French Neighboring Relations - Halp Halp

[Lbelle]

http://photos-372.ak.facebook.com/ip...76372_1777.jpg

Since so many of you were able to help with my last IR paper, I thought you may be able to give me a bit of help on this one too...

I basically have to describe the relations of France with some of its neighboring countries. I'm going to choose Germany, the UK, and I was thinking Spain.

The problem lies in the fact that it seems like there is very little information regarding the Franco-Spanish relations on the internet, and even throughout several libraries.

Do any of you know about the Franco-Spanish relations of TODAY? Any organizations they have together? Do they love each other? Why?

Oh, and before you copy stuff from Wikipedia I've looked through it about 5 times to try to find anything else other than their cooperation on supressing the ETA. That's a good find, but I need other information to make this part of the paper longer.

Any help would own. Thanks guys!

[Lasitha]

As far as I'm concerned, Spain and France have a good relationship. They have treaties together and the such and last time I checked it's better to speak spanish in France than english . They will give you the evil eye if you do.

Hmmmm, not too long ago they had a little issue regarding clandestine immigration. Spain wanted to legalize a lot of them but France knew this was not a good idea based on their experience back in 97. The spanish president was upset because of France's interior minister criticism towards that decission.

France supports Spain on it's fight against the ETA. But one of France and Spain's biggest troubles is the majority of (WTH is the name in english?) Vascos.

Also, President Zapatero will ask Chirac sometime next week or this week that they both lead the european initiative on the near east (middle east for us I guess.)

They fight terrorism hand in hand.

And that's all the information I can give.

Sources:

All in spanish, my guess is you can't read them so who cares.

[edgarfigaro]

This is IR and not comparative right? Either way, a good place to start is Airbus, especially with Great Britain selling off their stake recently.

[Lylie]

As far as I'm concerned, Spain and France have a good relationship. They have treaties together and the such and last time I checked it's better to speak spanish in France than english . They will give you the evil eye if you do.

Last time I checked, it was best to talk French in France. French generally f-cking suck at speaking any other language, lol. But on a more serious note, you'll find WAY more English speaker than Spanish, though in the south (Spain border) you may find lots of Spanish speaker indeed.

About our relation-ship with Spain (I'm French myself) most of the stuff or organization you'll want to find informations about, is Europe related, so it'll be the same for lots of countries around here.

Most what Lasitha is correct, except they didn't fight hand in hand when Bush started Iraq war. Only France, Germany and Russia (now that was hilarious when you saw Russia talking about how bad invading another country is) were against it. I know Italy went for it, I'm not positive about Spain, but I'm pretty sure they went for it too, which created lots of troubles in EU at the time.

As for Vascos, English name is just Basque people I didn't hear of them in a long time now, so maybe they're not making so much troubles as they used to, but maybe it's just because news don't talk about them...

Are you Spanish Lasitha?

[vegetaa]

France and Spain have been signing many economic agreements in the last 10 years, especially on technology/research domains. Both countries have been helping partnerships between companies, and many big French companies opened business offices in Spain (mostly in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia) in the last few years. I'm not sure about Spanish companies in France, but I would think it's happening too.

Both countries also have been working on shareing their police/criminal data (starting early 2006 if I remember correctly), the main goal being fighting terrorism and drugs going through Spain->France borders.

I heard a few days ago that a Franco-Spanish summit was happening very soon, too...actually it started yesterday (http://fr.news.yahoo.com/15112006/5/jac ... agnol.html). You can probably get the same article in english, or have it translated by yahoo/google/babelfish.

About the languages, French is the 1st language tought in Spain, and Spanish is the 2nd one in France (after English).

Last but not least...Spain is a fucking great country to spend your summer holidays in France is pretty nice too, though ^^

Edit: "Basques" people are supposed to have stopped their aggressive activities for an unlimited period of time (I'm not exactly sure about how to say "déposer les armes" et "treve a duré indeterminée" :/) so that's probably why they aren't in the news in the last few months. I think it happened mid-2005.

[Lasitha]

As far as I'm concerned, Spain and France have a good relationship. They have treaties together and the such and last time I checked it's better to speak spanish in France than english . They will give you the evil eye if you do.

Last time I checked, it was best to talk French in France. French generally f-cking suck at speaking any other language, lol. But on a more serious note, you'll find WAY more English speaker than Spanish, though in the south (Spain border) you may find lots of Spanish speaker indeed.

About our relation-ship with Spain (I'm French myself) most of the stuff or organization you'll want to find informations about, is Europe related, so it'll be the same for lots of countries around here.

Most what Lasitha is correct, except they didn't fight hand in hand when Bush started Iraq war. Only France, Germany and Russia (now that was hilarious when you saw Russia talking about how bad invading another country is) were against it. I know Italy went for it, I'm not positive about Spain, but I'm pretty sure they went for it too, which created lots of troubles in EU at the time.

As for Vascos, English name is just Basque people I didn't hear of them in a long time now, so maybe they're not making so much troubles as they used to, but maybe it's just because news don't talk about them...

Are you Spanish Lasitha?

There's a reason why I specified it's better to speak spanish than english, I never said it was better than speaking french.

As for the Iraq war thing, terrorism wasn't invented the day the Twin Towers fell.

No, I'm not spanish. I'm Mexican.

Recently the Basques have been going around with their "Rawr, we want our region" crap again. It hasn't been violent, but we all know that's not gonna last very long.

And on the summit note. I think that's where Zapatero is going to ask Chirac to deal hand in hand with the situation in Gaza.

[Lylie]

There's a reason why I specified it's better to speak spanish than english, I never said it was better than speaking french.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is not better to speak Spanish than English. Most people will speak (French, of course) English first, and THEN Spanish or German.

As for the Iraq war thing, terrorism wasn't invented the day the Twin Towers fell.

I'm not sure why you say that either. I was just saying you were right on the ETA thing (France-Spain working together), and that the only (I think?) and major event that made both countries not work together, and having a total different point of view on it, was the Iraq war.

[Lasitha]

The time I was in Paris I remember people deliberately ignoring me for speaking english, and when I spoke spanish, like magic they suddenly listened. (Not everyone of course, but most the people I happened to talk to.)

Maybe it's just my personal experience, but I've heard the same thing from other people too. Go figure.

[Kuya]

Recently the Basques have been going around with their "Rawr, we want our region" crap again. It hasn't been violent, but we all know that's not gonna last very long.

Wait... what? they do? lol, i need to keep up on Spanish happenings. Personal Interest of mine, but do you mind telling more about this sbuject or anything else of interest happening there? You know about the "vascos".

[Lasitha]

For one, Otegi said yesterday or so that he won't order the violence to stop~

Saying the problem is not Batasuna, and also saying that the negotiations between the Government and the ETA are not working. Little things here and there, but things that can't go by unadverted.

[Kuya]

Wow checked the ETA, had no idea these things where ocurring in Spain, really shows my ignorance. Its almost as if all latin nations have these problems. I knew who the Basque where, but we where always told here there are no pure blood Basque, maybe im confusing it with some other old Spanish "clan". But seriusly wow near 900 killings and dozens of kidnappings.

[Lbelle]

I finished my paper and used all the insight from you guys, so thank you very very very much!

[Viena]

Too bad that some people can't understand the problems that the Basque country has, nor being able to find similarities with the trouble of Northern Ireland.

[Talus]

You may want to consider searching scholarly journals for your information concerning France & its neighbors. Good journals I used in the past (undergrad was double major in government with focus in IR and economics): European Journal of International Relations, Internation Journal of Intercultural Relations, Journal of International Relations and Development, British Journal of Politics & International Relations, Agence France Presse (English Edition, unless you speak French), European Union Politics, and Journal of European Public Policy. These are just starting points but they're bound to have some coverage of what you may be trying to find for your paper.

Some or most can be found at your university library, others at LexisNexis academic, etc.

[Edit: Whoops, I just saw the last post that you finished the paper. My bad!]

[vegetaa]

The time I was in Paris I remember people deliberately ignoring me for speaking english, and when I spoke spanish, like magic they suddenly listened. (Not everyone of course, but most the people I happened to talk to.)

Maybe it's just my personal experience, but I've heard the same thing from other people too. Go figure.

Generalization is bad

And you have to know that Paris isn't exactly the best place to be as a tourist, if you want to talk to people...south of France is much more open to that...

Anyway, good luck with your paper, Lbelle