Chirac is right, and wrong

For those who are fed up with the guff-filled platitudes of European diplomacy, there was something magnificent in the remarks of M. Chirac about British cuisine. Not since Edith Cresson said that most British men were poofters, or since a Scandinavian environment minister called John Selwyn Gummer a drittsekk, or scumbag, has there been so refreshing a breach of protocol. According to the French President, the British are not to be trusted, because their cooking is exceeded in filthiness only by Finland’s. He found haggis disgusting, and thinks that the British have contributed nothing to European agriculture except mad cow disease. This is not the time to quarrel with the substance of what he said, but to salute the spirit in which he said it.

He spoke with the fury of a man who probably knew that Paris was about to be pipped by London in its efforts to host the Olympics.