Falling out of love with the French

For more than twenty summers, my family and I have chosen France above all other European destinations to while away a fortnight. For significant birthdays and special treats, it’s Paris – where else? For wine and, of course, champagne, it’s mostly French. Our daughters’ favourite godmother and my dearest friend is French (and Russian, but that’s another column).

I could so easily have ended it with France when my husband and I narrowly escaped being burnt alive in the Hotel du Charme, a rickety establishment in Saint Germain des Pres. But I forgave the French (though not the proprietor) their lax fire precautions and returned to the country the following year.

We were there again this July, seeking the Ardeche sun when few other Britons could be bothered with the almost comic Covid obstacles. But mon Dieu! Even for the most ardent Francophile, it is becoming increasingly difficult at the moment to love France.

Not content with re-igniting tensions with British fishermen and threatening to cut off gas supplies, the French have now gone for the nuclear option, warning they will spoil our Christmas if we continue to cross them.

Clement Beaune, France’s minister for Europe, escalated the latest spat over French fishing rights in British waters by vowing to switch off the lights in the Channel Islands, which depend on French electricity, and parts of the south-east of England. “They think they can live on their own and badmouth Europe as well,” he hissed in a blatant attempt at blackmail this week. 

And if French trawlers are not granted access to their traditional grounds in Jersey – which sparked protests in May – fishery leaders will blockade Calais and the Channel Tunnel, disrupting goods coming into the UK and ruining Christmas this year much as the pandemic spoilt it last year.

Olivier Lepretre, chief of the northern France fisheries committee, upped the ante with Asterix bravado: “If negotiating fails, we will stop all French and European products reaching the UK, and we will stop all British products reaching Europe. Unless Boris backs down, the Brits will not have so many nice things to eat this Christmas. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Meanwhile, French prime minister Jean Castex wants to tear up the entire post-Brexit EU trade deal with Britain. We may rely on Calais for a quarter of all our European imports, but this Gallic strop is trop even by French standards, as the phlegmatic Brexit minister, Lord Frost, suggested, though more diplomatically.

It is a very Brexity narrative to dismiss the French as petulant, but even those of us who still wish we were in Europe are losing patience. Fish aside, Emmanuel Macron has never forgiven us for leaving the EU. And he continues to sulk over AUKUS, the pact struck between the UK, US and Australia that so took him by surprise. Under his presidency, France is stirring up grievances against Britain in a manner that would make Scottish Nationalists proud and arguably with even less justification.

In a way, this is nothing new. Since the Entente Cordiale in 1904, relations with our closest European neighbour have often been strained over trivial matters, based on mutual misunderstanding.

We find it funny when the Academie Française tries to ban English words like “weekend”, and “brunch”, and “okay” to protect the more limited French vocabulary. (I once saw “chicken wings de poulet” in a brasserie in the south which surely demands some kind of rebuke.)

We’re not so precious about our culture but perhaps should be more sensitive when mocking theirs. Certainly, Boris Johnson should. Personally, I found “donnez moi un break” and “prenez un grip” quite amusing, but the Prime Minister’s Franglais (in response to Macron’s tantrum over AUKUS), on top of his lousy performance as a foreign secretary, will have convinced the French they are dealing with an oaf.

At least, he was not as bad as Dominic Raab, who didn’t know the difference between the French department Reunion in the Indian Ocean and the French mainland when a new Covid variant popped up this summer and imposed ridiculous quarantine rules on holidaymakers returning from France to the UK.

Oh, for the sophistication of Tony Blair, who spoke fluent French. Or even Margaret Thatcher, who earned grudging respect in the Elysee Palace, with Francois Mitterrand (“she had the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe”) clearly in awe.

Macron, who fancies himself a modernist intellectual type, will be maddened by Johnson’s untranslatable flippancy. And jealous of his popularity…and his luck. The French president is in danger of becoming Dreyfus to Johnson’s Clouseau, infuriatingly unable to get the better of the clown. 

While Boris, unassailable (for now) in the polls, can toy with French froideur, Macron has an election looming next spring; losing face to the British is not a good look. But neither is making enemies of our European friends when we have so much else (China, Russia, Iran) to worry about.

Can’t we just kiss and make up? C’est pas la guerre.