Source: http://bcove.me/752h4euo
24 secs into this AFP clip, François Hollande is sporting a cocky attitude and displaying a smile fit for a toothpaste advert.
I suppose that it is because the French, who have just signed a contract with the ruler of Qatar, must have beaten somebody else to the game of selling their expensive war toys to undemocratic regimes. Of course, one wonders what concessions the French government made (Syria, Yemen, Iran or even something to do with home?) in exchange for the billions they will get for what they see as real wonders of French technology.
The industry of death (i.e. the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction) is one of the very few industries which the elites of the (formerly) industrialised West (USA, FR, UK, Italy, etc) have not offshored to the East, probably because it is one of the most lucrative and it generates huge kickbacks — so says Andrew Feinstein in his book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (http://www.theshadowworldbook.com/).
François Hollande, socialiste de mes deux ! Yes, I do feel that Hollande is a cheat – just like other so-called leftist heads of state, e.g. Clinton, Blair, Obama, etc.
PS the following book, an indictment of the French elites’ venality as regards Qatar, carries a pretty harsh statement in the concluding chapter (4th paragraph before the end, on page 289):
As our troops are fighting jihadists in Mali [the book was published two years ago almost to the day], it is necessary that the French people know that these bandits are in part funded by Qatar through so-called humanitarian organisations. This whilst in France the nitpickers flinch at the slightest encroachment to secularism, yet refuse to see that the breeding ground for intolerance is being sustained by the petrodollars of the Gulf, including those of Qatar, via the funding of mosques, Islamic centres, symposia or fundamentalist preachers. [My translation]
Source: Fayard
Maybe it is because we (the common folk – I am identifying here with Monsieur ou Madame toutlemonde) are not in the know and our elites are doing this for our own good. 😉
Cock-a-doodle-doo in Le Figaro, the day after a similar contract was signed with Egypt, earlier this year.