Yesterday, at the National Assembly, Jack Lang (PS) and Noël Mamère (Verts), both members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, came to support the peace plan for Chechnya and the accompanying appeal. A plan presented in the name of the pro-independence government by Omar Khanbiev, surgeon and Health Minister in the Chechen government. "We are entering the fifth year of the war to the general silence of the whole world," said Khanbiev, before outlining the details of the plan, which would see the involvement of three parties: Chechnya, Russia and the international community, beginning with Europe. It proposes a process of demilitarisation and democratisation which should last between five and ten years.

"No pro-independence movement has ever announced its own disarmament as the Chechens are doing now," insisted the philosopher André Glucksmann, finding himself among friends from whom he had been alienated by his views on the war in Iraq. "The ultimate aim is independence," stressed the Chechen minister, "but it will be granted to us by the international community." In his eyes, independence is not negotiable: "It is a necessary condition for the survival of the Chechen people after four centuries of fighting against a country that has always used Chechnya to settle internal affairs." Omar Khanbiev considers this plan to be "the most realistic". It would have been even more so if the two MPs present had at least represented their parties. Mamère claimed that the Greens would have no problem with it, while Lang said that he "would make inquiries" among his Socialist friends. Yesterday morning, another two MPs had signed the plan: Arnaud Montebourg (NPS) and Jean-Claude Lefort (PC). Khanbiev was returning from a campaign in Italy, and was about to leave for the United States. The appeal in support of the plan has already been signed by 11,000 people.