In a surprising announcement this week, the French President, Jacques Chirac, announced his intention to offer the unconditional surrender of all French forces to Iraq.
"Clearly we've been expecting a French move in this direction for some time," said Herbert Leplomb, head of the French study department of the International Studies Executive. "Nevertheless, it's timing came as something of a surprise. We thought the French would hold out for at least another week, perhaps two."
Mr. Chirac explained his decision in a press conference held earlier today:
"We are a proud nation, with a long and glorious history of fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy. Nevertheless, it is with a heavy heart that we must accept the inevitable and work to protect French lives and French property. So I have offered Mr. Hussein our unconditional surrender, in the hope that this will bring an end to the bloodshed."
Leplomb commented that the French have been looking for someone to surrender to for the past several years, but that the pressure had really been on since the reunification of Germany.
"The feeling in France is very much 'now we have a unified Germany, it's about time we surrendered.' However the Germans have been far from co-operative. Not only do they not want the French to surrender, they still feel guilty about the last couple of wars. I know for a fact that they've several times offered to rename parts of Germany with French sounding words. This apparently infuriated Mr. Chirac, and insiders have since told me he came within a hair's breadth of renaming Paris 'New Berlin.'"
It seems that the current Iraqi regime has been the answer to all the French prayers.
"Mr. Hussein is an ideal leader," Mr Chirac commented today, "he is ruthless, he is bent on regional domination, he is happy to use weapons of mass destruction indiscriminately on his own people and his paranoia is legendary. In many ways he combines all the best features of Hitler and Stalin. We're delighted to be able to surrender to him and we look forward to his ruthless and unnecessarily cruel domination."
The United Nations has convened an emergency meeting to discuss the events. Kofe Annan was overheard to say "Thank goodness they've found someone to surrender to. I was getting sick of the offers to have the UN invade France."