I'm near literally rolling on the floor in laughter and amusement at this. Poor Frenchies. I'd think that by now the French would be used to losing. It's pretty well engrained in their make-up (or so it seems), but apparently they are more than a little "miffed" at the loss of the Olympics to their bitter rivals the Brits.
The only thing that might have made this better would have been if the Olympics had come to NYC instead. I have to imagine that really would have cheesed off the French, but then that's just a guess.
From FoxSports.com, headline is linked. (Apparently originally from Associated Press).
Paris mayor says Blair, Coe 'crossed line'
Associated Press
PARIS (AP) - Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, leader of the failed bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, on Monday accused British authorities of breaking IOC rules to clinch victory for London.
However, French IOC member Jean-Claude Killy said the Paris bid was weakened from the inside and he was "sickened" by the after-the-fact complaints from his countrymen.
Killy pointed to the last-minute loss of Foreign Minister Michel Barnier - who long worked with the Olympics but was replaced in a June government change.
And he made a veiled suggestion that remarks in 2003 by President Jacques Chirac, who criticized eastern European nations over their support of the United States in its war in Iraq, cost Paris votes of the members from those countries.
The IOC last Wednesday chose London over Paris - considered the favorite - and Delanoe said British Prime Minister Tony Blair and London bid leader Sebastian Coe breached a "formal ban on criticizing other candidates."
"They crossed the yellow line with respect to the IOC rules," Delanoe told France-Info radio on Monday after a meeting of the Paris city council. "Both Mr. Blair and Mr. Coe crossed the line."
Delanoe, a socialist, was criticized by the conservative party's Claude Goasguen for not explaining his accusations.
"If the English cheated, you have to say how," Goasguen told France-3 television. "It's not at all appropriate to vaguely say that the English had an attitude that doesn't fit with the Olympic ideal."
On Saturday, IOC president Jacques Rogge said none of the cities broke rules designed to stamp out corruption in the bidding process even if "sometimes they were close to the limits." He sought to end to criticism of Blair's involvement in the London bid.
Paris bidders were angry that Blair reportedly met with IOC members in his hotel room in Singapore and made veiled suggestions that the British prime minister's lobbying tactics crossed the line of correct behavior.
... more at linked article
Man, just what my summer needed: a good soap opera with lots of tears.
Seriously, reading through the article snippet again, it makes me crack up. The French are just certain that they were cheated out of this honor. Heh!
Even better is that this whining and carping starts, what??, about 2 days after the bombs in London? Soon after the G8 summit finishes. Yup, held back the whines for just a few days. Must be a new French record.
Apologies to the respectable Frenchmen and Frenchwomen out there. Really, I know you can't help the leaders you have (or perhaps you can, but haven't been able to because too many countrymen and countrywomen are voting for these idiots), but I must say that for all the snickers that George W. Bush supposedly brings on the world stage, he seems to have nothing on the French leadership.
I will say that if the Paris loss of the 2012 Olympics was because of a backlash over the "other" European nations support of the U.S. war in Iraq and French bad-mouthing of same, then double HA! back at Jacques Chirac and friends.
Note though that following is almost priceless:
Killy, a World Cup, world and Olympic ski champion, said Paris shouldn't "look for pitiful excuses."
"Imagine trying to obtain today the votes of the east. It's really not easy," he said in an implicit reference to Chirac's criticism of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for supporting Washington in 2003 ahead of the invasion of Iraq.
Chirac said it was "not very responsible" or "well bred" of them to do so, adding that "I think they missed a good chance to shut up."
Such a fun article to read. It almost makes up for the generally slow news cycle.
