Chirac's canards

THE HEADLINE in the French daily Liberation said: ''Chirac amuses his friends Putin and Schroeder in Kaliningrad." And it is true that the Russian and German leaders were observed laughing lustily Sunday after French President Jacques Chirac, overheard by several journalists, mocked the culinary efforts of the English, Scots, and Finns. Unlike the German chancellor and the Russian president, people in Great Britain were not amused. British food critic Egon Ronay was quoted by the BBC saying not merely that Chirac was ''ill informed" but also that ''a man full of bile is not fit to pronounce on food."

According to Liberation, Chirac said of the English, ''The only thing they have done for European agriculture is mad cow." And in case his polemical point might have been lost on the two statesmen sitting beside him on a terrace in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Chirac remarked that ''one cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine." Then, as if pandering to a prejudice that might be as dear to Putin as Chirac's animus against Britain is to him, Chirac added that the only place with worse food than England is Finland.

Since Chirac's sally into the realm of comedy came just before he was to attend this week's Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, which is hosted by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and since two Finns are on the International Olympic Committee board that is deciding whether to award the 2012 Olympics to Paris or London or one of three other cities, Chirac's timing could not have been worse. His feat of offending precisely those foreigners who may decide both the fate of the European Union agricultural subsidies received by France and the venue of the 2012 Olympic Games is as inept as his recent failure to persuade his compatriots to approve a new EU constitution.

In both instances, Chirac acted like a politician who has been on the stage too long and lost his touch. His approval ratings have been plummeting to humiliating depths, yet he foolishly made himself an issue in the May referendum on the EU constitution. The French are frustrated with their high levels of unemployment and with the unresponsive haughtiness of their governing elites, so when they heard Chirac assure them that France would become the ''black sheep" of Europe if they voted against the constitution, they responded by doing exactly what he had warned them not to do.

By contrast, Blair has rolled up his sleeves and worked hard for a G-8 summit that can chip away at President Bush's refusal to do something about climate change and Chirac's refusal to dismantle protectionist agricultural subsidies that prolong Africa's impoverishment. We hope Blair's voice of reason will be heard above the quacking of lame ducks.