La Culture Menacée

A festival due to be held in Paris this weekend to celebrate American music and culture has been called off after death threats from an anti-US group claiming links to al-Qaida.

The death threats, along with warnings suggesting that the event itself might be attacked, were made in anonymous telephone calls and an apparently badly written letter containing numerous spelling mistakes.

These accused the festival’s organisers of supporting the “American imperialists” and the recently elected rightwing French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, nicknamed “Sarkozy the American” for his pro-US views.

-Guardian UK