Why are some French mayors refusing to honour the Queen?

Why, asked a French mayor at the weekend, has he been ordered to fly his town’s flag at half-mast for the Queen until the day of her funeral? In expressing his indignation at Macron’s presidential decree, Patrick Proisy, the mayor of Faches-Thumesnil, a suburb of Lille, pointed out that Mikhail Gorbachev was accorded no such honour when he died. Yet he was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, an instrumental figure in tearing down the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe for half a century.

The refusal of Proisy, of the left-wing La France Insoumise, to comply with the order to lower his town’s flag as a mark of respect for the Queen has caused headlines in France. It has also created a backlash on social media. Proisy remains unrepentant, and he confronted his critics in a series of messages posted on Twitter. He extended his condolences to the British people, and stressed that he ‘had nothing personal against Queen Elizabeth’ but asked: ‘How can it be logical to fly flags at half-mast on our schools where the motto ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ is written? No concept is further from equality than that of the monarchy.