I see in my morning read that, in French eyes at the highest levels, there’s an equivalence in the role played by Canada and Germany on the beaches of Normandy in 1944:
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper was invited to France’s 2009 D-Day memorial because French President Nicolas Sarkozy felt sympathy for Mr. Harper’s political troubles, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
The reasons for the invitation are included in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Paris, where a French official explains that Mr. Sarkozy didn’t invite German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Second World War memorial because the French would then be obliged to invite leaders from Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic, and give them all a chance to speak at the long ceremony.”
I understand the desire to have some fun at the expense of Mr. Harper. However, personally, I prefer to believe the words of Mr. Sarkozy himself over those attributed to his adviser quoted in the American cable. And – as someone who loves France – I hope that most Canadians will not be turned off by this wicked suggestion of equivalence.
Here, for the record, is what Mr. Sarkozy himself had to say a year earlier – in a speech at the Canadian cemetery at Bény-Reviers, Normandy, during the first visit of Governor-General Michaëlle Jean to France. A speech that, as it happened, got a lot of Quebec sovereigntist noses out of joint:
Sarkozy thanked Canada and the country's soldiers for making the “supreme sacrifice.”
“And those who died here, no one asked them from which region (of Canada) they came,” Sarkozy said.
“We knew from which country they came.
“We didn't even ask them which language they spoke.”
