Imagine, if you will, the fall of Rome: not in fire and sword, but in gluttony and spectacle. The French government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to host a grand banquet for the elite, a gargantuan feast of foie gras and Champagne, while the provinces roast in the heat of inflation and discontent. This is not satire, dear reader. This is a news report. President Macron, the self-styled Jupiter of the Republic, threw a party for 120 mayors and dignitaries at the Élysée Palace, a display of opulence that would make Louis XIV blush. The menu: lobster, truffles, and a choice of three desserts. The cost: a cool €400,000 of public money. The timing? During a cost-of-living crisis that has seen French families cutting back on heating and bread.
Now, the British government, ever the moralising aunt of Europe, has issued a warning. No, not a warning about the crassness of the event, but about the ‘divisive class politics’ it represents. Downing Street, in a statement that reeks of sanctimony, cautioned that such displays deepen societal fractures. Let us pause for a moment. The same British government that hosted a party in Downing Street during lockdown? The same one that hands out contracts to PPE barons without tenders? The audacity is breathtaking, and yet, they are right. But they are right for all the wrong reasons.
The real issue is not the party itself. It is the symbolism. The French elite have forgotten the lessons of 1789. They think that because the guillotine is no longer in vogue, they are safe. They are not. The historian in me sees a pattern: when the wealthy feast while the poor starve, the mob does not rise immediately. First, they seethe. Then, they vote for extremists. Marine Le Pen is already sharpening her knives, and Macron has handed her the handle. The banquet is not a scandal; it is a recruitment poster for the far right.
But let us not spare the British. Their warning is a classic case of projection. The UK has its own class chasm, its own banquet of the beast in the form of tax havens and private school subsidies. The Conservative Party, which prides itself on fiscal responsibility, has spent billions on test-and-trace failures and unusable PPE. They lecture France on division while their own union is held together with sticky tape and nostalgia.
What this moment demands is a dose of Victorian realism. In the 19th century, the British aristocracy understood that a righteous populace required bread, circuses, and at least the illusion of fairness. They gave us the Reform Acts and the Factory Acts. They did not, for the most part, throw lobster parties in the face of starving mill workers. The modern elite, by contrast, seems to have learned nothing. They gorge, they twitter, they globe-trot, and they wonder why the peasants are restless.
The French banquet is a symptom of a deeper intellectual decadence. Our leaders no longer believe in anything beyond their own appetites. They are managers, not statesmen. They optimise, they poll, they focus-group, but they lack vision. The result is a culture of entitlement that makes the Ancien Régime look modest. Macron’s banquet is not an isolated incident; it is the logical endpoint of a leadership that sees governance as a lifestyle, not a duty.
So, what is to be done? The British warning, though hypocritical, has a kernel of truth: class politics is indeed divisive. But the division exists because of the banquet, not because of the critique. To heal the fracture, we need a return to service, to humility, to the idea that public office is a trust, not a party favour. France must look to its revolutionary past, not for guillotines, but for the spirit of égalité that once inspired the world. Britain must look to its own history of reform, from the Magna Carta to the Beveridge Report, and act accordingly.
The banquet will pass. The hangover will not. The warning from London is a mirror, and both nations should look into it with shame. The only question is whether we will learn from history, or merely repeat it as farce.
