Sarkozy defends decision to attend Olympic opening

Despite fierce criticism from European legislators, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France insisted Thursday that he had been right to agree to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, arguing that a boycott would be counter-productive. "I happen to think that humiliating China is not the best way to respect human rights," Sarkozy told European legislators in Strasbourg. "I don't think you can boycott 1.3 billion people, a quarter of the world's population." Criticism of Sarkozy's decision to attend the ceremony in Beijing next month underlined the unease in Europe over the respectability that the Olympic Games will give to a regime with a poor human rights record. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Green group in the European Parliament, appealed to the French president to stay away from an event that... [read full story]