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Mollet's Proposal
According to state papers uncovered by the BBC, the French Prime Minister, Guy Mollet, came to Britain in September 1956 and proposed a merger between the two countries. And, yes, I've checked the date and April 1 is over two months away.
The BBC treated this amazing historical coup of theirs with a jokey piece about baguettes and frogs legs and whether Thierry Henri could have captained England. Frankly I'm disappointed in them. The final realisation of the dream of our medieval kings- and it was the French themselves who proposed it- quel' extraordinaire! The English prime minister, Anthony Eden- who was famously a dick- turned it down without exploring it further- and offered the French membership of the Commonwealth as a sop. The moment passed and France turned elsewhere and shortly afterwards helped create the Common Market- from which we Brits were notably excluded.
A union of Britain and France: I can hardly begin to imagine what that would have meant. And that's presumably why Eden turned it down- because he was a man of limited imagination and the idea was just too big for him to handle. But of course it wouldn't have meant frogs legs appearing on British menus- at least, no more than they already do. The cultures of the two countries are too distinct for them to just flow together and become one. We wouldn't have absorbed France and they wouldn't have absorbed us. Look at England and Scotland- they've been joined in Union for 300 years and are as stroppily different now as they ever were. No, what it would have meant was the creation of a new Western European power, sufficiently stong- perhaps- to have significantly altered the balance of the Cold War and the course of history in our lifetimes.
And while the cultures wouldn't have merged they would have rubbed along in a more intimate way. There would have been more interchange, more friction. Piaf and the Beatles would have been fellow citizens, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair would have contested the same elections, the Channel would now be nothing more than a very wide river....
What a missed opportunity.
Helas.
The BBC treated this amazing historical coup of theirs with a jokey piece about baguettes and frogs legs and whether Thierry Henri could have captained England. Frankly I'm disappointed in them. The final realisation of the dream of our medieval kings- and it was the French themselves who proposed it- quel' extraordinaire! The English prime minister, Anthony Eden- who was famously a dick- turned it down without exploring it further- and offered the French membership of the Commonwealth as a sop. The moment passed and France turned elsewhere and shortly afterwards helped create the Common Market- from which we Brits were notably excluded.
A union of Britain and France: I can hardly begin to imagine what that would have meant. And that's presumably why Eden turned it down- because he was a man of limited imagination and the idea was just too big for him to handle. But of course it wouldn't have meant frogs legs appearing on British menus- at least, no more than they already do. The cultures of the two countries are too distinct for them to just flow together and become one. We wouldn't have absorbed France and they wouldn't have absorbed us. Look at England and Scotland- they've been joined in Union for 300 years and are as stroppily different now as they ever were. No, what it would have meant was the creation of a new Western European power, sufficiently stong- perhaps- to have significantly altered the balance of the Cold War and the course of history in our lifetimes.
And while the cultures wouldn't have merged they would have rubbed along in a more intimate way. There would have been more interchange, more friction. Piaf and the Beatles would have been fellow citizens, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair would have contested the same elections, the Channel would now be nothing more than a very wide river....
What a missed opportunity.
Helas.
Chirac and Blair
think, reputation on the left of the western spectrum
now because of his distinct French policy but I suppose
the roots of that policy to be Gaulist and Chirac as I
remmeber him from days when I read more than the sports
pages ,as a man of the right and pretty far right.
well and I am a bit tainted with the tory myself though
I would like to think it is the bohemian toryism of
Goldsmith and Johnson more than the mercantile as money
falls from my pocket continually as I slouch when seated...
bankers do not.
but a man of the right, a Gaulist, and also an extremely
corrupt politician as to finances and dealing unless
memory fails...faced with choice of Jean Le Pen the
fascist(in the worse sense ) 'para' and Chirac in a runoff
the left held its nose and voted for him but he is surely
not a man either you, perhaps a bohemian liberal?,
or I would choose over Blair I think?
Re: Chirac and Blair
French politics is so much more extreme than the British variety. It would have made for a very edgy- perhaps unworkable- marriage.
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No, it was probably always a rather foolish suggestion- but I'm a francophile; I can dream.