Welcome to The Dance in France" here at Winds of Change.NET. As debate continues, I thought I'd set this post up as a container for current articles that seemed relevant.

Hitchens: Jacques Chirac - "The Rat That Roared"

Christopher Hitchens reminds us all why it's such a bad idea to be in his crosshairs. His argument is that France does stand for something, but Chirac is a corrupt pygmy who wouldn't recognize that if it bit him. It combines a solid perspective with searing lines like this:

"Here is a man who had to run for re-election last year in order to preserve his immunity from prosecution, on charges of corruption that were grave. Here is a man who helped Saddam Hussein build a nuclear reactor and who knew very well what he wanted it for. Here is a man at the head of France who is, in effect, openly for sale. He puts me in mind of the banker in Flaubert's "L'Education Sentimentale": a man so habituated to corruption that he would happily pay for the pleasure of selling himself."

See Charles Johnson's LGF for the full link.

The Daily Telegraph: All For One

Hitchens profile burned through Chirac like a laser. But this one in Britain's Daily Telegraph may provide more clarity:

Typically French, we might say - but there is nothing typical and only so much that is French about Chirac. "All his life," says Eric Zemmour, a Figaro journalist and author of a new presidential biography, "he has dreamed of being someone else."

Want to read the whole thing? (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Friedman: "Vote France Off The Island"

Tom Friedman may be the world's most inconsistent columnist when it comes to quality, but he's got a good one here.

" How the World of Order deals with the World of Disorder is the key question of the day. There is room for disagreement. There is no room for a lack of seriousness. And the whole French game on Iraq, spearheaded by its diplomacy-lite foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, lacks seriousness."

When even Tom Friedman is writing stuff like this, it's well on its way to becoming a widespread consensus. The part about replacing France with India on the Security Council was nice, and come to think of it, it also made sense. If you want to read the whole thing, here it is.