Noone on these boards is any bigger critic of the French than I am, but I do not and never have expected them to give in to that particular demand. The French will attempt out right bribery, they will pay off the terrorists, they will make arrangements with terror sponcering states, but there is one thing that the French will never comprimise and that's there belief in the inherent superiority of French culture. The head scarf ban is the French way of taking a stand, and the kidnappers who are trying to get the French to drop it no more understand the French than Osama understood the American heartland. The reason the head scarf ban is going to be non-negoitable for the French, is that they can put up with Muslims burning Synagogues, they can put up with crime, they can put up with the rebellion against authority, they can put up with ugly slums, and the snearing rudeness of many of the immigrants, because all of these are in some way French. But what they will never put up with is people not dressing in a way that looks 'French', not drinking French wine, not behaving with a casual Hedonism, and otherwise not assimilating into what the French believe is the core French culture. The scary thing is that when the French do go the other way on this, they aren't going to just slacken thier tolerance a little - the responce is going to look something like a program. The French don't just believe that they won't be a target of terrorism because they are so closely allied with terror sponcering nations; they believe that they won't be a target because they are known to be so ruthless in cracking down on terrorism in the past (torture, secret trials, purges, etc.). Remember, this is the nation that told the rest of Europe that there was really no need for a major military build up because French nuclear weapons were a sufficient deterent. If you get them seriously pissed, I think France will go from 'Well c'est la vie, Arabs will be Arabs' to 'Nuke the ragheads all to hell' faster than you can blink.

I'm confused. I thought French journalists were terrorists.

Although France has done many dubious deals (like giving Iraq a Nuke reactor), they would be pretty ruthless in dealing with opposition. Hence the torture of Algerian FLN guerillas- a ruthless bunch which unleashed obscene violence in that 'independence war' and the bloody, but justified slaughter of GIA psychopaths planning to use an airliner for hijacking and suicide work. AK, I don't know if French journalists are as biased in favour of Islamist and Arabists thugs like Al-Jaz and Al Manar. But their plight does show that being against US policy doesn't save you from the Islamist's negative attention. In their mind, all infidels are targets regardless of their views.