France and Britain : Europe’s Most Influential Love-Hate Relationship - by Robert and Isabelle Tombs
The ancient rivalry between France and Britain is, as recent events remind us, the most enduring and influential relationship within Europe. Overshadowed during most of the cold war by the crucial Franco-German tie, the motor which drove European construction, the Anglo-French quarrel exploded with full force during the bitter run-up to Iraq in 2003. The enlargement of the European Union and the defeat of the Constitutional referendum in France in 2005 spelled the end, at least for now, of a certain idea of Europe which France supported and Britain opposed. At the heart of both debates are long-standing Franco-British differences about the relationship with the US and the future shape of Europe. But the bitterness and animosity of these debates are hard to explain without reference to the past.
The history of that rivalry and of the many strands – political, cultural, sociological – that go to make it up are the subject of That Sweet Enemy, a splendid book by two historians, one French, one British, married to each other and mostly, though not always, in agreement.
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