FRENCH CANDIDATE ROYAL IN BEIRUT ON RISKY ME TOUR

November 30, 2006 (JPost/AP) - Segolene Royal took her campaign to become France's first female president into the tumultuous Lebanese capital Thursday, launching a Middle East trip seen as a test of her foreign policy savvy.

And it didn't take long for the savvy to show.

FRANCE'S ROYAL CORRECTS GAFFE ON U.S. POLICY

BEIRUT December 1, 2006 (Reuters) - Royal, who swept to victory in a Socialist party primary vote last month but has been slammed by critics as a lightweight, is touring the Middle East in a bid too boost her foreign policy credentials.

At a meeting between Royal and the foreign policy committee of Lebanon's lower house of parliament, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar denounced the "unlimited insanity of the American administration" in a long statement through an interpreter. Royal, who is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, said she understood his position.

"There are a lot of things you have said that I agree with, (including) the analysis of the role of the United States," Royal told the meeting, which was open to the media.

At the end of the event, however, she amended her comments.

"I am told that what I said earlier could cause confusion, so I will specify the meaning of my thoughts concerning what I said about the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq. I would not want it to be taken for an overall condemnation of the United States' acts," she said.

"One must not confuse this assessment of things with an overall condemnation of the United States, which is a country of which France is also a friend [sic] and with which we have many points in common. I wanted that to be clear," she added.

Oh, thanks for clearing that up, Ségo. It is often difficult to see through the inflammatory rhetoric to the nuanced and thoughful position occluded therein.

Mlle. Royal has convinced us she is at least as savvy as M. Douste-Blazy* on Hizballah and the situation in the Middle East. We already know her to be as nuanced as Jack himself on America. So if Mlle. Royal ascends to the Élysée next April, we look forward to more of the same measured French policy -- and the entertaining clarifications.

Why, it will be as if Jack never left us.

* The dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™.

PFFT (What is this?): What-I-meant-to-say savvy (Douste-Blazy scale) 4 | Real world policy savvy 0 | Rayonnement français 0