Dominique de Villepin was proud yesterday to say that the stance he was taking in the UN came from “an ‘old country’, France, from a continent that has known war, occupation, barbarity; an old country that does not forget.”

Speaking of the French ruling class of an earlier time, Talleyrand, a somewhat shrewder French diplomat, put it rather better:

“Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.”

That is, clearly, still true. Or as the French like to say:

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”