aim at foot...pull trigger
US Lawmakers Seek to End French Company's Contract
Fri March 28, 2003 03:33 PM ET
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No matter whether it's french toast or french fries they're serving to the Marines, a group of U.S. lawmakers want caterer Sodexho Inc. to stop it -- because its parent company is French.
Angry at France's refusal to support the war on Iraq, the lawmakers are urging the military to cancel a contract with Sodexho Inc., the North American unit of France's Sodexho Alliance .
But one lawmaker, whose Maryland district contains Sodexho Inc.'s headquarters, has launched a counterattack, noting the company employs Americans in every U.S. state.
Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, has collected some 60 lawmakers' signatures against Sodexho so far and plans to send the petition later on Friday to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a Kingston spokeswoman said.
"My colleagues and I abhor the idea of continuing to pour American dollars into a French-based firm when those dollars could be feeding our wartime economy," says the petition.
Terminating Sodexho Inc.'s $881 million contract to supply 55 Marine mess halls across the United States would "send a tangible signal to the French government that there are economic consequences associated with their international policies," Kingston wrote.
But his effort has launched a war of words with Maryland Democrat Rep. Chris Van Hollen who has sent Rumsfeld his own letter that notes that the people working for Sodexho in those Marine mess halls are Americans.
"Sodexho provides 110,000 American jobs, employing people in all 50 states and paying $646 million in taxes," said Van Hollen's letter. Also, he said, Sodexho Inc. lost employees at New York's World Trade Center in the Sept. 11 attacks, and participated in the recovery efforts there by catering for rescue workers.
Sodexho Inc. spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the controversy was unfortunate. "The Marines have a lot on their plate right now," she said. "We want to keep putting food on their plate." She said the company, headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, had also catered for U.S. soldiers in the 1991 Gulf War and in Bosnia.
Kingston's effort reflects indignation among some U.S. policymakers at the French for helping to confound U.S. attempts to get the United Nations Security Council to authorize military force against Iraq. |
