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BRITAIN

Cherie’s Chirac tirade ‘helped UK win Games’

A blistering tirade by Cherie Blair, the wife of ex-British premier Tony Blair, against French president Jacques Chirac played a key role in winning the Olympics for London, organizer Sebastian Coe has claimed.

Cherie's Chirac tirade 'helped UK win Games'
Photo: Mouvement des Entreprises de France

In extracts from Coe's book published in the Times on Monday, the former London Organising Committee chairman revealed that Mrs Blair rounded on Chirac at a crucial Olympic reception over comments he made about Britain's cuisine. The leader's wife went at Chirac "like a banshee" at the 2005 event in Singapore, causing the embarrassed French leader to leave the function before he had chance to lobby potential voters on behalf of the Paris 2012 bid, said Coe. 

"I spotted Cherie heading like a heat-seeking missile towards the French contingent," he recalled. "Above the hubbub her voice rang loud and clear. 'I gather you've been saying rude things about our food', she said, at a volume that would have done justice to a packed courtroom.

"Her husband, who could hear as well as I could, had assiduously turned away," added the former Olympic champion. Three days earlier, Chirac was heard telling Russian leader Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that "you can't trust people who cook as badly as that," at a G8 summit in Scotland.

"After Finland, it's (Britain) the country with the worst food," he added. Coe believes that Chirac's hasty exit from the Singapore event gave Tony Blair more time to press London's case, according to extracts from "Running My Life".

Paris arrived in Singapore as favourites to secure the 2012 summer Games but was edged out by London in the final eliminator by 54 votes to 50.

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BRITAIN

Brexit deal ‘still possible’: German foreign minister

Germany's foreign minister on Friday said he believed a Brexit deal was still possible, after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that a no-deal scenario was very likely.

Brexit deal 'still possible': German foreign minister
Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas and his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney pose by a Christmas tree. Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Pool/AFP
“We believe that an agreement is difficult but still possible,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said ahead of a meeting with Irish counterpart Simon Coveney in Berlin. “We will keep negotiating … as long as a crack of
the window is open.”
   
Coveney added that he believed “it's possible to get a deal on a future relationship and on a trade agreement.”
   
“We want an agreement, but of course one that is sensible,” Maas said, adding that the EU was also “prepared for the case that there is no agreement”.
 
   
Johnson earlier said he had not seen “a big offer, a big change” in the EU offer on fishing and fair competition rules, making a no-deal outcome “very, very likely”, two days ahead of a crunch decision on talks.
   
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen had also earlier told the bloc's leaders here were “low expectations” a post-Brexit trade deal could be struck with Britain, EU sources said.
   
Negotiators from the EU and Britain held talks in Brussels Friday to see if they could reach an accord by the weekend cut-off point set by von der Leyen and Johnson at a combative dinner meeting this week.
   
Britain left the EU on January 31 after five decades of integration, but a transition period during which it remains bound by the bloc's rules ends on December 31.
   
Without a post-Brexit deal, Britain's trade with its biggest market would in future operate on pared-down World Trade Organization rules, including tariffs and quotas.
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