Suddenly, France’s Covid excuses are all about national character. Or rather the stereotypes, the prejudices they hold about others. The Germans, dour, disciplined types as we all know, are handling SARS-Cov-2 so much better than we flamboyant French with our joie de vivre, our “French touch”, as what I am amused to call français moderne would have it. The British? Well, don’t even talk about them. If they will elect a prime minister whose shirt hangs out of his trousers, splashes good French wine all over the place and wants to steal our Coquilles Saint-Jacques, what can you expect?
That a positive self-evaluation for the French needs to be expressed in English is just one of those twists of fate that proves the idiocy of all stereotypes. For all the blather about defending French from the invasion of English, even the most cursory perusal of the Oxford English Dictionary will show that most of the words in it are either directly, or indirectly, French. The highest calculation I have seen puts the proportion at over 60 per cent. It is a bit ridiculous for some in France to complain about getting their own language back.
One of the mechanics of prejudices, of course, is that they help us to avoid properly looking at ourselves, developing that capacity for self-criticism so necessary if we want to resolve our own problems. Worryingly, this is a particular process that has been travelling in the wrong direction over the past decade. Racist prejudices are more widespread, more entrenched and given greater official endorsement now than for some 30 years.
