Oui Oui
From the New York Times:
For Chirac and Others, a Close Eye on U.S. Vote
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: November 3, 2004
PARIS, Nov. 2 - President Jacques Chirac of France is a television "zapper."
So he would be flipping channels late into Tuesday evening and again very early Wednesday morning to monitor coverage of the American presidential election on the wide, flat-screen television in his inner office at the Élysée Palace, two senior French officials said....
France 3 planned to broadcast from a studio where it had built a replica of the Oval Office. Among its guests: Richard C. Holbrooke, the former American representative to the United Nations, and Felix G. Rohatyn, the former American ambassador to France, both staunch Kerry supporters.
From his hospital bed in the southwestern Paris suburb of Clamart, Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was also watching American election coverage on television.
"There is no politician in the world who is not following the elections," Mr. Arafat's economic adviser, Mohamed Rashid, told Agence France-Presse. "And Arafat is following them because those elections have a huge impact on our situation. He will respect and deal with any American president. He said, 'I am not for Bush or Kerry, I am for God.' "
Mr. Chirac, meanwhile, has not expressed a preference for the American presidency, but the strained relationship between him and President Bush because of France's opposition to the American-led war in Iraq is well-known....
The most pressing foreign policy issue for whoever is elected president must be the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, said a senior French official close to Mr. Chirac.
"Our big question is, Will there be a decision by the American president to restart a dialogue?" the official said. "This is what we expect from the new president. This is the cause of a lot of the anti-Western feeling in the world."
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