Word: gaddafi
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...most critical to that effort was not among those sitting around the gleaming conference table. Instead, Libyan president Moammar Gaddafi was just across the Seine, touring the Louvre Museum with a coterie of female bodyguards...
...Gaddafi's plane had barely touched the ground in Paris on Monday when the verbal ammunition among French politicians began flying over why President Sarkozy had chosen to host him during a five-day visit. France's junior minister for human rights Rama Yade blasted her government, saying that the visit would allow the Libyan leader to "wipe off the blood of his crimes." Unwilling to play the polite guest, Gaddafi spat back on Tuesday, saying said France had human-rights problems of its own in its treatment of immigrants, who include millions of North Africans...
...Sarkozy's welcome of Gaddafi concerns a bigger ticket issue than human rights - arms deals worth potentially about $5.86 billion and thousands of French jobs. Gaddafi has agreed to negotiate exclusively with France for six months to buy 14 Rafale fighter jets, made by Dassault Aviation, and 35 combat and transport helicopters. For France, the deal is crucial in reviving its faltering arms industry against the United States and Russia. Six years after the first Rafale jet was built, France has yet to sell a single new fighter abroad...
...Despite his feisty talk, Gaddafi is a near-perfect customer for Sarkozy, if not quite yet his savior. Flush with revenues from record-high oil prices, the Libyan leader is rebuilding his military virtually from scratch, since decades-long Western sanctions banned him from purchasing arms and replacing broken equipment. "Libya's military inventories during the embargoes degraded to the point of being useless," says Matthew Smith, economics analyst for Jane's, the London-based defense research group. The organization this week estimates Libya's military spending was about $620 million last year - small change for the gargantuan defense industry...
...Sarkozy must surely hope Gaddafi does not veer off script again, by ultimately shopping for arms elsewhere, after the negotiations expire next June. France is the world's fourth-biggest arms exporter. But the top three - the United States, Britain, and Russia - account for nearly three-quarters of global arms sales, and they could increase that share in the future, leaving France ever-further behind...