Political faux-pas & clothing mauvais goût

I enjoyed the view. Not everyone did though, apparently.

Yes, this is the French First Lady, Bernadette Chirac. And don't you start pitying her, thinking about her life with Jack " le Worm" Chirac. When Jack was trying to charm Laura Bush at the Elysée Palace, Bernadette was noticeably not there. Instead, that very same day, she was giving an interview to a French magazine, insisting on how much she admires Hillary Clinton.

So, Queen Elizabeth is currently in France to mark the 100 years of the Entente Cordiale.

As always, Jack messed it up and missed several good opportunities to show the world he knew how to behave. British newspapers didn't miss him though.

News.com.au has listed the British press' reaction to how Queen Elizabeth was received. Make sure to check the pics I linked to.

The Daily Express said Elizabeth had given the French a "lesson in style" when she arrived yesterday on her fourth state visit to France since her accession to the throne in 1952.

"Grey Paris turns green with envy," was the headline verdict in The Daily Express on Elizabeth's arrival in the French capital.

The accompanying article said: "The veneer of smooth sophistication slipped yesterday from the face of snooty Paris when the city of light turned out like fans at a film premiere to greet the Queen."

The political high point came when the Queen attended a state banquet hosted by President Jacques Chirac and issued a diplomatically-worded appeal for Britain and France to lay aside their differences over Iraq and to unite against the threat of terrorism.

Notice that Bernadette Chirac is wearing France's true color: commie red. Who forgot to tell her they weren't receiving neither Russia's Putin nor China's Hu Jintao anymore?

The address was a rare foray for the monarch into the world of politics, and was an unmistakeable appeal to patch up cross-channel divisions over Iraq, Europe and relations with the United States.

But Britain's powerful, mass-selling tabloid press was more interested in fashion and faux-pas.

The Daily Express said that the only jarring moment came when it became obvious that the Queen and Chirac's wife Bernadette, "a homely looking woman", had both chosen to wear off-white outfits.

"The Queen's eyes flicked mercilessly over Madame Chirac - who did not look quite so elegant and whose hat was askew," said the paper.

Praising the British monarch's style sense, The Times said that in comparison "Bernadette Chirac's outfit looked like a matronly take on a dental assistant's uniform".

The Daily Mail reported that Chirac had come within a whisker of placing his hands on the royal personnage as he welcomed her to the French capital - which would have been a serious breach of protocol.

"Hands off!" read the headline in the paper, which said that touching the monarch "could have caused more damage to relations between Britain and France than anything from (the battle of) Waterloo to the war in Iraq".

The Daily Telegraph, the only paper to lead its front page with the story of the visit, said that the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where the Queen was honoured with a military ceremony, was "an uncomfortable place for a royal".

"It was here, during the French Revolution, that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette lost their heads," the broadsheet pointed out.

The Times reported that shortly before the Queen arrived aboard a special Eurostar train named Entente Cordiale at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris, workers scented the track with a liquid that gave off the fragrance of melons.

No wonder Jack is, once again, left behind.