DAVID MARRANI,
Madam, - I am a French citizen who has enjoyed several years living and working in your beautiful country and have read with interest articles on my native country in your paper. I found the letter "Perfidious France" (December 2nd) to be an unjust and ill thought out attack on a country which has given the world many of its most talented philosophers and writers.
I feel I must respond because of the personal and national tenor of the insult. I wish to remind you that millions of French fought against Germany in the two world wars, many of whom died. My great-grand-uncle was gassed in Verdun in 1916. My great-uncle, a Corsican, was killed in the battle of Monte Cassino in 1943.
My grandfather, a son of an Italian immigrant, joined the 1st French Army in Algeria and fought all the battles from Provence to Germany where he was injured. He later was awarded the "Rhin et Danube" cross, and the War Cross.
I am certain that many of your readers travelling in France have witnessed all the commemoration monuments in every French village, town and city. All these unknown heroes had nothing but their strength and their belief.
The allegations concerning Serbia, Indochina and Iraq are also false. During the second World War Serbia fought on the side of the Allied powers. France has never forgotten that the sacrifice of war has mixed the blood of the Serbs and the French. Also, a number of these French soldiers went to Indochina after the second World War.
The French pulled out of Indochina because of the Cold War with its triangular conflicts as the US decided that Vietnam was within its sphere of influence, leaving a mess in 1972. And, co-incidentally it was the CIA which investigated the Algerian rebellion forcing the limited French army to withdraw from Indochina.
Recently, France has been against a precipitate action in Iraq deciding that it is wiser that diplomacy outweighs violence. I wish to remind you that Iraq is the only secular country among its Islamic neighbours.
Criticism is acceptable when it is accurate. It is obvious that sometimes memory deficit needs correction, definitely in this case. - Is Mise,
DAVID MARRANI, Cornelscourt, Dublin 18.