French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was in Yorktown, Va., Thursday to preside over 225th anniversary celebrations of the decisive siege that effectively ended the American Revolution, and she used the occasion to underscore the importance of French-U.S. relations. A parade of American and French troops in the city on the Chesapeake represented the military partnership that forced British General Charles Cornwallis to ask for surrender terms on Oct. 17, 1781, and to capitulate two days later. There was no senior member of the Bush administration at the Yorktown ceremonies, and a Defense Department source called the commemoration "a French affair." But Alliot-Marie was scheduled to hold talks with her U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Washington on Friday. The meeting is expected to cover military cooperation in Afghanistan, where both the United States and France have troops, the Palestinian-Israeli situation, Iraq, and the aftermath of last summer's Lebanese conflict.
225 Years After Yorktown, U.S.-French Relations Tentative
