In their cups in the Quai d’Orsay

We French hate the perfidious English. We French have always hated the perfidious English. We French hate the perfidious English for being … perfidious. And English. And for positively refusing to be invaded by Germans when we French managed it so effortlessly. Twice. And for letting us deceive ourselves that all those English SOE agents running around organising Le Resistance were … French. Unacceptable. And then, mon Dieu, there was Waterloo … Trafalgar … Agincourt … the ‘andbag of Madame Thatcher …

Entente cordial? Never. A ridiculous, impossible idea.

Ah, but we French used to love “Europe” before the English insinuated themselves into it. It was the very essence of French dirigisme. And OK, Germany was the economic engine. But France held the political power. That was the deal. The English, of course, were not included. That was also the deal. Anyway, they had their “special relationship” with the Americans. But that didn’t worry us. We French hated the Americans.

So everything was magnifique. And then, one day, the hated English decided that the Americans were no longer enough for them. They wanted everything. Specifically, they wanted to undo France’s political hegemony in Europe. It had to be that - had to be political - because there was no chance whatsoever that “the sick man of Europe” could seriously challenge Kraut industrial might. So, there it was again, just like in the bad old days. The perfidous English wanted to play their power games, and as always they wanted to do it at French expense. They wanted to join our “Common Market”.

At first their advances could be rejected, and with what delicious affrontery. The great French leader, who bitterly hated the English, said, “Ici on parle Français.” That, for non-French speakers means, “I hate the perfidious English more than I can tell you, more than I can bear. And because I, the greatest and possible the tallest Frenchman ever to have lived (including that little runt from Corsica), had to endure the humiliation of living for five long years in Stourport-on-Severn – a small and disgustingly damp, typically provincial, typically English town - and because the English behaved towards me with intolerable public-school charm and benevolence no matter how blatently I insulted them, I now grasp this opportunity gladly and with all the gratuitous rudeness I can muster to say, “Non, non, non.””

But not even this stopped the English, so perfidious were they. Perfidiously, the bastards applied to join “Europe” all over again. Even though they had a man with a foolish nose and a terrible French accent for a Prime Minister, this time it was not so easy to turn them down. Indeed, this time they could not be turned down. And there began the decline of La France en l’Europe. There began the long and depressing, inevitable process of European Anglicisation, of the intrusion into European affairs of the English point of view and of that disgusting American invention, the market.

But not even the most paranoid and Anglo-phobic habitué of our Quai d’Orsay could have guessed how bad it would become and where it would all lead. But of course, Sunday, May 29th … the day the English beat us yet again! The day the great Constitution of Giscard, Monsieur La France himself, the finest practitioner and the very symbol of French political elitism, was made forever untenable by … Englishness.

Naturally, good French men and women couldn’t live with this Englishness. Voila, they voted the Constitution down. True, one or two not so good French men and women couldn’t live with its elitism, and so they voted it down too. Well, let us be honest. Let us be open and sincere. Yes, sincere. There were not many of them. No, no, we of the elite can certainly ignore them. We can find a way around all this. We will not allow ourselves to become mired in blame. Not with the perfidious English just twenty-two of their miles away. We must blame them. We will blame them. Comme d’habitude.

It’s only a pity we cannot find a way to blame the Americans, too.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, May 29, 2005 at 10:34 PM in Humour
Comments (14) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by John Ray on May 29, 2005, 10:57 PM | #

David
You make a most persuasive Frog

Posted by Geoff Beck on May 29, 2005, 11:01 PM | #

> It’s only a pity we cannot find a way to blame the Americans, too.

They’ll find a way.

Posted by Arcane on May 30, 2005, 07:29 AM | #

LMAO!!!

Make sure you check out The Times article about the PC police titled:-

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1622627,00.html

Posted by Guessedworker on May 30, 2005, 01:40 PM | #

Thanks for the link, Arc.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Navy said: “This is an illustration and theatre on water. Nelson is featured, but we are not billing it as Britain versus France ... This will not be a French-bashing opportunity.”

Well, what are the French for then, if not bashing?

Posted by Arcane on May 30, 2005, 07:50 PM | #

LOL.

Posted by Guessedworker on May 31, 2005, 08:51 AM | #

Meanwhile, our rulers are reported in today’s Telegraph thus:-

The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, admitted that the French result had been a shock to Europe’s elites but insisted that it would not halt closer integration, built round the Franco-German axis.

“It is a setback for the process of ratifying the constitution but not its end,” he said.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, whose country has already ratified the treaty, also insisted that the show must go on.

He said: “European construction is a grand project and will overcome obstacles, as Europe is not the problem but the solution.”

Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner in Brussels, said the French government could well ask the people to vote again in a second referendum in the hope of getting a different answer.

“No single member state has a veto over a constitutional treaty of this sort,” he said.

“France will have to consider its position: whether it is going to maintain a No or whether it is going to revisit the question and possibly come forward with a different view.”

I particularly liked that last sentence. The only thing missing was an “or else”.

Posted by erp on May 31, 2005, 04:08 PM | #

The French have at least three good reasons to blame us for the Sunday flame out because without our intervention, there would be no France, ergo no French election.

1. Without our military pulling their chestnuts out of the fire in WWI, France would have ceased to exist and the French as well as the rest of Europe would be speaking German;

2. Same as above, but substitute WWII for WWI.

3. Without our post war Marshall Plan, France and the rest of western Europe would have ceased to exist except as Soviet satellites and the language of choice would be Russian.

The geo-political landscape would have been vastly different had the Soviets dominated all of Europe and they may have actually been successful in their dream of world domination.

No need to thank us guys. Always glad to help an ally in need.

BTW - I don’t consider the UK as part of Europe.

Posted by Fausta on May 31, 2005, 06:07 PM | #

Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

Posted by Fred Scrooby on May 31, 2005, 07:27 PM | #

Fausta, that was a very funny cartoon. I’ll just add, at the risk of taunting everyone, that I’m a big Francophile—so, I’m deliberately trying to keep myself from laughing too, too hard at that ...

Posted by Fausta on May 31, 2005, 09:03 PM | #

Laugh all you want, Fred—considering how Jacques has made out at French taxpayers’ expense, you’re right to laugh.

Posted by Buddy Larsen on May 31, 2005, 10:54 PM | #

funny, funny!

Posted by Knemon on June 01, 2005, 01:11 AM | #

“No single member state has a veto over a constitutional treaty of this sort,” he said.

- Uhhhhh, I thought ratification had to be unanimous. Isn’t that precisely a one-member veto, then?

Posted by Marshal Petain on June 01, 2005, 12:26 PM | #

Thrice. 1871, 1914, 1940. More, if you go back farther, but then it was only parts of Germany to be.

Posted by Guessedworker on June 01, 2005, 01:37 PM | #

Monsieur,

I am honoured by your presence here but saddened to have to remind you of the essential “egalite” of French politics. The brief dust-up around Paris in 1871 offered no opportunities for a parallel invasion of Londres. I regret, therefore, that I am correct in my sums and must urge you to return to your vichysoise.

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