Meanwhile in France:
Ségolène Royal skimmed past the diplomatic faux-pas in Beirut
“I did not hear this comparison and if this comparison had been made, whether I or the ambassador of France who was at my sides would have heard these remarks that he did not hear either, we would have left the room ". It is in these terms that Ségolène Royal explained to the press, at the time of the third day of her visit in Lebanon, her reaction against a deputy of the Hezbollah that compared the Israeli occupation of Lebanon with “Nazism”.
“Let’s be very clear here: these inadmissible, abominable and odious remarks, would have involved our departure of the room. We did not hear these remarks”, she insisted. The socialist candidate explained that she had not reacted immediately because she had not heard this qualifier pronounced in Arabic.
The facts go back to Friday, at the time of the meeting between Ségolène Royal and 17 deputies of the commission of the Foreign Affairs of the Lebanese French National Assembly. During this meeting, a deputy of Hezbollah, Ali Ammar, declared in Arabic: “The Nazism which poured our blood and usurped our independence and our sovereignty is as bad as the Nazism that occupied France”. His long remarks were translated into French language by two translators, one translator for the socialist candidate and her advisers, another one for the French journalists. The word “nazya”, marked twice in Arabic, was heard clearly by many French journalists present in the room.
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