Official remembering.
LE PRÉSIDENT DE LA RÉPUBLIQUEParis, le 10 septembre 2006
Monsieur le Président, Cher George
Voici cinq ans, le terrorisme frappait New York et les États-Unis par des attentats d'une violence inouïe.
Tous les Français, révoltés, se sont alors portés par le cœur auprès des Américains dans l'épreuve et le monde entier, à l'ONU, s'est rassemblé aux côtés du peuple américain.
Ayant tenu à venir immédiatement témoigner de la solidarité de la France, je n'oublierai jamais le terrible spectacle de Ground Zero quelques jours plus tard, la tristesse poignante des New-Yorkais rendant un magnifique hommage spontané aux victimes, à Union Square, l'admirable courage du Maire, Rudolph Giuliani, la dignité, l'héroïsme, le sacrifice des sauveteurs, des policiers et des pompiers que Paris eut à cœur d'acclamer peu après sur les Champs-Élysées le 14 juillet. Notre rencontre à Washington le 18 septembre scella l'entente entre nos deux pays pour contrer le terrorisme.
En ces journées de triste commémoration, je souhaite vous exprimer l'amitié et la solidarité du peuple français avec le peuple américain. Ensemble, nous communions dans le souvenir des victimes, de leurs familles et de leurs proches. Ensemble, nous rendons hommage à toutes les victimes du terrorisme à travers le monde. Ensemble, nous poursuivons notre combat déterminé contre ce fléau que rien, jamais, ne peut justifier.
Je vous prie de bien vouloir agréer, Monsieur le Président, l'expression de ma très haute considération. et ma cordiale solidarité.
Jacques CHIRAC
Son Excellence,
M. George W. BUSH
Président des États-UnisItalics = handscript
Real memories.
9-11 REMEMBERED BY A FRENCH WRITER
I remember September 11, 2001. I had my mother on the telephone, and she asked me "Why, son, why did this happen?! …" with all the anguish in the world in her voice, and suddenly she started to cry uncontrollably when she saw a man and a woman jumping out of one of the burning towers hand-in-hand on television.But I especially remember September 12, 2001, when my colleagues scoffed at me during our coffee break, mocking my distress, decrying the "arrogance" of the Yankees and the "imperialism" of their boss, Bush. What is worse, it is that, although I can be labeled today as an artist or intellectual, at the time I wasn’t working in an artistic or intellectual milieu which are traditionally anti-capitalists and therefore anti-American.
No, I was working for the Paris police.
From top to bottom, I saw it for myself: on September 12, 2001, the overwhelming majority of the French didn’t shed a tear for what had just happened in New York.
Bertrand Latour, from the preface of the Vietnamese language edition of George Orwell’s 1984, published by Édition Underbahn.
We do not wish to think the worst of the French. And we do not mean to blow off Jack's gracious if oblique sentiments. But we are not sentimentalists. America was not much loved by France before 09.11. French sympathies after 09.11 were polite but shallow. And short-lived. We are not offended. It was America, not France, that was attacked. The French are not encumbered by our loss and we, in turn, are not in need of French tears to properly remember our dead.
We are not in the business of repairing French good opinion of America and Americans. One rude lesson of 09.11 is that French good opinion lulls America into weakness.
PFFT (What is this?): Nous sommes tous américains 1½ | Rayonnement français 0
We do not wish to think the worst of the French.
We are not in the business of repairing French good opinion of America and Americans.
Is this "tongue-in-cheek" humour or, as I suspect, is first-person- Damian becoming a bit more senile each month?
One rude lesson of 09.11 is that French good opinion lulls America into weakness.
... I'd say senile.
French sympathies after 09.11 were polite but shallow. And short-lived.
Two more French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan three weeks ago, we do not expect any sympathy from you either.
