Gaddafi's visit to France

A recent Agence France Presse report on the five-day visit to France next week by Colonel Gaddafi contains the following passage:

'Franco-Libyan relations have steadily improved since a 2004 accord on a Libyan compensation deal for the victims of a French DC-10 airliner bombing over Niger. The crash in 1989 killed 170 people, including 54 French.

The upturn paved the way for a visit by President Jacques Chirac in November 2004. The two countries resumed defence cooperation in February 2005.

The west's former bogey has for many years set about a policy of mending bridges with Europe and the United States, in 2003 announcing the end of Libya's illegal weapons programmes and accepting formal responsibility for the Lockerbie plane bombing over Scotland.

But opposition French politicians and intellectuals criticised the Kadhafi visit as an affront to victims of Libyan "terrorism".'

See http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5inMzZftJ5lv3LKDvO6fjcljpyiIQ