The Brits stuff the Froggies
London beat Paris to host 2012 Olympics
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - London beat favourites Paris for the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games on Wednesday in a final showdown after Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated from the five-city contest.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge announced the British capital as the winner in a globally televised ceremony after a day of presentations at the IOC session in Singapore's Raffles City complex.
The news was greeted by screams of joy from the London team, long seen as Paris's strongest rival but always thought to be trailing until IOC members gathered in Singapore this week.
The 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing.
The victory of London will inevitably be seen as a personal triumph for Prime Minister Tony Blair who spent two days in Singapore wooing IOC members.
Blair flew back to Britain to host the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, after attending the formal opening of the IOC session on Tuesday evening.
French President Jacques Chirac appeared in person at the French presentation and made an impassioned plea to the IOC to choose Paris, but in vain.
He flew to join the summit before the decision was announced.
London has twice hosted the Olympics before, in 1908 and 1948.
posted by Jim Gilling - Secretary SAFCSA Coxhoe Branch @ 1:27 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Jim, whats the craic with all this anti French sentiment at the mo. You've noticed it, I've noticed it, everybody is aware it's going on.
It was nver like this under De Gaulle or Giscard D'Estang or even Mitterand. The French despite their genetic aloofness always seemed grateful that we saved them from the jackboot of the Kaiser during WW1 and the Fuhrer during WW2, but Chirac and Schroder appear to be odd bedfellows.
Would you agree that Chirac is an oaf? That much of the anti British feeling is down to him.
More power to Blair I say for standing up to the fool and I wish I could be a fly on the wall as he walks into Gleneagles today knowing that Chirac is again at his mercy post Olympic decision.
Fuckin great.
Huyton, I know alot of French people through work and they are all great and good to get on with. However I think that the French DO hate us Brits and I think it comes out in certain areas - yes Chirac for the number one instigator but the French workers who seem to block the ferry ports every summer, the way the French want us to give back our European subsidy while they keep theirs (that is the biggest subsidy in the EEC for the farmers), banning our beef, the football and especially the rugby .... the list goes on.
I've just looked outside our house and Linda's Peugeot 206 is outside and Melanie has just pulled up in her Renault Clio - proves that the family are not anti-French (but my Dad was!)
So then Jim to expand on this further and to get you to qualify some of your statements a little further.
Do the French hate us on an individual or a national level?
Should we tell them to shove Europe and their Common agricultural Policy up the arse they are as a nation obsessed with?
The next time a neighbouring nation flexes it's muscles should we tell them to get on with it? Don't look over the channel for any help.
As a nation the French are beginning to irritate me more and more and I can feel a real anti French sentiment starting to rise in the UK. I really can't see it improving until Chirac has gone, until Schroeder has gone and a new order is established in Europe.
Does Europe really work? As a man who does a lot of business on the continent you are better placed than most to make a valid judgement on the merits or otherwise of the EEC. Should Europe be a free trade zone?
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