What could have been

There is a lovely article in several online newspapers today.  Here is one.  Apparently, around 50 years ago the French (!) PM proposed, secretly, that England and France should merge, thereby forming an Anglo-Francais European superpower sort of thing.

What a fascinating thought, although I’m not at all sure the French or the English people would have been too enthusiastic.  The French have never been too keen on the English and vice versa, although I do believe that both peoples have quite similar characteristics, fundamentally.  Both are nationalistic, both are suspicious of foreigners and of the EU and both seem to be quite down to earth people.  Yes, there are lots of differences too, but I think there are possibly more similarities than either country would like to admit.  And the English have always enjoyed a good holiday in the land of wine and snails.  Not to mention all the houses the Brits have been doing up over there too.

Not surprisingly this radical proposal for a merger between the too countries never made it out of cabinet offices and references to it remained buried amongst piles of official documents.  Personally, I quite like the idea.  It’s so daft, it would probably have worked…..