Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

How will Boris respond to Macron’s insult?

French president Emmanuel Macron is reported in this week’s Canard Enchaîné – the French equivalent to Private Eye – to have called Boris Johnson a ‘gougnafier’.

Gougnafier is an intriguing term with many linguistic roots. It is a nightmarish word to translate. Can you find one word in English to convey someone both rude and useless? That is what gougnafier means. A gougnafier is a boor. A cock-up artist. Someone vulgar. Someone lacking manners. This wasn’t merely a drive-by insult. It was a carefully judged expression of contempt.

What does this presidential insult say about the degradation of the Anglo-French relationship to Cold War?

Doubtless British and French journalists will have huge fun with this – and that’s the point

It’s easy to dismiss this as another chapter of Macron’s tantrum diplomacy, to which the only dignified response might be to call his latest intervention unhelpful. Or perhaps not. Macron is showing an almost Johnsonian rhetorical skill. His characterisation of the Prime Minister has set a high semantic bar for a return of service by Johnson.

The Times this morning offers the translation ‘knucklehead’, which does not do justice to the layered contempt contained in Macron’s chosen insult. Macron also called the PM ‘un clown’, for those unable to grasp the subtlety of gougnafier.

Doubtless British and French journalists will have huge fun with this – and that’s the point. We’ve already heard it suggested that some nameless British ministers think Macron is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But the unverified nature of this slur has limited its circulation. Meanwhile, the Elysée has not denied the words attributed to the president in Canard Enchaîné.

Make the bugger deny it was the philosophy of Lyndon B Johnson. Sure enough, up pops science minister George Freeman, predictably describing Macron’s words as ‘unhelpful’ but adding, for the avoidance of doubt: ‘Of course the prime minister isn’t a clown.’

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