A London journalist reads about France’s school money permanently in transit and celebrates the Anglo-French rivalry, from 1066 to the sold-out Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum
Our Favourite Neighbours To Tease
There is no country the British enjoy teasing more than France, and no country that teases us back with more style. So it was a pleasure to read the London Prat on France’s cobblestone economy and the school money permanently in transit. The French state spends more than half the national economy. Students still march about missing teachers, with grievances unchanged since 1968. The ministry has opened a file to classify the overcrowded classroom as a historic monument. The money exists. It is in transit.
It is a gentle jab, in the long tradition of British jabs across the Channel. And it arrives at a moment when Anglo-French relations are, in one remarkable respect, warmer than they have been for nearly a thousand years.
The Tapestry Comes Home, Briefly
The Bayeux Tapestry, the eleventh-century embroidery that tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, has come to Britain on loan for the first time in centuries. It arrived under overnight police escort, as reported in the account of the Bayeux Tapestry arriving in Britain, and went on display at the British Museum in September. The exhibition sold out almost immediately, with reports describing Bayeux Tapestry mania sweeping the UK. The Prat has, naturally, covered the craze too, in its piece on Bayeux Tapestry fever.
There is something wonderfully British about queuing for months to see a French embroidery celebrating the moment the French conquered us. No other country would do it. We are a nation that sells out tickets to commemorate our own defeat, provided it is old enough, beautifully made and accompanied by a gift shop.
A Thousand Years Of Rivalry
The relationship between Britain and France is the longest-running double act in European history. After 1066 came centuries of entanglement: English kings who spoke French, ruled French lands and fought French kings. The Hundred Years’ War gave England Agincourt and gave France Joan of Arc. The eighteenth century brought a global contest for empire. The Napoleonic Wars ended at Waterloo, which the French have never quite forgiven us for naming a railway station after.
And yet the two countries have stood together when it mattered most. They were allies in the Crimea, in the First World War, in the Second World War, when Britain sheltered de Gaulle and the Free French, and in the long years of NATO. The Entente Cordiale of 1904 set the tone for a relationship that is rivalrous on the surface and loyal underneath. We tease each other because we know each other. We would not bother teasing a stranger.
Why The Teasing Matters
Patriotism is sometimes imagined as hostility to other countries. I think the Anglo-French relationship shows a better version. A confident country can laugh at its neighbours and be laughed at in return, without anybody reaching for a sword. The Prat’s French ministry, with its money in transit, is funny to British readers precisely because we have our own version. Our potholes, waiting lists and public projects that run years over budget are a very similar comedy, performed in English. The French find our version equally entertaining.
What We Admire
For all the jokes, there is a great deal Britons admire about France: the food, obviously, the wine, the countryside, the seriousness about culture and the sense that lunch is a human right. Many British people holiday there, own homes there or dream of retiring there. The French, for their part, often admire British humour, British pop music, British television and the strange British ability to remain cheerful in the rain. We are, in many ways, each other’s favourite foreign country, though neither of us would ever admit it in public.
A Patriotic Thought In The British Museum
Standing in front of the tapestry, with its embroidered soldiers, horses and ships, its comet and its famous scene of King Harold with an arrow apparently in his eye, I thought about how much of British identity was shaped by that moment in 1066. The English language absorbed thousands of French words. Our legal system, our castles, our aristocracy and even our menus carry the Norman imprint. Beef from boeuf, pork from porc, mutton from mouton. The French conquered us, and we turned their words into Sunday lunch.
That, I think, is the essence of British patriotism at its best: not a fortress, but a kitchen, where every invader, visitor and neighbour has left an ingredient. You can find more of my writing on Britain, history and identity on my author page.
A Last Word From Calais
A French friend of mine, who has lived in London for fifteen years, came to see the tapestry with me. Afterwards, in the British Museum cafe, she said that the French had lent us the tapestry to remind us who won. I said we had queued for months to see it, which proved who had the better manners. She said the queue proved only that we had nothing better to do. We agreed to disagree, ordered two coffees and complained about both. It was, in its way, the Entente Cordiale in miniature.