With alarmingly regular frequency, British Tory politicians and the tabloid newspapers can be relied upon to engage in an explosion of "frog-bashing". These exceptions to the legendary flegme britannique - including calls this week for a boycott of French products in retaliation for the French refusal to buy British beef - are regarded here as a sort of nervous disorder. Today's Le Monde, for example, talks of "the enormous attack of francophobe itching that is consuming the British Isles" and "an anti-French campaign on the verge of hysteria".
The latest round of the "mad cow war" began on October 1st, when Paris announced that in violation of an EU directive, it would not lift the ban on British beef in force since March 1996. French authorities based their decision on a report by the Agence Francaise de Securite Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA) which stated that "in the present state of scientific knowledge and epidemiological data at its disposal . . . the risk of Great Britain exporting contaminated cattle cannot be considered to be completely mastered."
A strong undercurrent of French thought sees bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow" disease as a by-product of the economic liberalism in vogue in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. According to this argument, British cattle contracted the disease because the profit motive led farmers to recycle animal meat, forcibly turning grass-munching bovines into carnivores.
The decline of the British railway system and the disaster near Paddington station are seen in France to proceed from the same British greed and disregard for common welfare. It took three weeks for the British backlash to the French "Non" to get under way, with a demonstration by Conservative MEPs on the ChampsElysees - quickly disbanded because the Brits had failed to ask the Paris police for permission.
French newspapers have not given anywhere near the prominence to the issue that the British press has, although a "treacherous" French chef whose restaurant in England now refuses to sell French cuisine has found his place in infamy.
French coverage of the crisis tends to emphasise information that supports French policy, including a statement by the Scottish director of public health that BSE has not diminished as quickly as was expected. French radio yesterday broadcast interviews with British supermarket shoppers who said they, too, were afraid to eat British beef, or that they could not do without French wine and cheeses.
The French Minister for Agriculture, Mr Jean Glavany, is infinitely more conciliatory than his British counterpart, Mr Nick Brown, who has said he is personally boycotting French products. "I ask British opinion to remain calm and I ask British leaders to avoid aggravating tension," Mr Glavany said. "It is so easy to make anti-French feeling flare up in England. I warn against any statements - even personal ones - that mention a boycott. We must . . . put out the fire rather than feed it."
So far, the boycott by several British supermarket chains of selected French products has had little effect, but France stands to lose far more from the brewing trade war. Paris exports 25.4 billion francs (£3.05 billion) worth of food and drink to Britain each year, while Britain exports exactly half that amount to France. Even the president of the usually fiery French agricultural union, FNSEA, says he wants to "keep [his] sang-froid and maintain cordial relations with Britain".
Just as France brushes off the fact that it is once again refusing to obey an EU directive, and surely as Paris has never owned up to the dangers inherent in past French use of human and animal slurry in French feed, no one in Britain seems interested in the fairly convincing French case against British beef. London's position is that Britain has fulfilled the five conditions for the lifting of the embargo: the slaughter of 76,000 cattle born between 1989 and 1993; a system for identifying and tracing cattle; stopping the use of feed made from animal remains; slaughtering all calves after 30 months (older cattle seem more prone to catching ESB); and removing all high-risk parts from animal carcasses.
FINE, say the French. But the epidemic isn't under control yet. And after the devastating public health crisis involving AIDS-tainted blood, no French politician will risk accusations of negligence. The figures provide a powerful argument. Between January and August of this year, 1,298 cases of BSE were found in Britain, compared with 22 in France. French experts predict the British figure will rise to 3,000 by the end of the year. The incidence in France is at most two cows per million, compared with 650 British cattle per million, 325 times that in France. French experts also stress the lack of scientific knowledge about BSE. No one can explain why the majority of cattle affected were born after the banning of meat meal, or why the predicted fall in the number of cases has failed to occur. "We must take account of the incubation period and wait until 2001 to see if measures taken in 1996 are effective," Dr Jeanne BrugerePicoux, a professor of veterinary medicine, said.
Finally, the French suspect Perfidious Albion may be acting from vulgar commercial motives. According to Le Figaro, the British fear a BSE test now under consideration by the EU Commission could reveal the real extent to which British beef is still contaminated. If the meat goes on the market once the embargo is fully lifted, it will be more difficult to reimpose it.
