France surrenders!

To the inevitable. According to Le Canard, Jacques Chirac has backed off the threat of veto, since he realizes (only now?) that Bush is hell bent for leather and must have his war:

"France is doing everything it can, but the problem is that it is impossible to stop Bush from pursuing his logic of war to the end," Chirac was quoted as saying by Le Canard, a satirical newspaper that is known to have well-informed sources.

So we're relying on L'Oignon for straight news now?

Le Canard also quoted Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin as privately telling a group of conservative lawmakers on Feb. 25 that "using the right of veto would be shooting the Americans in the back."

Like this just occurred to them.

The newspaper did not say how it obtained the information.

"Nous fumee d'un spleef*," most likely. [Link via The Corner.]

*Apologies for my terrible fake French.