Word: french
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...French President Nicolas Sarkozy likes to adopt a Travis Bickle "you-talkin-to-me?" swagger when seeking to intimidate political rivals, protesters and the French media. But it remains to be seen whether Sarkozy's snarl will prompt a retreat by hardened rebel fighters in Chad. Amid a lull in the battle for control of the Chadian capital of N'Djamena on Tuesday, Sarkozy responded to rebel threats of renewed violence by warning, "If France must do its duty, it will - let no one doubt that...
...Paris, often prone in the past to take action in conflicts that imperil friendly African regimes, has thus far taken pains to stay out of the current Chadian conflict. Though French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been in repeated phone contact with Déby throughout the crisis, his proposals to help have been limited to offering the President safe passage and refuge in Paris - a proposition the mutiny-hardened Déby declined. But despite what French Defense Minister Hervé Morin called France's "neutral" position in the conflict, he and other diplomats have begun venting anger over...
...Morin did over the weekend, French officials are describing the timing of Thursday's rebel push from Sudan as designed to disrupt impending deployment of the European Union's 3,700 EUFOR peacekeeping force along Chad's eastern border. Those troops are charged with establishing safe zones to protect refugees from violence-torn Darfur. That imposition of well-armed foreign soldiers, French officials say, would have complicated Khartoum's plans to destabilizing the Chadian regime...
...because many diplomats see that offensive as just one part of wider patchwork of cross-border African conflicts, some are intimating threats of additional peacekeeping operations as a means of making life harder on troublemakers in the region. "We are not involved in this war," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said as he welcomed people airlifted from Chad to Paris Monday. "For now, there's no change in that. But if there's a [United Nations] Security Council resolution, or if there was another suggestion [for a more active role] during an African Union summit...
...Five years ago, the local McDonald's menu listed french fries as simply "potato" or Filet-o-Fish as "fish hamburgers"; most are items now ordered by more familiar names and some, like the 100-yen cheese burger and sandwiches with steamed buns, are popular because they are cheap or soft. "Toasted buns are too hard for them," says manager Hayato Akasako. "They like the Filet-o-Fish and the shrimp burger." Akasako also says the elderly don't shy from trying new things. Upon ordering, some of them now present downloaded electronic coupons on the screens of their mobile...