Endless cross-Channel William the Conqueror
lence may be founded on stupidity rather than malice.” Churchill stopped the general visiting one of the few remaining French overseas territories, saying: “I have vetoed this, as he would simply make mischief and spread Anglophobia.”
His relationship with the Free French leader was probably not helped by the difficult decision to bombard the French fleet at Oran in 1940 to stop it falling into Nazi hands. The
Royal Navy raid killed more than a thousand French servicemen, sank one battleship and damaged five others.
Following D-Day, Churchill wanted De Gaulle to rally Frenchmen to the Allied invasion with a radio broadcast, but the general refused, fearing the Anglo-American dominance might imperil French independence. An infuriated Churchill called him a “false and puffed personality” with “no regard for common causes”.
Thousands of British and American servicemen might have died to liberate France, but De Gaulle barely wanted to acknowledge that, entering a freed Paris as though he was sole victor.
This transatlantic antipathy continued long after the war, with France withdrawing from NATO in 1966. De Gaulle blocked our request to join the European Common Market twice – in 1963 and 1967. Even when our Francophile Prime Minister Edward Heath finally got us in the EC in 1973, France treated the union as a FrenchGerman club with everyone expected to follow their lead. Any British criticism has been regarded as an impediment to their desire to establish a united Europe equal to the USA, even though it is NATO and not the EU that has maintained peace inWestern Europe for 72 years.
What Louis XIV and Napoleon failed to achieve, French presidents have sought to make happen under the umbrella of the EU. The Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 brought them as near to this as possible, setting each member on the path to ever closer union, consolidating decision making in Brussels and removing national barriers.
OUR vote for Brexit in 2016 shattered this ambition and the French establishment remain furious with the UK. Rather than becoming amicable neighbours, French bureaucrats have sought to make life difficult for us at every turn. Increased border checks have damaged the flow of trade between our two countries, hurting exporters on both sides of the Channel. The EU’s much-touted concern for supporting the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland has in fact destabilised the peace process there, triggering the worst political crisis in Belfast since 1998. Perhaps worst of all, at the moment of greatest threat to us all in the Covid-19 pandemic, President Macron chose to undermine our Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine, resulting in the entire EU lagging way behind our own triumphant vaccination programme. If ever proof was needed the French care more about EU politics than protecting their own citizens, this has been perhaps the most shocking example. It is a tremendous pity that such a civilised and stylish nation should be misled by pride and arrogance. Military defeat and national humiliation have undoubtedly played their part in ramping up this millennium of antipathy, but almost on every occasion since the Middle Ages, it has been Britain that has simply been defending itself against an overreaching French state seeking to subdue us or reduce our historic freedoms.
The fact that the Royal Navy is patrolling the sea between us to protect Jersey islanders is a sorry reflection of this. Despite this, I will not stop drinking claret, savouring a ripe Brie de Meaux and admiring Impressionist artists, because France for me is a country of sensual triumphs, the very definition of joie de vivre. If only its posturing politicians would stop panicking at their passing power and once more be the good friends we really want them to be. In the past, especially during the tragedy of the First World War, we have stood shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy. Let’s do that again.
‘It is a pity that such a civilised and stylish nation should be misled by pride and arrogance’
●●Tim Newark is the author ofWar In Britain (HarperCollins) and Highlander (Constable)