I've come to the conclusion that I don't "hate" the french people. I hate their president.
"I don't think that the British model is the model that we should envy or copy," he said, sitting in a private corner of the Élysée Palace's gardens. "If you take the major elements in society - health policy, the fight on poverty - we are clearly better off than the British."
When the two French interviewers pointed out that Britain's economic growth was faster than France's, and its jobless toll half that of France, the president promptly reeled off a list of statistics that appeared to have been prepared for this purpose.
Chirac, who only 10 days ago made snide remarks about the quality of British food, now cited France's higher birth rate and longevity. In France, he added, only 7 percent of children lived below the poverty line, compared with 17 percent in Britain, and 2.2 percent of gross domestic product is spent on scientific research, more than the 1.8 percent used for this purpose in Britain.
Chirac is an artist at the petty put down. Too bad his countries record doesn't speak well on much else.
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