A real naval battle took place between French and British fishermen in the Bay of Seine around scallop fishing. The French want to preserve the resource while the English are not subject to the same constraints. On board his trawler "La rose des vents", Anthony Quesnel, a young 26-year-old skipper, explains the difficulties and quotas to which French fishermen are subjected. After fishing, he decided to go hunting with about forty other Norman boats. "We’ll try to fire the English, because if we let them do it, they’ll devastate the area". Spectacular images of the clash between the Norman fleet and the English fleet (with insults and names of birds in passing) alternate with the fisherman’s interview.
Following the accusations of a certain British press that characterizes the French as aggressive, vulgar, dirty and lazy, microsidewalk in Boulogne sur Mer on what the French think of the English and vice versa.
The historian Douglas Johnson, University of London, speaks of the English reproach of France, namely its need for hegemony, from a commercial and religious point of view. He explained that Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to close the continent to the products of British industry, and Louis XIV did not want to recognize the revolution of 1688. "In the textbooks, this need for hegemony is seen as a kind of French need to dominate England," he stresses.
On the occasion of the release of his book "Homage to Qwert Yuiop", the British writer Anthony Burgess discusses the difference between the French and the English. According to him, the French are rational and intellectual, but also ungovernable, just like the English.
Alain DECAUX explains the historical rivalry between France and England. "While England is building its empire, we Frenchmen are trying to build ours, and our roads only cross for centuries, and as it is England that almost always triumphs, we keep very bad memories". It thus evokes Joan of Arc, and how in the eighteenth century England did everything to remove the colonial empire from France, and won.
Charles Hargrove, a journalist with the Times, talks about how the English perceive the French character: "It is above all a certain inconstancy, this primitive aspect of the French character, which means that we never quite know how to take it and what it will do". Then he talks about the lack of civic spirit among the French who irritates the English.
Following an opinion poll in the Sunday Times, the writer Pierre Daninos discusses the prejudices of the English towards the French, namely that they are dirty, dishonest and sexually obsessed. According to him, the French continue to see England as Victorian, austere and rigid, when in reality it is a very paillard people. "Your country was one of the most sexually obsessed countries in the world," he humorously told journalist Peter Townsend on set, and then told a story about it.
How the French are perceived by the English. After a microsidewalk of English citing the names of French personalities they know, visit the museum Madame Tussaud where 6% of the statues represent "frenchies". John Ardagh, "francophile" writer, talks about the ignorance of the British towards the French, explaining that most have never visited France.
Extract from Georges POMPIDOU’s speech on France’s favourable position on Britain’s entry into the European Union. He attributes three qualities to the English "humour, tenacity and realism" and ironically adds "it happens to me that we are still at the stage of humour". The president ends his answer with a line from Rimbaud "ah that time comes. Where hearts fall in love".