EU crisis: The Frogs do love us – they’re just hopping mad with Germany
Our entente with the French is still cordiale, but they badly need someone to shout at, writes Boris Johnson.
The return of the Entente cordiale?
The UK and France have signed a treaty which will see them setting up a
joint military force and sharing equipment and nuclear missile research
centres.
The DW-WORLD.DE Article
http://newsletter.dw-world.de/
Entente cordiale
（政府間の）友好的取り決め；((the E- C-))英仏協商（1904）.
The noun has 2 meanings:
Meaning #1: an informal alliance between countries
Synonym: entente
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Synonym: entente
There is a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that captures the current dialogue between Paris and London. One evening King Arthur arrives with his knights at a darkened castle. He tells the figure on the battlements that he has come to recruit noble knights in his quest for the grail. For some reason the guard turns out to have a heavy French accent.
In fact, the whole castle is occupied by French knights, and they treat the English king with disgraceful rudeness.
First, the guard tells Arthur that he has no interest in obtaining a Holy Grail, since they already have one in the castle. When Arthur says he would like to have a look at this marvel, the French knight refuses, and concludes: “I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough whopper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.” The French then cry “fetchez la vache”, and use a trebuchet to bombard the Knights of the Round Table with a dead cow.
If you cut out some of the raspberry blowing and bottom-flashing, that is just about the level of the current diplomatic broadsides from Paris. David Cameron goes to the dark castle in Brussels in his quest for common sense, and ever since they have been peppering us with dead cows. Various French ministers have queued up to say rude things about Britain and the British economy. In an amazing breach of diplomatic convention, the French prime minister has called for Britain’s credit rating to be downgraded and announced that he would much rather be French than these so silly British.
In a bid to calm things down, Nick Clegg has been forced to ring the French up and ask them to stop being so jolly insulting.
倫敦市長：歐元一年內瓦解
倫敦市長強森（Boris Johnson）預言，歐元將在一年內瓦解。強森形容，歐盟領袖企圖拯救歐元，宛若是吹「泡泡糖」，遲早會爆掉。
歐元區財長於十九日召開緊急視訊會議，就十二月八日和九日歐盟高峰會議後的情勢變化，進行意見交換。英國是歐盟廿七會員國中，唯一拒絕簽署歐盟新財政條約的國家，但英國財相奧斯本仍參與十九日的視訊會議。
根據英國媒體報導，英國準備透過國際貨幣基金提供一百億英鎊的貸款，協助紓解歐元區危機。英國首相卡麥隆和財相奧斯本對此均保持低調立場。
但英國保守黨重量級政客、倫敦市長強森卻在此刻跳出來放話，指稱歐盟各國領袖「歇斯底里」的企圖拯救歐元，根本就像是一場「吹泡泡糖」遊戲，警告歐元將在十二個月內瓦解。
強森表示，明年此時，如果歐元不會發生任何變化，「我將會感到萬分驚訝。」強森預言，歐元區國家中，定有一些國家將在未來一年內離開歐元區，歐盟各國領袖極力企圖把經濟差距不一的國家湊在一起，其結果是歐元區經濟將難以成長，經濟信心也將難以恢復。
針對強森的警告，英國前保守黨財相拉孟特（Lord Lamont）也表示，歐元區瓦解的代價將「巨大無比」，但歐元區瓦解已是不可避免的趨勢，勉強企圖扭轉這個趨勢，付出的代價，勢將更慘重。
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