The chattering classes of Paris are in uproar. Not over the fate of the Republic, not over the yellow vests or the pension reforms, but over a banquet. A giant, lavish, unapologetically opulent banquet thrown by the French government to showcase the nation’s gastronomic heritage. The left has cried foul, denouncing the display as a grotesque celebration of excess while the republic burns. But let us not be fooled: this is not about inequality. This is about the soul of a nation.
France, once the arbiter of civilisation, now finds itself trapped in a cycle of self-flagellation. Its intellectual elite, having long abandoned the pursuit of truth for the cheap thrill of moral superiority, sees a banquet not as a celebration of culture but as a crime against the oppressed. The same people who sneer at patriotism and mock national identity are now horrified that their government dares to be proud of what France has given the world: from the œuf en meurette to the tarte Tatin. This is the decadence of the mind, a rot that has spread from the Sorbonne to the streets, leaving France unable to defend even its own cuisine.
Across the Channel, we British watch with a mixture of amusement and grim satisfaction. Our own food security policy has been a quiet triumph. While France tears itself apart over foie gras banquets, we have quietly shored up our agricultural resilience, ensuring that British farms can weather the storms of climate change, trade disruptions, and the ever-looming threat of a no-deal Brexit. We have not sought to lecture the world on how to eat; we have simply got on with the business of feeding ourselves.
There are lessons here for the guardians of British identity. The French left’s fury is not a mere tantrum. It is a symptom of a deeper disease: the belief that a nation should apologise for its own greatness. We have seen similar impulses in our own land, where some seek to tear down statues and rewrite history. But as the French example shows, to abandon your heritage is to abandon your future. A nation that cannot celebrate its own culture without apology is a nation that has lost its way.
Our food security policy stands firm precisely because it is rooted in a respect for the land and the people who work it. We do not need to indulge in the theatrics of the Parisian elite. We do not need to choose between a banquet and bread. But we must resist the siren call of the self-hating intellectual who would have us believe that pride in our own is a sin.
So let the French left rage against foie gras. Let them wring their hands over truffles and champagne. Here in Britain, we shall keep calm and carry on, secure in the knowledge that a nation which knows what it stands for will never starve.
