Entente Cordiale 120

General Discussion
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I’m standing outside the Elysee waiting for the joint UK/French Guard contingents doing the first joint guarding of the Palace as part of the celebrations if the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.

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VG - I had no idea this anniversary was being celebrated. Glad to hear that it is though. It’s good that we are good mates with Les Voisins these days despite Brexit.

But best not mention Agincourt or Waterloo. :smiley: :smiley:

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Auld Alliance all the way :wink:

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:rofl: we joined a local astronomy club, on arriving in France…
on our first attendance… they made us welcome despite the language challenges … and one chap kept saying Waterloo (loudly but with a smile) as he showed the night skies on his computer/telescope thingy :rofl: :rofl:

there was a lot of good humour that night…

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There you go, they’re not all bad these Frenchies… :smiley:

A bit of multinational teasing doesn’t hurt, as long as there’s no malice behind it.

Mind you, those Scots… :wink:

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have a much warmer relationship with the French when they realise we’re not English :rofl:

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I’m ordering my kilt and Kenneth McKellar records as we speak… :wink:

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Even after all these years… some of our Car Club pals like to tease us about being English (often mentioning stuff happening in UK… aaargh)… and I swiftly remind them that… by insulting me, they are also insulting my French Grandma… (and I wave my hand around the bits of me that are in my mind definitely French… :rofl: :rofl: )

Everyone cheers and hugs… and we raise a glass to “grandmere”

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French faces light up when I tell them I’m Scottish. The Auld Alliance still works.

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120 years - hmm.

Coincidentally a grauniad article today - A powerful new international department would help Britain adapt to being a middle-rank power and shed a Foreign Office identity that is “somewhat elitist and rooted in the past”.

Are you in the foreign office by any chance? :slight_smile:

PS - I add my sympathies re. your ALD post.

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OK all good in theory - but where would they find the civil servants who have the necessary experience to run a new “International Department”? - oh wait… the Foreign (and Commonwealth and Development) Office. :smiley:

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You don’t need experience and certainly not expertise…haven’t we had enough of experts? (That all went well, didn’t it? :roll_eyes: )

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Just seen this on the BBC News website:

France is the first non-Commonwealth country to ever take part in the ceremony* in London, while the UK has become the first foreign state to have guarded the French presidential residence.

:+1: :+1: :clap:

  • (changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace)
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Heaven forbid! :joy:

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I got a two-handed handshake from Macron, a new bromance begins :joy:

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I got a single one (more of a hand brush really) from Sarko once

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Probably an Abba fan.

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I don’t disapprove of all this fuss, but as it is the first time, and the 120th, why did it not happen on the centenary. Had we fallen out in some normal way in 2004? :thinking:

But it always harks me back to Sir Humphrey Appleby and his astonishment that someone was thinking that the ‘enemy’ was Russia. No, the French. :joy:

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Isn’t that a Welsh town?

Maybe nobody noticed? Or more likely there’s a fuss to show how much solidarity there still is between nations.

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