France - America praised on French TV

I kid you not! Here is a report on it. And, it is critical of the French government.

... that the French army should even now be unable to provide them with a few helicopters 15 days after the fact is surprising, especially given the public outcry that the tsunami provoked. It is as though France no longer has the means even to express its emotions.

But wait. It gets worse. 12 minutes and 57 or so seconds into the broadcast: on the strength of the preceding, and devastating, report, Pujadas then turns to conduct a live interview with Defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who is clearly being hauled onto the carpet. Pujadas does not begin by asking, Why have you humiliated us? Instead, he asks, "Does France still have the means to realize its ambitions, which are humanitarian in this case?"

Alliot-Marie, until recently a senior lecturer at the Sorbonne with degrees in law and ethnography, answers, "of course," but then engages in a wince-making attempt at damage control. "France is far from Indonesia," she says. "If there were many American helicopters on the scene, this is because the Americans were already there," she says.
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