State-owned news, state-honed views. [Hat tip: Hervé]

FRANCE TRIED TO BLAME U.K. FOR BOMBING
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LONDON November 28, 2005 (UPI/WT) — Newly declassified British documents show France tried to blame British intelligence for sinking the Greenpeace agency's ship [Mission SATANIC] in New Zealand 20 years ago.

Soon after the bombing in July 1985, French media reported the theory that Britain's foreign intelligence MI6 agency had sunk the Rainbow Warrior as the environmental group was protesting France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific, The Times of London reported. One Greenpeace member died in the sinking.

Malcolm Rifkind, then a Foreign Office minister, instructed British diplomats in Paris to urgently tell the French government to put a stop to this "campaign of misinformation."

To advance such a fantasy -- that the British for no good reason did M. Mitterand a friendly black ops turn -- is le mensonge à outrance, the topper to the whopper. Of course, at the time "the French government denounced the sabotage and strongly denied any involvement". An administrative inquiry was hurriedly empaneled and, to no one's surprise, "exonerated both the government and the DGSE**". If you come late to this specimen of deft French damage control, we have posted on it here.

French mendacity is legend, which speaks to its ineptness. If they had any competence at lying, they'd not be found out so readily. But what they lack in talent, they make up in impudence and out-sized absurdisms. Although a practioner of the Big Lie, France's reputation as a habitual big liar undercuts what Mr. Hitler called "a certain force of credibility".

But the point of a French lie is not to convincingly color or hide the facts. The French would be astonished to learn their fairy tales were believed. And frankly they couldn't care less. No, the point of the French lie is simply to strike a superior pose, usually with the index finger fully extended in the direction of someone less-than-French.

Facts? Trute? Oh, Monsieur, zee trute, she haves no panache. But my leetle feeb, ho-ho, zat iz zee, how you say, za bomb!

* Apologies to Mr. Disraeli by way of Mr. Twain.
** Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, France's external intelligence service responsible for counterespionage outside the borders of the national territory. Its motto is Partout où nécessité fait loi ("In every place where necessity makes law"). Part of the Ministère de la Défense, check out the informative DGSE Web page the ministry provides here.

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