Brexit Britain’s Macron paranoia

In 2015, millions of French people tuned in to watch French Bashing, a television documentary which sought to explain why those horrible Anglo-Saxons were so consistently mean about France. The whole gamut of historic insults and stereotypes were analysed in the 90-minute film, from popular portrayals of the country as an ungovernable nation of idle protesters to the ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ moniker that dates back to 1995.

It struck a chord at a time when the country was near rock-bottom, confused under the presidency of Francois Hollande, hit by terrorism, high unemployment and an unrelenting stream of negative international media coverage. ‘French-bashing had become a sort of buzzword for the government,’ recalled the documentary maker, Jean-Baptiste Peretie, this week.

David Cameron and his Cabinet looked on as so many had done before — with a detectable sense of superiority – especially when Hollande bungled an attempt to introduce a new 75-percent top tax rate.