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Chirac leaves E.U. summit over English

Nicholas Watt and David Gow

Brussels: French President Jacques Chirac led a French walkout from the opening session of the E.U.'s annual spring summit on Thursday night when a fellow Frenchman committed the grave offence of speaking English.

Highlighting France's acute sensitivity towards the decline of the language which once dominated the E.U., Mr. Chirac led three Senior Ministers out of the talks when Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, French head of the European employers' group Unice, abandoned his mother tongue on the ground that English is ``the language of business.''

Mr. Chirac picked up his papers and left, with Philippe Douste-Blazy, Foreign Minister and Thierry Breton, Finance Minister, in tow. Gallic pride was soon restored when Jean-Claude Trichet, French head of the European Central Bank, addressed the meeting in his mother tongue — and Mr. Chirac led his Ministers back.

France and Germany are at loggerheads over the economic future of Europe after (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel criticised French attempts to limit foreign investment. In the most serious Franco-German disagreement since her election as Chancellor in November, Ms. Merkel dismissed a French initiative to promote ``economic patriotism''. ``We can only have an internal market when electricity flows freely and when we accept European champions and not just think nationally,'' she said as she arrived at the summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Ms. Merkel, who has made clear that she wants to open up the Franco-German alliance after the closed years of Mr. Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, was aiming at the French on two fronts. Dominique de Villepin, French Prime Minister, has pledged to champion ``economic patriotism'' by naming 11 French business sectors which should be shielded from foreign bidders. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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