Jonathan Sumption

Sylvie Bermann personifies French fury over Brexit

The former French ambassador in London writes of Brexit as if it were a personal affront, regarding it not just as a mistake but an outrage

Sylvie Bermann. Credit: Getty Images

Sylvie Bermann was the French ambassador in London between 2014 and 2017. Her stint here was a notable success. She is a highly intelligent, articulate woman, excellent company, an astute observer of the British scene and a notable anglophile, who generated much goodwill for herself and her country.

She has taken the opportunity of her retirement from the French diplomatic service to write a highly undiplomatic account of her time in London which will lose her a fair amount of that goodwill. Goodbye Britannia is a witty, waspish and angry account of the Brexit referendum and the political crisis which followed it. It is agreeably rude about British politicians, especially the current Prime Minister, whom she describes as a lying mountebank. Her anger tells us something, although more perhaps about the mindset of French officialdom than about Britain.

Bermann writes about Brexit as if it were a personal affront. She regards it as not just a mistake but an outrage. To her, it was a kind of coup d’état against the legitimate regime, a conspiracy by a poisonous minority of Tories which unaccountably succeeded. She finds it difficult to accept that the British might have known what they were doing and voted to leave because they really wanted to leave.

Bermann writes about Brexit as if it were a personal affront. She regards it as not just a mistake but an outrage

Her explanation of the result boils down to three points. One, the British were manipulated by the lies of the Leave campaign. Two, the British are gripped by post-imperial delusions of grandeur and think that they won the second world war single-handed. Three, they have surrendered to racism and xenophobia.

I hear these superficial clichés all the time when I go to France or Germany.

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