And meanwhile, as Merkozy fiddles....

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The gendarmerie van pulls up in the farmyard. Its sole occupant gets out and heads for the barn.

Hoy! Victor! You there?

In here....in the tractor shed...I'm overhauling the muckspreader. Well, you're a stranger these days....what fine breeze blows you in my direction? Here....let's drink to it.

Well, I'm on duty..

So who's going to breathalyse you?

Yes...well, go on then. What've you got there...is that Albert's?

Yes, a good drop, make the most of it, he's got esca in the vines and he'll be pulling a lot out this winter...
Anyway, what's it all about? I see you're on your own...

Yes, I wanted a quiet word...

If it's about young Laurent's speeding ticket then all I can say is that one of those Parisians with holiday homes round here must have copied his numberplate...
How the hell could my muckspreader be doing 170 kilometres on the periphique at three in the morning!

No, no...that'll get sorted out. But the muckspreader is involved, in a way...there've been complaints.

Complaints? What about? If that's those English again complaining about me not ploughing in Bernard's duck manure for him for over a week ...when we had that hot spell a way back...they can just forget it. They're living in the country, not the middle of London.

No...but you know you're supposed...

I know what I'm supposed to do, but I was organising the Algerian veterans do what with Jean-Antoine being ill...and anyway, it's Bernard's responsibility to get it ploughed in in twenty four hours, not mine...I was just giving him a hand.
So what's it about if it's not the manure?

Well, it is the manure....you seem to be collecting a lot of it.

And if I am? Not illegal, is it? I'm a farmer. Farmers always have manure.

Yes, of course.....but there have been complaints that you're not keeping it in an approved manner...you don't have it drained and whatnot in accordance with EU regulations.... it's all in your barns.....piles of it.

You'd think people would have something better to do...what business is it of theirs?

I don't suppose anyone would have been interested but after young Laurent drove the muckspreader through Ste. Conasse last week with the spreader attachment still going, it caused a bit of ill feeling...

With all this rubbish going on about the euro you'd think they had other things to worry about!
I'm sorry if Mme. d'Enculade got her car covered in it, but that's life in the country!

From what I hear it was lucky the cold snap had started...if people had had their windows open you'd have had a delegation round your ears in a flash and a fair few claims for compensation.
Still, let's stick to the point.
Do you or do you not have a slurry facility in line with EU  regulations?

Yes, you know I have...your son's girlfriend works for old Machin who installed it.

So why is all that muck stored in your barns?
I hope you've not been buying it....no one round here has a permit to sell manure..

No, people without 'a slurry facility in line with EU regulations' have been giving it me......for my project.

And what might that be?

Well, with all this crisis and whatnot, we're supposed only to buy things made in France...but there isn't much made here anymore so that's a bit difficult...look at my muckspreader...made in Italy!

I don't know who you think would be buying manure in those quantities Victor...but you'll still need a permit to sell it...even if you stick a tricolour on it.

I tell you, I'm not buying or selling manure!
I was wondering what to do to make a few bob extra....on the small scale, you understand...and then it came to me!
People are getting paid God knows what to make those windmill things...which is why the electricity bills will be going up again...so what about something much more efficient....
Biogas! Made in France!

From the manure?

Yes, to start with...but you can use anything organic. Next year, the supermarkets are going to have to recycle all the stuff they chuck out in their bins and my idea is to get this up and running and go for a contract with The Mutant over in Les Deux Biscouilles.....
They pay me to take it away and I make the gas and sell it!
Win win!

But manure's not the same thing as supermarket waste.....oh no! Don't tell me that's you!

What's me?

The dustmen are complaining that someone took all their food waste bins from here, St. Ragondin and Ste. Conasse this week.....

Well, yes...I wanted to see how it would work so I got young Laurent to nip round the night before the collection and pick them all up...a sort of dry run for The Mutant contract.
Don't worry, I've got all the bins hosed out and he'll take them back as soon as he gets back from the dump...

Where, I suppose, he is dumping all the containers and wrappers....

What do you think we are! We're not fly tipping. This is professional.

And I suppose he'spaying the professional rate at the dump?

No, or course not...we're farmers.....

Isn't it a bit messy, this food recycling?

I should say so...Laurent had to take a shower and put his clothes in the wash by the time he'd finished...but it won't be so bad with the supermarket packs, they won't have been opened and squashed up with other stuff.
I was thinking that I could hire a couple of English pensioners to do the dirty work....they're all on their uppers with the pound the way it is...

Was,Victor, was. The way the euro is going the English will be the only ones with any money round here...apart from the politicians, that is.

Well, all the more reason to diversify...the biogas. It's a way of showing your patriotism...not just national but local....environmentally friendly...
It's win win!

So where are you making this stuff? The food waste gas, I mean?

I've fixed up the old root clamp...few valves and whatnot...it'll be a few days before it gets started properly, but I've already got the manure started...in the slurry facility in line with EU regulations. That's going well. I'll soon be able to sell it off.

But how are you going to sell it? You can't lay pipelines all over the commune?

No, I'd thought of using that old pump  I used to use for the tractors......people can bring their cubis and fill them up at the pump....just like getting your wine in bulk...

Victor, you can't just start up like this. Where are your permits? Have you contacted the Fire Brigade for an inspection? Gas is dangerous stuff!

Typical! No wonder France is in a mess!
You get an idea to make a few bob and help the environment - just like these firms flogging windmills - and the next thing you know it's permits and inspections and all to be paid before before you see a penny...and when you do make a penny you've got the taxman hanging on one of your balls and the social security on the other...all useless mouths!

And don't go on to me about safety...I've worked it all out and there's nothing to worry about.

If the worst came to the worst and the tank explodes my bungalow is behind the cattle sheds so I'll be sheltered from the blast....I can claim the sheds and the animals and whatnot on the insurance and the only house in the path of the blast is owned by English.

And anyway, there won't be an accident. Young Laurent has made this sign to hang on the pump.
What do you think? You can't miss it! And it's in two languages!

Defense de fumer
Now smoking.

Fog in the Channel, continent isolated.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Well, that's got the Front National vote sewn up ahead of the Presidential elections, hasn't it!
Booted the British out of play!
Who's a clever boy then?

President Sarkozy is triumphant.
He has saved the Euro.
He has used the British to ensure that Chancellor Merkel...the other half of the pantomime horse....can't settle the finances of the Eurozone by a European Union level treaty.
So no referendum, no unpleasantnesses....and no binding agreement to what he has signed up to do.

Cigar for the gentleman!

Whatever one might think of the financial legerdemain practised in the City of London, whose lack of regulation is a major factor in allowing the shenanigans of the likes of MF Global to take place, the City is a vital British interest, so it was easy to trap Cameron into vetoing a treaty.

So where are we now?

The French prime minister announces that there will be no more austerity measures...until he sees where he is after the first financial quarter next year.
Election year, so no surprise there, then.
The French public have enough worries with SNCF changing the train times without receiving further nasty shocks before deciding which head of the political hydra gets their vote.

Private investors don't get a haircut...i.e. banks get off scot free.
So that's secured the consultancy when political life is over, then...

And, best of all, there's no need to do anything about balancing the French books because there's no way the necessary measures will get the required majority, now that the Senate is in the hands of the PS (socialist party). They won't hear of it.

So, Sarkozy is in seventh heaven echoing the prayer of Augustine....
Make me (financially) chaste, but not yet......

If ever....

Cry God for curry, Tesco and Saint George...

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Maurice?

Jean Paul?

Is it safe?

Quickly.......that's it. We can put the light back on now, Clement....
What's the situation  Jean Paul?

Bad, Maurice, very bad.
The rosbifs are in control of the area...they've welded the gendarmes into their barracks......they've occupied the mairie...they've put up a notice...

What does it say?

I don't know. It's in English.

Isn't this typical! We get invaded and where are our leaders? Where are the gendarmerie? It's all left to us poor buggers on the ground to organise something to protect the soil of France!

Reminds me of 1940.....three weeks I spent in trains, being sent here and there...anywhere from the Alps to Lorient...while the Germans were rolling over the border in their tanks....

Yes, all right, Victor, but that was then and this is now and it's not the Germans, it's the English.

Worse! At least the Germans paid for what they took...you can't be so sure with the English...look at poor Valentin!
Four times he repaired that window he put in...four times...and when it still leaked and he had to put in that stupid Velux the godon had originally given him to put it when any fool would have known that it wouldn't work and put in the bill for his extra time the bastard wouldn't pay him!
You wouldn't get that with the Germans. No, no...you knew where you were with them...

Yes, Victor...probably shot.

Don't get him started, Clement...before you know it he'll be singing 'Marechal, nous voila' and painting 'Travail, Famille, Patrie' on the walls.
And what about the security services? Running around after everything in a turban and missing all this under their noses.
It's not as if there wasn't plenty of warning....

Yes, but be fair, Maurice...with all this terrorism about they've probably been recruiting Arab speakers....I don't suppose many of them understand English.......let alone look at the internet forums for the English in France.
And anyway, who'd take it seriously,anyway....the English taking back their old provinces! It's a joke! And you know how the English like their jokes! No one would take it seriously....

Well I'm taking it seriously! Having your country over run by foreigners....

Not all of it....be fair, Maurice. We're just unlucky enough to be living in one of their ancient possessions....

I suppose you think that makes it all right!

No, but look.....they're trying to be reasonable.
Given all the legislation on equality, they have a point when they say that Salic Law should not have been applied in 1328, as France did not form part of the Salic lands, and so Edward of England should have been King of France and the whole country should belong to them now....excluding Roussillon Languedoc, of course, and Nice ...and Savoy...and the Jura...and Alsace Lorraine...

So they're being quite fair in only wanting back Aquitaine, Maine, Anjou, Normandy and Calais...

Fair! I've had enough of fair!
Look at them and their 'fair play'...their cricket...
What's 'fair' about trying to hit someone in the family jewels with a leather ball at one hundred kilometres per hour?
What's 'fair' about eleven on to one?

Look how sneakily they bottled up the chasse...the very people who should be out shooting them now...

Yes, where are the chasse?

Welded into their dog runs...that's where. There was a co ordinated attack on their houses with tear gas....they took their shotguns and welded them into their own runs...took the dogs too....left the poor buggers shut up with only a bowl of water and some stale crusts..
No, Victor...not the dogs...their owners...

Tear gas, Maurice? Are you sure?

Yes, look. Arthur brought round one of the empty bottles....look....

M A L T  V I N E G A R.

They threw the bottles through the windows and followed up. The chasse didn't stand a chance...

How did they get hold of it?

Ah, that's where they're sneaky....the authorities should never have let them start bringing 'shopping' from England in those white vans....you must have seen them in Benitierville.
They come every week or so and all the English pick up their goods from them rather than going to Super U or Leclerc...that's how they smuggled the tear gas through in such quantities...under the very noses of the gendarmerie.

What do you mean, Victor..it's all the fault of the Tourist Board?

Well, putting up those posters on the road

'Route des Rois d'Angleterre'

Gave the rosbifs ideas, didn't it?
Fifth columnists, the Tourist Board......if it wasn't for them we'd never have had the English here in the first place.

What's that noise?
Put the light out, Clement.
Who's there?

It's me...Jean Francois.

Oh, come in then. O.K. Clement, switch the light back on.
What's the news?

I've got a copy of the notice they put up at the mairie...the fish and chip van is giving them out...

The 'what' van?

The 'poisson frites' van...my son has translated it.

Well?

They've declared UDI...

No shame!
Fancy trumpeting from the house tops that you have a sexually transmitted disease!

No, not SIDA...a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. They've declared independence from France....and from the European Union.

They're going to open a branch of Tesco....the English version of Carrefour....and 'Chez Antoine' will be turned into an Indian restaurant...

Curry!
They go too far....

But there's something else, Maurice...
They're abolishing the Euro!

What? Abolishing the Euro!
Clement......give us all a glass of the Coteaux d'Aubance while we think this over....
Abolishing the Euro, you say?

Well, there might be room for negotiation after all...