It's Chirac's "strongest wish." Takes some of the heat off of that headscarf controversy, eh, Jacques? From [1] EUObserver.com, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

The leaders of France and Germany have offered strong statements of support to Turkey’s bid to join the EU.

At a joint Franco-German summit meeting yesterday in Berlin - to which Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also invited – French President Jacques Chirac said it was his "strongest wish" to see Ankara in the EU.

Turkey’s accession is "in the interests of Europe, in the interests of Turkey and in the interests of peace and democracy in the world and in the region", he said, according to French media.

And France and Germany would work together in the hope that a successful conclusion can be brought to the negotiations, he added.

One would think, with all the trouble France is having with a Muslim population that largely refuses to assimilate and shows signs of rejecting secularism in large numbers, that Chirac would be ready to ask Erdogan pointed questions about Turkey's long-range plans to rein in radical Islam. But evidently not.