It’s time Dave told France: on your bike!
CHRIS FROOME is insulted, spat at and otherwise vilified by chauvinistic (in the original sense) French cycle race supporters f or t he historic f eat of becoming the first Briton to win the Tour de France twice.
Meanwhile, grumpy French police refuse to hand out sweets to hapless homeward- bound UK motorists caught in jams caused by striking ferry workers and migrants.
Our M20 is turned into a lorry park by police, the holidays of thousands are ruined, Kentish roads are blocked and untold millions of pounds lost due to the French inability — or reluctance — to keep cross-Channel travel and trade lines free.
We fought the Hundred Years War with them after less provocation.
Is there an alternative to seething with fury and doing nothing, resigning ourselves to waiting out a French industrial dispute which has nothing to do with us?
Surely we could draw up a list of anti- French sanctions aimed at persuading Monsieur Frog that hopping-mad Mr Rosbif isn’t going to take it any more.
David Cameron seems f ar too sanguine about the matter, saying last month: ‘We should work with the French closely. There is no point either side trying to point the finger of blame at each other.
‘This is a strong partnership that we have in place and we should keep it that way.’
Strong partnership? If this is a strong partnership, I’d like to see a weak one. It’s not how it looks to our border officers in Calais. Or to UK motorists using Eurotunnel. We must now point a finger at the French. Visitors to Calais see a vast, lawless and sinisterly alien environment in which police act as spectators while trades union thugs cause criminal damage to port facilities in the hope of blackmailing the companies concerned into preserving their jobs.
Cameron says what he says because he is obliged to play Mr Nice Guy. He has bigger fish to fry with the EU. Prior to the impending ‘in or out’ referendum, he hopes to talk fellow leaders into returning a little of the sovereignty we have lost to the EU.
EU bureaucrats discourage disputes between member nations. They prefer to moderate even-handedly (as they see it) between competing interests. But no one involved sees any sign that they have taken a serious interest in the Calais chaos although it makes a mockery of the EU’s claim to be a family of nations.
Does the EU condone French police standing by while striking ferry workers smash port facilities? Apparently so, though it’s anarchy.
DO THEY condone ro a mi n g bands of migrants allowed to leap on to lorries, or over Eurotunnel fences? It would seem so. Cameron says the Government is looking into ways in which UK border controls at Calais can be beefed up, mentioning more personnel and sniffer dogs. Does he really believe that’s the answer?
Instead, he must tell the French unequivocally that we will no longer tolerate the anarchy at Calais. We won’t put up with strikers smashing facilities to impede traffic. Nor will we tolerate migrants leaping on to lorries, or scaling the Eurotunnel fences.
We would not accept this in Folkestone or Dover. Why put up with it in Calais? The PM must also address the question of costs. The Eurotunnel operators, lorry firms and exporters who have l ost money must be reinbursed by the French. So must the UK travellers who have suffered.
To hell with euro harmony. It’s not worth having.