France reacted to the latest terror warning from Al Qaeda last night by shrugging its shoulders and insisting it hadn’t understood a single word they were saying.
The threats came after President Nicholas Sarkozy introduced a number of policies targeted at the country’s Muslim and wider immigrant community which would have caused many in places like the Third Reich to comment: ‘Come on , don’t you think you’re taking things a bit too far?’
But Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, waved a dismissive hand in Al Qaeda’s direction and in a lengthy and hastily-delivered statement written entirely in French, said he would only listen to threats issued in his mother tongue and would talk over anyone who threatened mass murder in any other language. Among the policies which have raised eyebrows are the banning of the Muslim veil, the forced repatriation of the Roma – the people not the Italian Serie A side - and the granting of asylum to Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand.
However, the broadcast left the Al Qaeda leadership, many of whom dropped the French language from their GCSE studies, saying things like ‘Eh? and ‘What?’ and ‘Please could you slow down a bit?’
As a precaution, the French have merely altered their terror alert level from ‘Insouciant’ to ‘Nonchalant’ and have called upon their citizens to continue smoking heavily whilst occasionally peering over the top of the Proust novel they’re reading to check if anything looks suspicious.
It is thought that an Al Qaeda terror cell had planned to target the Paris Metro system but may have given up on the idea after finding the journey planners completely unfathomable due to the fact that none of the directions are written in any other language aside from French.
One specific bomb threat was made last week against the Eiffel Tower which meant that the queues to go up the thing were substantially reduced, leading many tourists to give a wholehearted thumbs up to the imminent terror campaign, with a good number suggesting that they were prepared to lose a leg or an arm if it meant not having to stand in a line inhaling someone else’s body odour for up to three hours.
Al Qaeda are now expected to change their strategy and attempt to communicate directly with the French government by talking very loudly in English and attaching the suffix “ez” to certain words to give them an authentic Gallic flavour.
Their anger towards the French is said to date back to a 1998 edition of Top of the Pops during which an underage Vanessa Paradis performed a version of her classic hit ‘Joe Le Taxi’ dressed like a strumpet.