Word: matchings
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...Sarkozy was just getting started. Following a virtual crisis meeting between the President and concerned cabinet members, Health and Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin grimly declared the decision had been taken that "any match during which our national anthem is whistled will be stopped immediately". And when that happens during friendly matches, she intoned, such fixtures against "the country concerned will be suspended for a period yet to be determined" - though that risks leaving France with no one to play with should booing suddenly become a pre-game fad here. Worse still: French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie on Wednesday...
...Meanwhile, in Thailand, opposition figures accused former Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of destroying national sovereignty by not immediately protesting UNESCO's decision. Samak resigned last month, and his successor, who hails from the same political party, will surely be accused of similar weakness if Thailand's troops don't match Cambodian numbers. On Wednesday, Thailand's military T.V. network showed Thai tanks rumbling toward the border region, and one officer has said the country is prepared...
...report that al-Qaeda is stronger and more determined to strike than ever. But Wednesday found the leaders of France with a more important crisis to confront: the excruciating insult of hearing France's national anthem lustily jeered by the crowd at the opening of a France-Tunisia friendly match in Paris the previous night...
...impact of a few hundred fans booing and whistling during the playing of La Marseillaise, traditional before an international match, could be measured by the outpouring of rage from scandalized French politicians. They were falling over one another to express outrage and find effective sanctions against those responsible, and deterrence against any recurrence. Ironically, it took the politicians longer to give coherent expression to their anger over the greed-driven global financial crisis than it did to excoriate some rambunctious soccer fans...
...Leading the way was President Nicolas Sarkozy, who'd been infuriated by "scandalous incidents that occurred at the Stade de France" and had summoned the head of the nation's soccer federation for a carpeting. Sarkozy's biggest complaint: that official's failed to simply cancel Tuesday's match after the anthem was jeered ahead of the kick-off - a move that would have sent 60,000 well-behaved fans packing simply because a tiny minority had decided to push the patriotic buttons of France's leaders. From now on, however, France's players are under orders to take their...