Bush backers shun all things French

Friday February 28, 2003 16:38

by retaliate

We should retaliate and organise boycotts of all crap american products e.g. McDonalds etc etc would be one suggestion

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Ardent backers of U.S. policy on Iraq have rubbed the "French" out of French fries and turned a cold shoulder on German tourists. Florida politician Burt Aaronson is campaigning against all things French - even the all-American French fry, which he wants renamed the "freedom fry".

Others have risked their revenues to back U.S. President George W. Bush, and express their annoyance with France and Germany for opposing his hawkish stand on Iraq.

In Denmark, pizzeria owner Aage Jensen refuses to sell his pizzas to French and German tourists to protest against their governments' failure to back Bush.

"I'm following my conscience and conviction," said Jensen, 44, who owns a restaurant on the island of Fanoe. "If it had not been for the U.S., the world would look different today."

Jensen says he is risking more than a third of his revenues.

His stand would be applauded by representative Stephen Barrar who has asked the Pennsylvania state legislature to declare an official boycott of French wine.

"Since the mid-1960s, the French government has engaged in a persistent pattern of anti-American rhetoric and behaviour," says Barrar's resolution.

His proposed measures would prohibit the sale of French wine by 638 state-owned liquor stores, which hold a state monopoly.

In Florida's Palm Beach County, Commissioner Aaronson wants a non-binding council resolution calling for the "freedom fry" to replace the French fry. That, he believes, will expose French ingratitude for U.S. lives lost in World War Two.

"If it wasn't for the Americans, the French would be speaking German on the streets of Paris," Aaronson said.

Political rebranding is nothing new. During World War One, Americans renamed sauerkraut "Liberty Cabbage" and even came up with more patriotic names for diseases such as German measles.

FRENCH BITE BACK

But in France, some are calling for their own boycotts.

The deputy mayor of Pontoise, Pascal Bourdou, said 150 young athletes should shun a sports event in Scotland because of the British government's unflinching support for Bush.

Britain's Daily Mail quoted Bourdou as saying: "As a French citizen in solidarity with (President) Jacques Chirac's position I have the right to refuse to send 150 adolescents to a country resounding to the sound of marching boots."

Bourdou's boss issued a hasty disclaimer.

Chirac has accused Washington and London of rushing towards war and called for more time for U.N. weapons inspections to ensure the disarmament of Iraq.

A Paris councillor chose not to take sides but said both Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should be ridiculed in the name of peace.

Alain Riou, an organiser of this weekend's Paris carnival called for participants to wear masks of the two leaders, saying they symbolised vice, the theme of the procession.

"I invite all.. who love peace and are hostile to war as well as to dictatorship, to wear, in order to mock them, masks of Bush and Saddam Hussein as symbols of vice," Riou said.

Milan fashion week took its own stand for peace when ultra-popular duo Dolce & Gabbana paraded the ubiquitous rainbow striped peace flag on their catwalk and Italian designer Alexsandro Palombo fused Christianity and Islam in his clothes.

For the grand finale of the D&G fashion show, Britain's Naomi Campbell led the models out wearing rainbow coloured camisole tops printed with the word "Pace" (Peace) over PVC trousers or skirts in the same bright hues.

Later Palombo tried to merge the lives of the United States and the Middle East on the catwalk, parading evening dresses resembling priestly vestments twinned with an Arab keffiyeh headdress or jalabah coats printed with the face of Jesus.