In praise of France’s tributes to the Queen

The death of Elizabeth II has reacquainted Britain with all the cherished irrationalities that make us who we are. Hereditary monarchy. Unfathomable pageantry. Democratic grief. The joy taken in queuing. There’s no understanding these customs; tradition exists to be followed, not deduced. To love the British, you have to love, or at least accept, their curious foibles.

There is one irrationality that is not exactly cherished but endures nonetheless and the Queen’s death has underlined just how irrational it is and how difficult to love. The British aversion to the French seems all the more perverse given la république’s extraordinary reaction to the passing of Britain’s longest-serving monarch. 

France may be proudly republican — its own cherished irrationality, as we see it — but it had a quiet affection for the Queen. She met every president of both the fourth and fifth republics. She spoke French fluently and on her many visits would deliver speeches and converse with presidents en français.