Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Seven The French Resigned
The originally scheduled Weimar Conference was postponed.
Because in just one week before the session was approaching, two major events happened.
One, the beloved President Roosevelt of the American people, died of a cerebral hemorrhage due to excessive emotion while visiting a military facility the day before leaving for Europe.
For this reason, the flag at Josie's fortress headquarters was flown at half-mast to express condolences.
Of course, the fact that he happily had a sumptuous dinner with his subordinates in private was not enough for outsiders to understand.
Anyway, it is normal to eat at a funeral.
Another major event was the British general election. Mr. Churchill, the awesome man who thought he had saved Britain, lost the election.
This matter has little to do with Josie, who doesn't care who becomes the British Prime Minister.
But these two things together forced the Weimar Conference to be postponed for a week.
However, the postponement of the meeting did not delay Weimar from becoming a place where the storm gathered in advance, nor did it delay Josie from coming here to look for opportunities and collect debts.
"Your Excellency Charles de Gaulle, you have been delaying the matter in the French-occupied area. This is inconsistent with what we discussed before. Can I understand that you intend to default on your debt?" Qiao Xi met him in a local tavern in Weimar.
De Gaulle, who arrived in Weimar in advance, asked in a very bad tone.
Just as Qiao Xi had predicted, de Gaulle, the interim leader, could not make the final decision on France's loans.
Not long after the new parliament was elected, de Gaulle was already being squeezed out.
But what Qiao Xi didn't expect was that de Gaulle was so capable that he was so powerless to control the French-occupied areas, and was obstructed and delayed by French domestic forces.
"Mr. Kahn, it's not that we are deadbeats, it's just that our domestic situation is really complicated now, and the international situation is not very good, so we are temporarily unable to repay our debts, and the prices of the materials you provided at that time were indeed a bit high!" No!
When de Gaulle spoke, a middle-aged man wearing glasses standing behind him spoke first.
"Who are you? Do you have the right to interrupt when I'm talking to Mr. de Gaulle?" Qiao Xi glanced at me and said disdainfully.
"Mr. Kahn, please pay attention to your words. I am a French diplomat. Your insult to me is also an insult to my country!" Facing Josie's disdain, the man blushed and said.
"Tch, I'm just insulting you. What's going on? A country that was occupied by the Germans in just one month. Its recovery depends entirely on the Allies. It doesn't even have a formal seat in international conferences. I'm just insulting you. You bite me.
?I have no skills in fighting, but I started to tremble when I defaulted on my debt. What the hell!" Qiao Xi tilted his head and looked at the man who claimed to be a French diplomat for a few seconds, then cursed directly.
He didn't leave any dignity at all for the other party and de Gaulle sitting opposite.
Because for the current Josie, there is no need at all.
France was liberated, yes, and the famine was over, but that doesn't mean its life was easy.
Although various countries have recognized France's status as a victorious power, that is all. They still have no say in various major international affairs.
Just like the Yalta and Potsdam conferences that were not eligible to occupy seats in history, they also had no say in the Weimar Conference in this world. Only three British and American furbears had official seats.
France and other countries that came to the meeting were just foils, going through the motions.
In addition, the war had severely damaged France's vitality, and its recovery would require blood transfusions from the United States.
Although the decision on blood transfusions is made by the White House and Congress, the specific actual operations are carried out by the consortium. The article here is really good.
As for Josie, as the representative of the American consortium, if you French people try to touch him even a hair, you will be stripped of all his skin.
"Ahem, Mr. Kahn, let's discuss the matter on a case-by-case basis. Please don't escalate it to the national level." De Gaulle finally couldn't help but speak. He didn't speak at first. He said that it wasn't that he was deliberately showing off to Qiao Xi, but that he was killed before he even opened his mouth.
The diplomat got there first. In addition, the diplomat was not actually his, so he was happy to let him be the bad guy.
But what de Gaulle didn't expect was that Qiao Xi would be so disrespectful. Even if he scolded others, he would scold the country as well, which was unacceptable to him.
There are actually quite a lot of remarks that insult the law these days. De Gaulle actually knew this, but they usually just talked about it in private. Qiao Xi was the first to criticize him directly in front of the leader of the other country.
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If it were an ordinary person, de Gaulle would probably start pulling out a gun right now.
But facing Qiao Xi, he really couldn't say anything harsh.
Because it was indeed his fault in the first place, last year he begged his grandparents to borrow food worth 200 million US dollars from Qiao Xi, and signed a contract to use French-occupied resources as compensation.
It's just that he didn't expect that those guys in the country were more difficult to deal with than he imagined, so much so that he couldn't even fully control the resources in the French-occupied area.
"Mr. de Gaulle, I don't want to make everyone look bad, but there is no way for you to keep dragging on the debt issue. Or is it that France actually doesn't want follow-up support at all?" Josie shook his head and asked.
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"Hmph, is it possible that the support your country gives to our country can still be decided by a representative of a consortium like you?"
De Gaulle wanted to have a good talk with Qiao Xi and gave him some time.
What I didn't expect was that the diplomat said this again.
It can be seen from this that de Gaulle's control over his own country has become so weak that he can't even silence an accompanying diplomat.
"In that case, there is nothing left to talk about!" Qiao Xi glanced at the diplomatic officer, suddenly smiled, and immediately stood up and left the tavern with his people.
"Boss, do you want to show that idiot a little bit?" Vito, who got in the car and sat in the passenger seat, asked Josie.
"No need for the moment, the situation in Weimar is special, we can't cause trouble at this moment." Qiao Xi shook his head and said, "And anyone who can become a diplomat cannot be really stupid. The reason why the other party provoked me like this is,
It shows that they are really planning to default on their debt, and I don’t know where they get the confidence!”
Speaking of which, defaulting on debts has become a traditional skill of the French government.
It can be traced back to the time of Louis XVI.
The closer one is a battle.
Just after World War I, France owed the United States nearly 10 billion, including national debt and private debt like Josie's.
But from 1920 to 1930, the French government only repaid a total of 500 million.
This really doesn't even add up to enough interest.
And with the advent of the Great Depression, France was simply ruined and would not return it.
This was also one of the reasons why the United States was unwilling to support France free of charge during World War II.
And Qiao Xi also knew early on that in the early days after World War II, the new French government also wanted to default on its debts.
It was only later that it was discovered that the economy could not recover. In order to obtain the pillars of the later Marshall Plan, we had to renegotiate with the United States and designate a complete repayment plan. Then we slowly began to pay back the money, and finally it was barely repaid until the 21st century.
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Since the French want to default on their debts, fine, don't let the French spit out the money twice as much. Josie's name is written upside down.
While Josie was trying to collect debts from the French to no avail, Ophelia was also meeting someone in another hotel not far away, and the person, like Ophelia, was also a great beauty.
"First time we meet, my name is Claire, Claire Vaillant!" the woman introduced herself to Ophelia.
"Ophelia Sarkistan, nice to meet you, Claire~" Ophelia also smiled and stretched out her hand, shaking it with hers.
It's just that although the two women smiled very gently, the waiter beside them always felt that the temperature seemed to drop several degrees when they approached the table.