The United States is a voracious shark in pursuit of its prey while France is a graceful seagull, soaring above the tumult of the world in pursuit of peace and justice and all that is good and holy, wrote former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin in a new book.

Now France's interior minister and a poet, de Villepin has written "Le Requin et La Mouette" (The Shark and the Seagull), in which he uses poetic imagery to justify his nation's vehement opposition to the Iraq war.

Borrowing the terms shark and seagull from another French author, Eric Cantona, the elegant de Villepin implies that the shark, "a symbol of power, strength and the refusal to be halted by the complexity of the world ... cutting through the sea and pouncing on its prey," represents George Bush's America, which simple-mindedly rejects other cultures.

France, on the other hand, is represented by the seagull, a symbol of sweet reasonableness "intoxicated by the sky."