Why are the British becoming so French?

THE air in the corner of Battersea where I live is suffused with the smell of butter thanks to a new bakery-cum-café. August Bakery produces bread and croissants in such delicious profusion that the place is permanently packed. At weekends (which these days appear to start on Friday), people queue around the block from eight in the morning for their little piece of baked paradise.

Is this one of many signs that Britain is turning into France? The British and French have had a turbulent relationship since at least the Norman Conquest in 1066 (I have on my shelves a fat book entitled A Thousand Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke). Charles de Gaulle vetoed British membership of the then European Economic Community in 1963 and 1967 on the grounds that, as a maritime nation, the British looked to the world rather than to the continent. Many Britons voted for Brexit in 2016 for the same reason. One leading Brexiteer, Peter (now Lord) Lilley, kept a portrait of De Gaulle on his office wall during his various ministerial appointments.

Yet rather than turning toward the world, the British seem to be doing everything in their power to turn into their old rival. England now has 450 wineries producing 3.15 million bottles annually. The sparkling wines are even good. The shelves of supermarkets such as Waitrose and Marks & Spencer testify to how Britons over 40 now prefer wine to beer. Britain can now boast many first-rate restaurants and farmers’ markets (though the average British provincial town is still not a patch of its French equivalent). There is even a popular category of pubs — gastro pubs — that specialise in things like duck confit or steak frites rather than fish and chips or shepherd’s pie.