Quelle horreur ! Greedy globalizing yellow rag merchants assail France:

FRANCE DEMANDS EU BLOCK CHINESE TEXTILE SURGE
April 25, 2005

CHIRAC JOINS ATTACK ON CHINESE TEXTILE IMPORTS
April 26, 2005

French President Jacques Chirac called Tuesday for measures to control a flood of Chinese textile exports to the European Union and said the EU had to stand united in the face of globalization.

These Anglo-Saxon free-trade-yellow-mercenary-globalizers-run-amok are unsettling the delicate mercantile thuggery of the French producer model -- the French consumer be damned, thank you. Not that there is anything illegal or surprising about these Chinese textile exports.

The application of quantitative quotas on textiles was part of the 1974 Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) that was ultimately deemed by the WTO to be in violation of fair trade principles.

As a result, it was replaced in 1994 by a WTO agreement [The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC)] that established a 10-year transitional mechanism governing textile trade that expired last January 1.

Hhmmm, it looks like both France and China are members of the WTO. We imagine that's why Jack is shopping his demands around at the EU.

What are the Chinese doing invading France with cheap exotic fabrics? Shouldn't they be invading Taiwan instead? And what is a great big totalitarian government with a great big state army without the latest in French weaponry?

CHIRAC INSISTS EU LIFT CHINA ARMS BAN BY JUNE
March 23, 2005

FRANCE KEEN TO LIFT ARMS BAN, SAYS CHINA
April 2, 2005

FRANCE CONTINUES PUSH TO END CHINA ARMS BAN
April 21 , 2005

Oh, c'est dommage, not everyone shares France's vision of balanced trade:

EU REJECTS GERMAN, FRENCH CALLS TO END CHINA ARMS BAN
December 8, 2004

EU PUTS BRAKES ON PLANS TO LIFT CHINA ARMS SALES EMBARGO
April 15, 2005