En anglais s’il vous plait?

If you really want to piss off a French diplomat, tell him he has to speak in English at the United Nations, where French is still one of the two official working languages.

Gérard Araud, France’s typically suave U.N. ambassador, briefly lost his cool today when U.N. technicians failed to bring a supply of headsets to allow simultaneous interpretation from French to English at a U.N. press briefing. Araud, who is serving as the rotating president of the security council this month, slammed his hands on the table, crossed his arms and tapped his fingers impatiently.

Initially, he refused requests from the press to carry on the briefing in English, which he speaks well. “I don’t speak English, first. Point,” he said in English. “Let’s be serious, this is not the way it works,” he continued, this time in French. “There are six languages in this organization and we speak all six of them. This is simply unacceptable.”

After it became clear that no headsets were coming, Araud quickly regained his composure and his sense of humor, and offered a compromise. He would respond to questions from English-speaking reporters in English and French journalists in French.

“I’m happy to do it in Spanish, Chinese, French and English,” he said.

Here’s a link to the U.N. webcast archive. The Araud briefing is the first one. There’s an English interpretation.