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发帖数: 557 | 1 LONDON — So much for the Olympic Games encouraging international
brotherhood and understanding.
In the case of France and Britain, the London Games have reignited the
traditional rivalry between the two nations with a cross-Channel spat over
French claims that the triumphant British cycling team might have cheated.
The dispute has gone right to the top, with Prime Minister David Cameron
telling the French this week that they should be more gracious in defeat.
He, like much of the British press, has put the cheating claims down to
French sour grapes after Britain’s cyclists wiped the track with their
rivals to pick up seven gold medals in ten indoor events.
Commentators have not allowed the French allegations to spoil the Olympic
fun, choosing instead to poke fun at what is seen here as France’s poor
sportsmanship.
“Quelle horreur!” the Daily Mail proclaimed after Isabelle Gautheron,
director of the French cycling team, complained the British athletes must
have been using “magic wheels” to ensure their success. “We are asking a
lot of questions: how have they gained so many tenths of seconds?”
Her comments, and other claims that British cyclists had been bending the
rules, were seized on by the French media but firmly rejected by the British
team. The only “magic” thing about the wheels was that they were round
and, in any case, they were made in France, a team spokesman said.
Sir Chris Hoy, who picked up the sixth cycling gold medal of his Olympic
career on Tuesday, said, “If other teams want to progress they should look
in the mirror and think about what they are doing wrong.”
Mr. Cameron told a French television channel: “I think it’s very unfair
that just because athletes win to then somehow have suspicions against them.”
He later told the BBC the French were still smarting after a Briton, Bradley
Wiggins, won this year’s Tour de France. “I think they found the Union
Jacks on the Champs Elysées a bit hard to take,” Mr. Cameron said.
What is it about the French and British and their love-hate relationship?
Although long-term partners and allies, it sometimes seems an ocean
separates them rather than 20 miles of sea. It is as if the only thing they
have in common is that both have ingrained stereotypes about the other.
Hard to believe that around 400,000 French people live and work in Britain,
and an almost equal number of Britons live in France, mostly enjoying a
happy retirement in the southern sun.
Britain’s French population is predicted to rise as the new French
government prepares to raise the top rate of tax to 75 percent. Mr. Cameron
has offered to welcome French tax exiles with open arms.
So some ill feeling was in the air even before the latest spat over Britain
’s cycling success.
Criticizing the French tax proposals last month, Mr. Cameron said, “If the
French go ahead with a 75 percent top rate of tax, we will roll out the red
carpet and welcome more French businesses to Britain.”
France’s President François Hollande got him back early in the
Olympic Games when he thanked Mr. Cameron for “rolling out the red carpet”
for French athletes to win medals.
That was when France was third in the medal tables. Since then French
athletes have tumbled to seventh place and the Britons have risen to third,
thanks in large part to the cyclists. |
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