French fury at Britain's epidemic exports

A French trader prepares for his flock's slaughter

By our Paris staff

In the cafes round the hamlet of La Baroche-Gondouin, where France's first case of foot-and-mouth was detected on Tuesday, a British presence provokes a shuffling of mud-caked boots and a sudden lowering of the noise-level.

It's not exactly hostility. But it's not particularly friendly either.

With the muttered imprecations comes an ironic sneer that seems to say, "Once again - thanks a lot, Tommy!"

You may know, and the French government may know, that the foot-and-mouth outbreak in the United Kingdom probably came from a consignment of meat imported from South America or the Far East.

It could just as easily have started at Mur-de-Sologne as at Heddon-on-the-Wall.

But for the French public, and especially for French farmers, the fact that it began in Britain - where it spread like wildfire before finally contaminating the continent - is merely confirmation of their worst suspicions.

Splendid isolation

The French already have a pre-determined propensity to think the worst of les Anglo-Saxons, and to decry the ravages of their laissez-faire economics.

The French are faced with another scurge which they blame on the British

But then every time they think they might be overdoing it, along comes another health scare to prove they were right all along.

"In their splendid isolation, the subjects of Her Gracious Majesty have come to think of the continent as source of all the worst ideological and epidemiological dangers - from the common agricultural policy to rabies and the euro," wrote Philippe Waucampt in Le Republicain Lorrain newspaper.

"But facts show that the sense they have of an unarguable, lofty superiority has often led our British friends into the oversights and procrastination for which our own farmers are now paying the price."

British intensity

Maybe they have a point.

Despite all France's efforts to stop it, the disease crossed the channel from Britain

After all, there is no question that methods of intensive farming set off the mad cow crisis - Britain's first epidemiological export.

And it was the policy of the profit margin that closed down so many British slaughter-houses, leading to the mass transport of thousands of beasts across the length of the country and the automatic propagation of foot-and-mouth.

Equally France's strong tradition of public service and central organisation have arguably meant a quicker and more efficient response to the disease than in Britain.

Just luck?

But the French cannot pretend they are immune to the same globalising forces that are perhaps more advanced in Britain.

Many French farmers practise similar ultra-efficient agricultural methods.

Britain may have exported tonnes of contaminated animal feed, which may have carried mad cow disease, but French farmers were happy to buy it.

The more philosophically-minded here weigh the two sides up.

Yes. Foot-and-mouth could have started in France. We were lucky it didn't.

But then, why does everything bad always seem to start the other side of the Channel?