08 June 2013

One more faux pas of President Hollande

The first one immediately made the rounds in the usual places:

In an embarrassing flub, French President Francois Hollande confused the Japanese and Chinese at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

Hollande is on a three-day visit to Japan, the first by a French president in 17 years.

Speaking in French, Hollande expressed "the condolences of the French people to the Chinese people," referring to the Algerian hostage crisis in which ten Japanese people were killed in January.
I am not sure the noise is justified. First of all, Mr Hollande is a socialist, and thus an internationalist, for whom all people are equal. Then there is a matter of jet lag, the sake, the confusing politics and all these similarly looking orientals, so let's keep it cool, OK?

Another faux pas he succeeded to pull off without any histrionics from the press:
President Francois Hollande has sought to reassure Japanese business leaders that the eurozone debt crisis is over...
Oy...

8 comments:

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Not sure if this working:

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Why do I have a feeling of something missing? A link, perhaps?

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Picture.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Oh. I like pictures. There surely is a way to embed one into the Disqus comment, but I've never used it yet.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1VW4Rwwk0M27P0VCrq4pNV59-CdL8EjLX03_cMaDU48NYzbV4TQ

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Oh yes! Definitely.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Well, at least Hollande did not get sick and throw up all over the Japanese leaders like President Bush, Sr. did!

SnoopyTheGoon said...

That true, too.