Geez, I try to give the French a break, but then, when a dozen countries either set to join the EU or in membership talks sign letters supporting the United States, Chirac says,

"These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position....It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet....I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others"...

and he calls the letters "infantile" and "dangerous," adding: "They missed a great opportunity to shut up."

Wait a minute...who missed a chance to shut up? When asked why he wasn't similarly critical of the EU nations that signed the letter, Chirac said: "When you are in the family ... you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door." CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley described Chirac's outburst as "pretty grumpy and imperious." "For him to lecture these applicant countries or these accepted members on their way in was really behavior like the worst of what the French complain about in the United States," Oakley said. "It was bullying really. ... It was very, very tough stuff. I think some of the other EU leaders will feel it was out of order. But perhaps it shows just how much Jacques Chirac was stunned by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's differentiation between what he calls 'old Europe' and 'new Europe.'"

That sounds about right.

Meanwhile, Timothy Garton Ash points out how silly the Euro-American split is. Although I have a quibble with this statement:

Talking to high school and college students in Missouri and Kansas, I encountered a strange folk prejudice: the French, it seems, don't wash.

In my personal experience, you'll run into the occasional stinky Frenchman in museums and at concerts, not just amongst the sweaty workers. (link via konnecticut dot com).

Update
John Vinocur wonders if Chirac's reaction is "venting frustration at the cold prospect of France's diminished influence in Europe." (link via Glenn Reynolds).

And even before Chirac (mis-)spoke, the Economist wrote that Chirac's campaign

has meanwhile inflicted collateral damage, not least on the very institutions in which Mr Chirac says he believes. These institutions had to change anyway to adjust to a changing world. But they did not have to change like this. One victim is the EU itself. Though it was impolite of Donald Rumsfeld, America's defence secretary, to have dwelt with such high glee on the divisions between ��old�� and ��new�� Europe, he got it right. For many decades France and Germany gave the EU its sense of direction. But as only two countries in an EU that will soon number 25, they should not have pretended to speak for the rest. A fortnight ago the leaders of Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic expressed solidarity with the American position. A week ago another ten European countries joined this gang of eight. Mr Chirac wants Europe to be a counterweight to the Americans. History may judge that he did the opposite. America, to adapt an old saying, may have called a new Europe into existence to redress the balance of the old.

A second victim is NATO. With Germany and Belgium, France has tried to stop the 16 other members from responding to a Turkish request for help ahead of any Iraqi war. Snapping this most basic pillar of the alliance's defence arrangements has outraged the new members from eastern Europe. It can only strengthen the voices of those Americans who have long argued that Europeans will no longer fight for anything until they feel the blade at their throat��and that in matters of defence Americans must therefore depend upon themselves.

If Mr Chirac persists in blocking the new Iraq resolution that America and Britain are now seeking, he may be able to add the weakening of the Security Council to this hat-trick of own goals. He will not be able to stop the war: if Iraq does not disarm, the Americans will fight without such a resolution. For going it alone they will pay a price, no doubt, both during the war and in the rebuilding of Iraq that follows. But they will cite as justification both their own security and Iraq's dozen years of non-compliance with all the previous resolutions. The only thing France will have achieved is to ensure that this American president will not trust the Security Council again.

My italics.