He vetoed the UK joining the EEC twice.
At the time it was considered typically ungrateful and bloody-minded of him, but he was right.
His words in 1970 are the epigraph to Robert Tombs' new book, This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe.
'Our neighbours across the Channel, being made for free trade by the maritime character of their economic life, cannot possibly agree sincerely to shut themselves up behind a continental tariff wall.'
Jacques Chirac was a very much less admirable man, in fact a devious, adulterous crook, but he too deserves a statue for begging the US and UK not to invade Iraq in 2003.
No comments:
Post a Comment