Kerry's French cousin asked to shut up?

Remember we were reporting last month that Kerry's family didn't want people to know about his French cousin. Unfortunately, his French cousin, Brice Lalonde, did want, maybe not the world, but at least France to know that he was the cousin of the possible next President of the United States.

Well, Le Parisien just confirmed the will of the family to keep it some kind of a family secret:

Brice Lalonde is the best person able to talk about John Kerry. Well, he was anyway. The former Environment Minister (under François Mitterrand), that couldn't help praising the merits of "his cousin John" (John's and Brice's mothers are sisters) and insisted he was advising him, is now keeping silent.

Could it be that "his cousin John" told him he missed an opportunity to keep quiet?

According to Lalonde, his support to Kerry could become counter-productive when he underligns Kerry's (real) links with our country at a time when francophobia is at its best in America.

Well, Mr. Lalonde, if you want to keep pretending you're advising your American cousin (though nobody, not even French journalists, believe it - Libération, for example, insisted in a recent article that "nobody really ever thought" he could have any kind of influence on Kerry's campaign), you have to at least pretend that you're keeping yourself informed about what's going on in the US.

A recent Gallup study reported that "Image of France begins to recover in Americans' eyes". In addition, and as it was predictable, the study states that "Republicans today have a much more negative image of France than do independents and Democrats. That stands in contrast to the pre-Iraqi war days, when there was no significant difference in opinions about France by party".

And after all, is France that important that all Americans turned francophobes-for-life, as some newspapers would want us to believe? Or does Brice Lalonde think Americans are stupid enough to not elect a candidate based only on the fact that he has French relatives? From a country in which 40% of the population voted for either far-right or far-left candidates in the last presidential election - mainly to "send a message" to their leaders -, hence propelling far-righ leader Le Pen as the only opponent to Chirac, that's... interesting.

Kerry, who speaks French and often spent his holidays, when he was a teenager, in the family house in Brittany, with Brice and his "French cousins", prefers dodging the issue too. After all, didn't a member of Bush's team, hoping to destabilize him, say that "Kerry looks French"?

Ah, those out-of-context quotes, I will never have enough of them. But anyway, didn't several members of several French governments, make several much more spiteful remarks targeted directly this time at the President of the United States? So, according to the "standards" of Le Parisien and Mr. Lalonde, if francophobia is doing well in America, what to say about America-hating in France?

Last April, French essayist Guy Sorman was quoted in an IHT article as describing Chirac as "the most anti-American of all of us" as soon as in November of 2001:

Sorman spoke publicly then, after Chirac visited the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, of a president who regarded the American leadership as devoid of historical sense, lacking in patience, nuance and profundity - attributes Chirac presumably considers as his own.

Now, Sorman says: "Chirac is persuaded he's right on America. I persist and confirm what I said about his anti-Americanism. A year and a half later, I realized I was more right than I had imagined at first.

"Pay no attention to what he might say about his affection for the United States from his student days. This is not the question. His view is something deep, deep within him. For Chirac, the Americans understand nothing."

What Mr. Lalonde - and Mr. Chirac, of course - as well as French journalists should get deep into their heads is that Americans perfectly understood what was in their minds.

So, well, yes, Brice Lalonde should shut up. Just not for the reason he thinks he should.