Meeting
Longuet Briefs AAPA On Defense Issues
In another first for the AAPA, our members met with Defense Minister Gerard Longuet for breakfast at the ministry on the rue Saint Dominique on April 6. Questions covered a broad range, from the crisis in Mali to European missile defense and the stalemate over Iran. In an open and lively exchange, Longuet said France would definitely give logistical support to a regional, African force to…
Juppé Outlines Foreign Policy Concerns To The AAPA
“It’s been a long time since I’ve stopped believing in such a thing as ‘off’,” quipped French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, before launching into an expansive review of foreign policy issues for 30 AAPA members last April 5 after being asked if he was “on-the-record.” For almost two hours at the Quai d’Orsay, Juppe spoke about US-French and Franco-British relations, the crisis in Mali, elections…
US Envoy To UNESCO Provides Food For Thought
The US Ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, must have heard the journalistic injunction “follow the breakfast” as there was an elegant table laid out for some 15 AAPA members April 3 at the ambassador’s residence in the 16th arrondissement. Not all press breakfasts are so well prepared, as those who have bitten into dry, industrial-quality croissants while scribbling in their notebooks on an…
Getting to Grips with Wikileaks
Anyone who comes up against the courageous, controversial Julian Assange, is "condemned to spend eternity discussing the cosmic meaning of Wikileaks," wrote the New York Times' editor Bill Keller recently, based on his deep involvement in the controversial saga. While our two-hour, convivial meeting with one of Assange's most-loyal supporters, Vaughan Smith, was no eternity, we certainly came…
“Danny The Red” Meets The AAPA
If the 27-nations of the European Union want to re-launch their stagnating economies and EU political integration, it must be a collective effort and not that of one or even several leaders, and it will probably take years, according to Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Speaking to some 20 AAPA members at the Paris headquarters of the European Parliament March 5, the outspoken leftist European deputy…
The Bank of France Opens Its Doors To AAPA
A group of 17 AAPA members had the rare privilege on Feb. 15 to meet with Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer over dinner in the central bank. As an aperitif, we visited the glittering Galerie Dorée. M. Noyer then gave us a guided tour of some of the sumptuous salons of the former Hôtel de Toulouse, explaining the origins of some of the bank’s artworks, including a rarely seen painting by…
Syrian Opposition Figure Speaks Out
Bassma Kodmani, a member of the Executive Bureau of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and founder of the Arab Reform Initiative, warned AAPA members on Jan. 26 that if the international community doesn’t step in, the situation inSyriawill degenerate into civil war. Close to 30 members heard Kodmani give a pessimistic but realistic appraisal of developments on the ground and predicted little help…
Another Meeting With J-D Levitte
Nearly 30 members met on Nov. 16 with President Sarkozy’s diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte. In keeping with the now-established tradition, the meeting was off-the-record and for members only, and took place at an annexe of theElyséePalace. We have been meeting with Levitte regularly since 1995, when he was diplomatic adviser to former president Jacques Chirac. With his usual frankness,…
UNESCO Director General Invites AAPA After PalestineVote
By Ronald Koven UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova told a breakfast meeting Nov. 9 with members of the Anglo-American Press Association that she is heartened by the decision of theUSgovernment to continue to be active in the Paris-based Organization, despite a legal requirement to withhold US dues over the recent admission ofPalestineas a full-fledged member state. The breakfast at UNESCO’s…
A Career Making Revelations and Eluding Threats
Pierre Péan, France's best-known investigative journalist, told AAPA members that he had resorted a few years ago to writing about the French Revolution's bloody campaigns against monarchist rebels in Brittany as a way to escape threats to himself and his family over his exposures of contemporary political and financial scandals. At a well-attended meeting on Oct. 11 over evening drinks at the…