French taught to hate us
OVER in France they have something called the ENA. It is not a school or yet a university but a postcollege college. It stands for Ecole Nationale d’Administration and its alumni are called Enarques. It is for the brightest and best, the cream of the cream of the scholastic process and its top leavers are guaranteed a ride straight to the top of politics, the civil service and business.
However, the curriculum is not just academic esoterica. Intensely studied is France in all her aspects, the aim being to imbue all its pupils with a profound devotion to the patrie.
In the UK we do not teach love of country as a college subject. Indeed to judge by some of our leading lights you might think it was the reverse. But this is not France.
At the core of the ETA curriculum is history and France’s glorious place in it. Except for one detail: over centuries France’s supremacy on a worldwide basis has consistently run into one red-coated roadblock: the ruddy British.
Century after century France’s “rightful place” as Europe’s superpower – Germany is only 150 years old – was denied by us.
The final insufferable insult was Waterloo. On a muddy Belgian field in 1815 a hook-nosed Anglo-Irishman and the red-coated men he called the scum of the earth put a final end to the short Corsican who had made La Belle France the mistress of everything she surveyed. And not for 10 minutes. For 100 years.
Now the leading Enarque in Europe today is Michel Barnier and he is steeped in the traditional French legend. You would have to be very gullible indeed to believe the choice of M Barnier to head up the team against (and yes, I mean against) us over the Brexit negotiations was a coincidence.
He is a skilled diplomat but not an award-winning actor. The mask slips too often. Behind the polished smile I believe he cannot stand this island or its rebellious people. We were so close to the shackled hand and foot in the EU rules and regulations.
David Cameron’s referendum was so obviously going to return a verdict of “stay and obey”. And then we went and said: “We want our country back!”
This is a level of insolence that must be punished and I believe it is super-Enarque Barnier who is charged to accomplish that retribution. Seen from Brussels or Paris it is clear. If this UK leaves, succeeds and prospers there will be no preventing two or three others thinking: “Well, why not?” Then the unravelling begins.
A truly and wholly unified continent under Franco-German control is the long-lusted for aim. Everything is going that way – except one offshore island becoming stroppy again. It is a dream that cannot be lost, a vision that must not be frustrated. Seen through M Barner’s eyes it would be worse than Waterloo.
That is why I have no hope for a fair, equitable partnership between the EU and this country ever being negotiated by the team under his captaincy. That is not their mission in life.