Does France Have a Massive Inferiority Complex?
Have Centuries of ass whuppings taken its toll on the nation’s self esteem?
Last week, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, threw a hissy fit at the recently concluded G20 summit in Rome. As he was walking with his team, he was accosted by a number of Aussie journalists who wanted to know what he felt about his antipodean counterpart.
Contrary to what his minders would have wanted, Monsieur Macron took his time to chat to the baying mob, giving them what they wanted by dispensing with niceties and diplomacy in calling Scott Morrison a liar for his part in the Nuclear submarine agreement.
What’s interesting here is that we aren’t used to this sort of behaviour from French Presidents; deploying English for starters in blatantly disparaging their allies. Back in 2003, when Jacques Chirac was in charge, not once did we see this sort of thing from him, despite the fraught state of affairs between America and the cheese eating surrender monkeys (sobriquet given by the Yanks) in the run up to the Iraq war.