IRAN SCORNS FRENCH WARNING OF WAR !

Bernard Kouchner said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a grave threat. A warning by France's foreign minister that the world should prepare for war over Iran's nuclear programme has drawn a furious response in Iranian media.
France was aping the US and its new president had "taken on American skin", the official Iranian news agency said.
On Sunday Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war."
Iran's nuclear programme is to be debated in Vienna, Austria, at the UN nuclear watchdog's annual conference.
Iran denies it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and says it only wants nuclear power to generate electricity for civilian purposes.
But it has repeatedly rejected UN demands to give up the enrichment of uranium, which the US and other Western states fear is being diverted to a nuclear weapons project.
Mr Kouchner said negotiations with Iran should continue "right to the end", but that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose "a real danger for the whole world".
The occupants of the Elysee have become the executors of the will of the White House
Iranian news agency IRNA

New France gets tough
Profile: Bernard Kouchner

He said a number of large French companies had been asked not to tender for business in Iran.
Iranian official media responded with contempt.
"The occupants of the Elysee (the French presidential palace) have become the executors of the will of the White House and have adopted a tone that is even harder, even more inflammatory and more illogical than that of Washington," it said.
The accepted wisdom in Iran is that the US is too wrapped up in Iraq and Afghanistan to launch another war in the region, says the BBC's Jon Leyne in the capital, Tehran.
Mr Kouchner was visiting Russia on Monday, where he was expected to push for tighter UN sanctions to try to force Iran to give up enrichment.
Russia has a UN Security Council veto over any new sanctions, and its support is seen as vital for any new approach.
But Mr Kouchner said even in the absence of UN action, the European Union should prepare its own sanctions against Iran.
Iran has warned that any new punishments could push it to stop co-operating with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.
The IAEA's members meet this week in Austria, with Iran likely to top the agenda.
The director of the organisation, Mohamed ElBaradei, has been criticised in the West over a new deal with Iran to clear up questions about its past nuclear activities.
The US and its allies believe the deal just gives Iran more time, during which they fear it will advance its nuclear programme.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says France has changed its approach to world affairs under its new President Nicolas Sarkozy, adopting a harder line on several issues, and seeking to improve relations with the US.
The United States has not ruled out a military attack against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
However, a top general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said any bombing raid on targets in Iran would provoke a tough response.
US positions in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan "are within our range", Gen Mohammad Hassan Koussechi told IRNA.
BBC NEWS REPORT.