SOME years ago, your columnist shared a house in Washington with
a former British paratrooper who had retired thither to devote
himself to the cultivation of marijuana. Some nights, after long
hours testing his produce, the ex-para would wander the house
muttering, “The French—they're the real enemy.”  At the time, it
was easy to dismiss this as drug-induced paranoia. Seen from
Brussels, it looks more like a sharp insight into international
relations. Eurosceptics in London still reserve their deepest
dislike for Germany; but British officials at the heart of the
European Union seem often to be locked into a life-and-death
struggle with the French. On a day-to-day level the two sides
get on well enough. But each also harbours deep suspicions of
the other. The British regard the French as devious, law-
breaking nationalists with undue influence in the Eurocracy,
busy advancing French national interests while pretending that
it is all for the good of “Europe”. The French regard the
British as perfidious American