France’s view on the British riots is stunningly hypocritical

As the Olympics draw to a close tonight, two things have delighted the French. The first is that the Games turned out to be fairly successful, overlooking the weird opening ceremony. The other is the general amusement here that Britain managed to beat France at its own national summer sport: rioting.

If Froggie-bashing has for years been a favourite pastime of the British, the scenes on the streets of Britain have given the French a chance to retaliate with relish. News channels gleefully interrupted their coverage of French Olympic triumphs for live feeds of the clashes on British streets. Pundits were ripped from enjoying the beach volleyball to launch a flotilla of op-eds and television appearances, mocking the neighbours.

The chaos in Britain was a welcome distraction. It was celebrated as proof of the failure of British multiculturalism and evidence of the superior French model of cultural integration, in which deep social divisions are simply ignored in the pretence that racial and cultural differences don’t exist.