Americans find ways to punish the French

America intends to penalise France for its opposition to the Iraq war by limiting Paris's involvement in Nato decisions and by placing a new emphasis on consulting Spain and Italy instead.

White House officials have also considered arranging for President George W Bush to spend the minimum possible time in France for the G8 summit in early June.

The "consequences" for France - after its campaign to block American and British diplomacy at the United Nations before the war - were discussed at a White House meeting this week.

Senior officials were adamant that French overtures to rebuild bridges should be treated with suspicion and that President Jacques Chirac - like Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany before him - should be left in no doubt that bilateral relations would suffer.

Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, is said to have come up with a slogan for how to break up the pre-war "non-nein-nyet" alliance against America over Iraq: punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia.

The main push for taking a tough line at this week's White House meeting came from two of Vice-President Dick Cheney's more hawkish advisers: Lewis Libby, a former Pentagon official, and Eric Edelman, who is to become ambassador to Turkey.

One of their main proposals was that Washington should work to ensure that Nato decisions were taken by the military alliance's defence planning council, on which Paris does not have a seat, rather than the North Atlantic Council, which includes France.

There was also discussion about whether Mr Bush should even spend the night in France for the G8 summit in Evian, in the French Alps, when it would be possible for him to stay at a hotel across the border in Switzerland.

When told by the New York Times that Mr Bush would make sure he was in France for the minimum possible time, a senior French diplomat responded tartly: "We are not forcing anyone to spend the night in France.

"It amazes me that he doesn't realise the Swiss government was extremely hostile to war. They didn't even allow overflight rights for American planes."

Later, Ari Fleischer, Mr Bush's spokesman, said the president would not lodge in Switzerland. "The plan has always been and will be for him to overnight at the site of the summit, which is France."

Mr Bush's aides are also considering downgrading the status of France at international conferences. They want to add Spain and Italy to the Quartet, an annual meeting of envoys at present including only America, Britain, Germany and France.

"We want to find places where France now has special privileges and ask whether it's smart to continue those," said one US official.

To call someone "French" has become the choice term of derision in Washington. "He looks French," one White House adviser was quoted as saying about Senator John Kerry, a Democratic presidential challenger.

Mr Kerry said the comment was "the politics of personal destruction" and his wife responded: "They probably don't even speak French."

A conservative group has been running advertisements accusing two Republican senators who are blocking the White House's tax plans of being like the French.

Senators George Voinovich and Olympia Snowe - centrists who want to rein in Mr Bush's conservative budget - have been branded "Franco-Republicans". They have been depicted in television advertisements alongside digitally added French flags.

The anger felt within the Bush administration is deep and widespread and has gone far beyond jokes.

Colin Powell, the secretary of state and the most centrist of Mr Bush's foreign policy team, is said to be still livid about what he views as a personal betrayal by Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, over the French threat to veto a second UN resolution authorising war.

In a CBS interview this week, Mr Powell replied with a blunt "yes" when asked if there would be consequences for France.

"It was a very difficult period as we went through that second resolution vote," said Mr Powell. "And we didn't believe that France was playing a helpful role. There's no secret about that."

FRANCE - Some Famous Quotes

"France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes." --Mark Twain

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." --General George S. Patton

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." --Norman Schwarzkopf

"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it." --Marge Simpson

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." --Jacques Chirac, President of France

"As far as France is concerned, you're right." --Rush Limbaugh

"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." --Regis Philbin

"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know." --P. J. O'Rourke

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it." --John McCain

"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people." --Conan O'Brien

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France!" --Jay Leno

"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." --David Letterman

"France is a dog-hole." - William Shakespeare, (All's Well That Ends Well, c.1603)

"The friendship of the French is like their wine, exquisite but of short duration." - German saying.

"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language." - Mark Twain

France: A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom. --William F. Buckley, Jr.

France is the only country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper. --Billy Wilder

What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country. --Samuel Johnson

I would have loved it--without the French. --D. H. Lawrence

Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you, you have only to spend a little money. --Ernest Hemingway

Frenchmen are like gunpowder, each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed! --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you; they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking. --Fran Lebowitz

They aren't much at fighting wars anymore. Despite their reputation for fashion, their women have spindly legs. Their music is sappy. But they do know how to whip up a plate of grub. --Mike Royko

Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality. --Charles de Gaulle

forgive Russia.

"Bad idea, Condi. It just encourages the bastards."

The whole object of the exercise, I'm sure, is to a.) break up the nascent "axis of weasels" and b.) insure the complete isolation of France.

We have every reason to believe that, under a different leadership, Germany will turn around. We will punish Schroeder, in particular, by ignoring Germany, in general. And welcome her back, once Schroeder is ousted.

"Forgiving" Russia insures that she realizes her interests lie with us -- not with France. And, as an ally, Russia is far more useful than France.

That leaves arrogant France all, all alone. Out in the cold, no more relevant than the Cote d'Ivoire.

It's a geopolitical game. And France lost...

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