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Cajuns bashing French....
From AP:
(AP) French bashing has even cropped up in Louisiana, the bastion of Cajun and Creole culture
that for weeks resisted the anti-French feelings that surfaced when French President Jacques
Chirac refused to support the war in Iraq.
A movement has sprung up to stop Chirac from attending a Dec. 20 re-enactment of the Louisiana
Purchase in the New Orleans French Quarter. President Bush and Spanish King Juan Carlos also
have been invited to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the purchase.
"President Chirac is unwilling to stand with President Bush and our country when we need them in
Iraq. So I don't think he should come stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in December," said
Bobby Jindal, a Republican candidate for governor, who was an assistant secretary in the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services until recently.
On his weekly call-in radio show Thursday, GOP Gov. Mike Foster, who leaves office this fall,
commended Jindal and said, "For some reason, he's (Chirac's) gone off the deep end."
Most callers to the show seemed to agree that the invitation to Chirac should be rescinded.
Lt. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, the state's chief tourism official, who also is running for
governor, invited all three world leaders. None has responded.
Blanco issued a statement Friday saying a time of war is no time for politics. “This is now a
matter of international diplomacy and it is up to the president to decide what is in the best
interest of the United States,” she said.
State Rep. Almond Gaston Crowe, a Republican from Slidell, has said he is preparing a legislative
resolution to rescind Chirac's invitation.
Meanwhile, French teachers have reported harassment.
"In one restaurant, two teachers were talking in French privately and a waiter went up to them
and voiced disapproval of their country," said Warren Perrin, president of the Council for
Development of French in Louisiana. "They were actually from Belgium."
A group calling itself Citizens for Direct Action called for the cancellation of ties between
Lafayette and sister cities in Belgium and France, Perrin said.
Philippe Gustin, director of international relations in the town of Lafayette, said he worried the
dispute will reduce the number of French and Belgian tourists at the Festival International de
Louisiane in Lafayette in April. Ambassadors from Canada and Belgium are expected to attend.
In New Orleans, Olivier Baugnies, an architect who is a French citizen, said, "It's not harassment
exactly, it's more of an underlying tension. But you sense that people do not understand France's
position."
Elaine Clement, a community outreach coordinator, said her friends who are either originally from
France or French students, have been harassed, "including people who have been here for years."
She said she received nasty e-mails after speaking out against French bashing in an earlier
interview.
Clement had said she was somewhat put off by Congress' recent decision to change House
cafeteria menus to read "freedom fries" and "freedom toast." "Are they going to change French
kiss to freedom kiss?" she said then.
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, it was two (Republican 
) representatives who 'offically' presided over the changing of names on the cafe menu. I don't remember the names, but I did see a picture of them doing it and I do remember one is from Ohio (the other was from a Southern state). But you're absolutely right, ppl are extremely overreacting and things are getting drawn out way too far.
