British newspapers on Tuesday condemned French President Jacques Chirac as a ”nasty, petty racist creep” and someone who ”has lost his marbles” amid reports saying he scoffed at British food.
Chirac reportedly said British cuisine is the worst in the world after Finland’s, and joked ”the only thing they have done for European agriculture is ‘mad cow”’ at a French-German-Russian summit on Sunday in Russia.
The Daily Telegraph ran an editorial under the headline: ”Tut, tut, Mr Chirac.”
”Jacques Chirac, the embattled President of France, seems to have gone a little off his rocker,” it said.
Chirac’s reported comments, which French officials have not denied, come at a time when he is embroiled in a battle with Britain over the European Union budget and is troubled at home over the rejection of the EU Constitution.
It said Chirac ”seems to have forgotten all his history”, adding that Britain was the country that first developed modern farming methods such as the drainage of wetlands and crop rotation.
”The sooner that France’s farmers catch on to the efficient methods of food production discovered in Britain more than 300 years ago, the sooner the curtain can come down on the corrupt farce of the Common Agriculture Policy [CAP],” it said.
Britain says it will negotiate over French demands to give up its annual EU rebate if Europe overhauls its budget, including the eventual elimination of the CAP, whose subsidies benefit French farmers the most in Europe.
It then took issue with Chirac’s reported slight that ”one cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine”.
”Again, Mr Chirac is lagging behind the times. Even the most chauvinistic French chefs now acknowledge that London overtook Paris long ago as the culinary capital of Europe,” the Daily Telegraph said.
An editorial in the Daily Express ran with the headline ”Give Chirac humble pie” and then began with ”Has President Jacques Chirac completely lost his marbles?”
It said Chirac acted in a ”colossal fit of pique” because he cannot forgive British Prime Minister Tony Blair for refusing to yield to French demands on Britain’s rebate from the EU, and now hopes Paris beats London in the race to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
”He is an international statesman and should behave as such,” it said.
It hoped Chirac will have ”remembered his manners” on Wednesday evening when he is guest of Queen Elizabeth II at a dinner she is hosting for the Group of Eight leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland.
”As for her majesty, it would be quite understandable if she were tempted to reply to his rudeness with a plate of beans on toast. On his head,” it jibed.
Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper, The Sun, commented that Chirac ”plumbs a new depth”.
”His snide attacks on Britain expose him once and for all as a nasty, petty, racist creep,” it said. — Sapa-AFP