So much for the image of the rude Parisian:

There won’t be much point in asking the waiter to say ‘cheese’ for those souvenir snaps in Paris this summer. He has already received orders to smile like mad at foreigners as part of a courtesy campaign.

Worried that tension between France and the Anglo-American coalition will lead to hostility at street level, the Ile de France region, which covers the 10 million people in and around the capital, has launched a campaign for locals to be nice to foreigners.

Yeah, like a cheese-eating surrender-monkey smiling for the nice American tourist is going to make the difference in global politics.