Saturday, April 08, 2006

British schadenfreude

Powwwww!

Few things can fill the Anglo soul with such warm happiness as the sight of the French getting hysterical in public. Parisian riots are of a marvellously win-win proposition. The dishonest, arrogant, self-interested, lazy baggage handlers, ticket collectors, air-traffic controllers, protected peasants and nihilistic, drivel-ranting students all get doused, bashed and gassed while the repellent attack dogs of the state, the CRS, get cobblestoned and bricked. [...]

There is an insufferable self-satisfaction about French politicians, an air of smug entitlement; their suits are too natty, their ties too fulsome. But we know their veneer of statesmanlike reason and grey-templed suavity — all that French polish — masks knees like castanets, livers of the whitest lily, spines of golden jelly. For 100 years French politics has been marked by collective and singular humiliation, brought on by arrant cowardice and duplicity and compromise, all to avoid embarrassment.

We get a peculiar pleasure from seeing another French prime minister having his pants pulled down and being spanked by the sans-culottes because they are always so happy to lecture us on the superiority of Gallic moral virtue.

2 comments:

Mr roT said...

Guy can certainly write satire, but then he goes on to praise the French 'system'. He claims that the French have a higher standard of living and higher productivity.

Mr roT said...

... but I wonder how long they can keep that up if they are competing with India and China and us.