This time, it’s personal

The week's news at a glance.

France vs. Britain

They nearly came to blows, said Stephen Castle and Andy McSmith in the London Independent. At their failed European Union summit last week, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair dropped all pretense, all diplomatic niceties, and actually said what they thought of each other. After negotiations over a budget for an expanded E.U. broke down, “50 years of European protocol was blown away” in just a few “explosive minutes.” Chirac, furious that Blair would not make any concessions on the U.K.’s share of the budget, let fly “one of the most furious verbal volleys in E.U. history.” Blair’s position, he spat, was “pathetic and tragic,” not to mention “selfish.” “Personally,” Chirac said, “I deplore the fact that Britain refused to pay a fair and reasonable share of the cost of enlargement.” A calmer, disdainful Blair dismissed France’s arguments as “bizarre.”

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