The English like nothing better than the idea that the French hate us. Bradley Wiggins, an Englishman, wins the Tour de France, and we are full of in-votre-face triumphalism. British journalists search the French media for sour grapes. How the frogs must be fuming! Beaten by a rosbif on their own turf!
Yet if the French were all so bitter about Wiggins, why did thousands of them line the Champs-Elysées on Sunday to cheer him home? Far from being grouchy, France seemed eager to hail Wiggins as the likeable and quirky champion that he is.
It’s true that some French papers complained about the boringness of this year’s Tour. But that was part of a longstanding gripe about the contest being too technical and unromantic, i.e. not French. It had little to do with Wiggins or Anglophobia. It was L’Equipe, after all, that pictured the race leader under the affectionate headline ‘Wiggo le Froggy’, in recognition of his fluency in their language.
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