Jacques Chirac once again demonstrates his legendary (lack of) grace and tact by badmouthing Britain a few weeks after the French electorate soundly rejected the EU Constitution, largely because he was for it.
For a man whose popularity in his own country is about as high as plagues of boils, he certainly has quite a bit of Gaullic gall. As the Telegraph snarks:
In his private conversations with Germany’s Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin of Russia, he is reported to have said of the British: “The only thing they have contributed to European agriculture has been the insane cow.”
Mr Chirac seems to have forgotten all his history. Does he not remember that Britain was the seedbed of the agricultural revolution – the country in which all modern methods of farming were first developed, from the drainage of wetlands to the rotation of crops?
The sooner that France’s farmers catch on to the efficient methods of food production discovered in Britain more than 300 years ago, the sooner the curtain can come down on the corrupt farce of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Ouch.
