`Le Monde' slates Blair as US poodle

IN A scathing assault on British policy during the Iraqi crisis, France's most influential newspaper yesterday described Tony Blair as "all too happy" to play Robin to Bill Clinton's Batman and to "jump into the Batmobile".

Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of Le Monde, said in a signed front-page editorial that the European Union was "encumbered" by a British Prime Minister who forgot that he was the current EU Council president in his eagerness to suck up to Washington.

"Despite his proclaimed ambition to take over the leadership of Europe, [Mr Blair] has at the first crisis promptly sunk into the traditional British mould of auxiliary in the American info-war. It was as if Blair-Robin was all too happy to be invited by Clinton-Batman to jump into the Batmobile."

Although a journalistic view,Mr Colombani's tirade is the most visible symptom to date of the great irritation felt in France at Britain's insistence on backing Washington to the hilt in the Iraqi crisis. It also represents the first serious criticism of Mr Blair in the French press, which has until now greeted him as a refreshing alternative to Thatcherism and Majorism.