Today's Date:

IRAQ/MIDDLE EAST

What has just happened in Iraq is, indeed, very important. And I confirm here what Present Chirac said this morning: "France welcomes the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. And she shares the hopes of the Iraqis for more justice and more democracy". As you know, we have always been on the side of the democracies, against that of the dictatorships. And as soon as this war began, France said clearly that she hoped it would end as swiftly and cause as little bloodshed as possible.

There are issues on which, I believe, argument is pointless. (...) This victory of democracy has been achieved through violence. And I think we must respect the memory of all those who have paid for this victory of democracy with their lives. (...) The future, for us, is peace in the region. And we hope that at international level wisdom is today going to prevail in order to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is at the heart of the tragedy of this part of the world.

IRAQ/HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

(...) The French government will resolutely play its part in the humanitarian action to help the civilians who have suffered. We have already made available an initial EUR 10 million to contribute to initiatives organized not just by the French NGOs working on the ground, but by the European Union ECHO and UN programmes. We are participating in all these initiatives in order to do as much as possible to help the civilians. We pledge to do all we can so that Iraq may be stabilized as quickly as possible and to enable the Iraqi people to have institutions which they themselves control, so that they can provide for their own future. Today, all this seems to us to be a necessity on which the international community has to focus its efforts. We think that this international community will be united within the UN. This is why we think that it is at the UN that the strategies to ensure the Iraqi people's future must be determined./.