Perhaps the Trafalgar celebrations were the last straw; anyway, the poor man found some relief in being rude about the awful English.Let's hope, in any event, that he gets the Olympics. That might cheer the poor sod up, and, let's face it, they need a boost more than we do More from Philip Hensher. Chirac just doesn't seem capable of coming to terms with anything. You have to feel for him, though; he is struggling under just too many problems, which he can't or won't deal with.The referendum on the European constitution; the power of the trades unions; the indefensible CAP; appalling social problems among racial minorities and the dispossessed; M. Chirac's comments strike us as distinctly odd, not just because they are baseless, but because they reflect a provinciality now widely regarded as vulgar and snobbish.Really, the tone of the remarks makes M. Chirac sound absolutely desperate, and, like a small child, reaching out to insult an easy target in the silliest and cheapest way. I once had the misfortune of going to Egypt with a group of 40 Italian tourists.
They took it for granted that, in Egypt, they would eat exactly the same food that they ate at home, and went every evening to Italian restaurants; it is no surprise to discover that the Italian restaurants of Cairo are among the worst in the world. It was unfair, however, of my travelling companions to conclude on the basis of their experiences that the cooking in Egypt was terrible.I doubt that many English travellers would be as naive as that, and the result is a culture which, not just in culinary matters, shrinks from chauvinistic expressions of disdain M. Since Elizabeth David, and probably before, the English middle classes have taken it for granted that one of the reasons for travelling abroad is to try foreign food, and to take pleasure in the unfamiliar.We probably forget that that is quite unusual. Chirac's remarks were no more ignorant than, say, the average comment of a British newspaper about anything relating to Germany. But, frankly, I don't believe in a million years that members of the British political class, even in private, make jokes about the French eating frogs' legs, or whatever. We've lived in an international environment for so long now that such remarks are not just in bad taste, but strong indicators of ignorance and provinciality.In England, a politician would make jokes about foreign food, in particular, at his peril.
Chirac's sophistication, not only holding such very juvenile views but using them to amuse his counterparts? I mean, one might expect a stand-up comedian, or a drunk in a bar, to get a laugh about English food, just as the same people here might start off on French notions of personal hygiene.We can be just as bad M. If English restaurants have given up on prawn cocktail, I don't see why restaurants in France are still clinging on to plates of "carottes rap?" and hardboiled eggs in mayonnaise. You eat much better in Brussels.Well, we could all be extremely childish about national traits But is it not extremely surprising to find someone in M Chirac's position, and, presumably, of M. But French cooking as a whole has hardly moved on in 50 years, if not more; at the ordinary middle-class restaurant, the food may be okay, but it can easily be dull and conventional. Many of them believe that their cultural life is second to none.