Best of enemies: divided by 20 miles of water, France and England are old friends, neighbours and rivals …

For A Change, June-July, 2000 by Andrew Stallybrass

A British beef-producer, Chris Evans, supposes that the relationship is like many family ones--complex. He doesn't know what the French feel about our inability to understand each other, but thinks that most Brits regard it as `their problem, which must be infuriating'. `Should we work at healing? Probably, but the prospect doesn't energize me. At the same time I can't help minding about France, its past and its future, and wanting to appreciate and be appreciated by the French.'

Evans turns to sporting images: `Two strong players with contrasting styles, strengths and weaknesses should be a greater asset to the team they play for than two identical ones. A good team manager has to deal with strong egos, and design a game plan around the strengths of each. But first the manager would have to persuade the two players in question to play the same game by the same rules. I can well understand the exasperation the French (and others) must feel that we signed up to a team called Europe, but are now sulking because we don't like the rules. On the other hand, many here feel the rules have been changed since we signed up without anyone consulting us.'

Swiss writer Jean-Jacques Odier notes that even though the English see the French as intellectual, `there's often with us a background of improvization, bricolage (`do-it-yourself') is the French word, a belief that things will come out right in the end'. In the same register, Robin Evans (uncle of Chris), who married a Frenchwoman and lived in France for many years, loves the French word se debrouiller. It can be variously translated, according to the context, as `muddling through', `working the system', or simply `untangling a confused situation', all of which he thinks the French particularly excel at.

`Why should the British be afraid that the French, with their generosity and logic, their strong sense of national independence and the rights of the individual, would allow the European Union to become a soulless super-state rather than a Europe des patries, a Europe of nation-states, to which every culture will contribute--even if the medium of communication has to be English?' Evans asks.

Graham Turner, a well-known English journalist, reacts to the overblown esteem for intellectuals in France. He tells the joke about the man who shouts for help when the person next to him in the cinema collapses and no-one moves. Then he shouts, `But he's an intellectual,' and he's overwhelmed with help! Certainly the title of `intellectual' is worn with pride in France, whereas it's almost an insult on our island. He suspects that the French have never forgiven the British for helping them in the war--a suspicion echoed by Odier.

Nevertheless, many older French have fond memories of their first encounters with the British during the war. Piguet recalls her little sister answering the door bell in Lille in 1944, and coming back with her eyes popping out of her head to say, `It's the English. They're so big, so big.'

Lasserre remembers two maiden-aunt-type English missionaries, stranded in Chamonix by the German occupation, helping his mother to save Jews, and then later, a rather more exotic lady spy, whom they sheltered for three days. `We listened to the BBC on the radio with her, us children holding the aerial to improve the reception,' he says. `Intrepid Albion, rather than perfidious Albion.'