France Has Last Laugh as Britons Shun Insult Day

Urged on by Britain’s top-selling Sun newspaper but outnumbered by cameramen and pigeons, a handful of Britons gathered in Trafalgar Square today to bawl insults at the French.

The tabloid Sun, with a circulation of 4 million, backs Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher against plans by Frenchman Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission, for a European currency to replace sterling.

So it urged readers to turn toward France at midday and bellow: “Up yours, Delors!” and appointed as gathering place the square that commemorates the British victory over the French fleet at Cape Trafalgar in 1805.

Just four members of the ruling Conservative Party and two young office workers turned up.

Bemused tourists looked on and taxi drivers hooted approval as the group gesticulated, waved flags and sang “Rule Britannia.”

The solitary Frenchman present, journalist Eric Dior, was disappointed. “I expected something more grotesque,” he said.

French newspapers today countered the Sun’s outburst with mostly good-natured mockery of their neighbors across the English Channel.

“Roastbeefs, the Frogs Greet You,” was the headline in Le Parisien. The French call the English “roastbeefs” because of their supposed fondness for overcooked meat.

“We like you really . . . , “ Le Parisien said of the English. “ . . . It would be too cheeky to reproach you for your appalling food, for pinching our wines, our dishes, our chefs, our country cottages and our countryside.

“It would be even easier to mock you for your rainy weather, the way you look as if you have just swallowed an umbrella, your women’s buckteeth, your pubs closed on Sundays and in the evening.