Outside the Beltway

Congressional French Caucus

James Joyner · Thursday, February 12, 2004 · 1 comment

You can’t make stuff like this up:

Hold the freedom fries, it’s back to pâté and brie

Pop open a bottle of Dom Perignon, folks. Seems the French haven’t forgotten who saved their bacon at Normandy. Thanks to the efforts of diplomat extraordinaire Jean-David Levitte, Paris’s ambassador to Washington, the first-ever Congressional French Caucus was formally inaugurated last week. “Together we will win,” toasted Levitte. Caucus cochairman Rep. Amo Houghton added, “This isn’t high science. It’s about establishing relationships.” It’s weird that at a time when there are dozens of congressional caucuses for everything from jail guards to brain injuries, the French one is just months old. “You really don’t think about those things until you have a problem,” said Houghton. “We were,” he added, “staring and growling at one another and not going anywhere.” A party celebrating the 52-member caucus was held at Levitte’s residence—complete with bubbly and a costumed Ben Franklin and Napoleon. Swells there said it ends the Hill’s anti-France campaign for refusing to help in Iraq, a tiff that saw the House dining room rename french fries “freedom fries.”