Fortunately the French establisment are now firmly esconced on the beaches down the road here and unable to read any newspapers or watch news programs on TV. That can be the only reason why they have all failed to criticise France Telecom for buying the Spanish mobile operator Amena. After all if yoghurt and backwardly naive water are vital to one country's culture and future surely the cell phone network is vital to another...
Sarcastic? Moi? Well perhaps un soupçon.
By the way we invited our French neighbours over for aperitifs a couple of days ago. Their views on Chirac, and indeed most of the political class in France are pretty much unprintable. In their opinion Sarko is the only one with a slight clue and their basic statement was that if Chirac somehow thwarts Sarko candidacy in the election then they will vote for Le Pen. Roughly translated they said "We tried the crook and it has been a catastrophe, so if we have the same choice again this time we'll vote the fascist"