Chirac turns on the charm to heal rift

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac launched a charm offensive on the United States yesterday, speaking of his love of hamburgers and hitchhiking student days in small-town America.

However, as Washington sounded off impatiently at the French president's demands for prolonging UN arms inspections, he hammered home his resistance to launching a war on Iraq now, that he said would spawn further international terrorism.

"It would create a large number of little (Osama) bin Ladens," he said.