Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Could have said a lot more but...

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

I agree with Shroppy and JB.
I couldn't really care less what you two think quite frankly.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Why they hate us is France for the French and no one else, Germany for the Germans and no one else, England for anyone who needs help until their problems are solved by us, then slag us off.

These large countries are so inward looking they can't see past their own boundaries

America is the same, try asking a American the location of France is in relation to England and most won 't know.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Feeling physically sick?
Let's try again with the difference between literal and virtual.
Nah CBA.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Some people are very easily offended...

by the truth!

I'm perfectly happy to receive criticisms of anything I have said, but I'd prefer them to be supported with facts.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Don't sweat it JB, we are just racists and xenophobes...............

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

No problem.

I am perfectly willing to discuss or debate with people of opposing opinions - IF they can discuss or debate sensibly.

The same people should be able to make their points with some sort of evidence if they are to be believed.

Those who cannot do so - and I hear people like that all over the place: BBC Question Time, fracking protests, The Labour Party Conference, etc - are very good at shouting and jumping up and down, but little else.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

That's why I just lose patience and can't be bothered sometimes mate quite frankly.
As soon as people bandy around the words racist & xenophobe, I lose interest.
I'm neither, as are most on here, but some people are too thick to understand...

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

This is a personal view from a Frenchman himself with regard to the truth/untruth about their loathing for the British in reply to a British person asking why, because the last war with each other was two Centuries ago, do the French still seem to hate us? His reply was as follows:


QUOTE

You know of the influence history has in shaping national identity and national rivalries. Yes, mostly because of what I would call “school propaganda” the French are still p….d at England for the Hundred Year War and burning Joan of Arc. And, if I’m not wrong, you guys are not big fans of Napoleon, are you?

So, yes, we haven’t been at war in about 200 years, we’ve even been allied for more than a century, but not everything will go away that easily, and a rivalry has always been present between both countries, even after we stopped warring, colonization was a nasty race against each other for more power, influence and riches.
On a lighter topic, there’s also a strong rivalry between France and the UK in many sports, etc.

Even today, while we’re trying to build some sort of decent Europe, there’s always that feeling (and not only from the French, but from many other Europeans) that Britain doesn’t really know what it wants with Europe and keeps on being a pain in Europe’s ass on many issues.
I’m not even going into the fact that many European and French people strongly resent that when there some tensions between Europe and the USA, Britain pretty much always sides with the US (are you still trying to gain the 13 colonies back or what?) to the point that the UK is sometimes seen as the US’ lapdog as far as international politics is concerned.

As for the French hating the British, if you had asked about people from Perigord, yes, you may find quite a few that dislike British people more and more, but one cannot say they don’t have good reasons for that (when locals can’t afford to buy houses anymore and must leave villages where their family has lived for centuries because British retirees have made local real estate unaffordable for the local population, there are good reasons to be mad).

So, in the end. Yes we have our differences, our rivalries and our history, but the British’ popularity would be higher if they had finally committed themselves to the EU and if their rugby team lost more often against France!.

UNQUOTE.


So…. get your smelling salts out if you feel you need to. It's not just this side of the water where differences are.

However, getting back to the article in question. I agree with every word Dominic Sandbrook has typed. Macron, just as his predecessors before him, resents the British because of their own failures throughout history and our successes, but he also must loathe us because of the fact that he needs our cash to fulfil his dream of a United States of Europe with Germany and France at the helm. He will do his utmost to torpedo Brexit with whatever means he has at his disposal.

Re: Why This Napoleon Should Be Cut Down To Size!

Quote
There are only a few months left until the UK formally exits the EU. So far, the debate about Brexit has been framed mainly in economic terms. Should the UK crash out of the bloc without a mutual exit agreement, the damage will likely be significant. And, as matters stand, such an agreement is far from assured.

A “hard Brexit” would mean that, at 11pm (GMT) on March 29, 2019, the UK’s membership in all EU treaties — such as the customs union and single market — and international trade agreements concluded by the EU would end. Great Britain would become merely a third party, with far-reaching consequences for EU trade; not least chaos at the UK border.

But Brexit will, of course, have far-reaching political consequences, too. In terms of its day-to-day affairs, the EU is largely perceived as a common market and customs union. But, at its core, it is a political project based on a specific idea about the European system of states. This idea — not the economics of the matter — is what Brexit is really about. And it is why the UK’s decision to leave the EU, with or without an exit agreement, will have a profound impact on the 21st century European order.

The slim majority of Britons who voted for “Leave” in the 2016 referendum weren’t concerned with economic wealth, but with reclaiming full political sovereignty. They define sovereignty not in terms of objective facts about Britain’s present or future, but in terms of Britain’s past as a global power during the 19th century. Never mind that the UK is now a medium-size European power with little to no chance of ever becoming a global player again — be it inside or outside the EU.

If the rest of the continent was to follow the British example and opt for the 19th over the 21st century, the EU would disintegrate. Each country would be forced back into a cumbersome system of sovereign states struggling for supremacy and constantly checking one another’s ambitions.


A new world order is emerging and it will be centered around the Pacific, not the Atlantic. The old European nation-states will be no match for the new competition unless they are united.
Joschka Fischer


Under such conditions, European countries would lack any real power, and thus would be retired from the world stage for good. Europe, torn between transatlanticism and Eurasianism, would become easy prey for the non-European major powers of the 21st century. In a worst-case scenario, Europe might even become an arena for the larger powers’ fights. Europeans would no longer determine their own future; their fate would be decided elsewhere.

The old, declining European order of the 19th century originally emerged out of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). The medieval system that preceded it, based on a universal church and empire, perished during the Reformation. After a series of religious wars and the establishment of strong territorial powers, it was replaced by the “Westphalian system” of sovereign states.

During the next few centuries, Europe ruled the world, and Britain itself was the dominant European power. Yet the Westphalian system was destroyed by the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century, both of which were in fact European wars for world domination. When the guns fell silent in 1945, the Europeans — even the victorious European allies — had effectively lost their sovereignty. The Westphalian system was replaced by the Cold War bipolar order, wherein sovereignty rested with the two non-European nuclear powers: The US and the Soviet Union.

The EU was conceived as an attempt to regain European sovereignty peacefully, by pooling the national interests of European states. The goal of this effort has always been to prevent a relapse into the old system of power rivalries, reciprocal alliances, and hegemonic head-butting. And the key to its success has been a continental system based on economic, political and legal integration.

Brexit has thrown the material implications of this level of integration into sharp relief. Over the course of the UK’s negYearning for a glorious past won’t help Europe nowotiations with the EU, an old problem has re-emerged: The Irish question. Once the Republic of Ireland and the UK both belonged to the EU, the impetus for Irish reunification disappeared, and the decades-long civil war between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland could be put to rest. The practical realities of EU integration meant that it no longer mattered which country Northern Ireland belonged to. But, with Brexit throwing history into reverse, the specters of the past are threatening to return.

Europeans should watch the Irish issue closely, because there is even more potential for a return of such conflicts on the continent. A new world order is emerging, and it will be centered around the Pacific, not the Atlantic. Europe has one — and only one — chance to manage this historic transition. The old European nation-states will be no match for the new competition unless they are united. And even then, achieving European sovereignty will require a massive and concentrated effort of political will and ingenuity.

Yearning for a glorious past is the last thing that will help Europeans confront the challenge they face. The past, by its very nature, is over. With or without the UK, Europe must look to its future.

Unquote

"The coming era cannot be an era of blows and hostilities. This is the responsibility to which the future obliges us."