French desire to humiliate the UK is nothing new

The French have never forgiven us for incarcerating Napoleon on St Helena in 1815 and leaving him there until he died. This continued until 1914 when we French had to grovel for our help against the Huns but in 1919 it was pay back time in French eyes. I quote from Wikepedia on the treaty of Versailles,

"Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US $442 billion or UK £284 billion in 2017). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes, predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a "Carthaginian peace"—and said the reparations figure was excessive and counter-productive, views that, since then, have been the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists from several countries. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently."

The end result of the French humiliating Germany was the rise of Adolf Hitler, World War II and mass killing of civilians. Keynes got it right, the Frenchman Foch got it wrong in the usual French way.

We now have another Frenchman Barnier trying to give us a punishment beating in the Brexit faux negotiations. Barnier and his Belgian acolyte Verhofstadt don't want to a negotiate with us they want to humiliate us at any cost pour encourager les autres, the French tactic which has repeatedly failed. The French dominated EU will pay any price to maintain their folie de grandeur. The learn nothing from history.Their path will lead to the rise of more extremist parties as it did in the 1930s and inevitably more war. Let us keep out off it at all costs. Too many of our sons and daughters died in World Wars for French amour propre.

What is new is the report in today's Times of a speech by German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel accusing Barnier of trying to punish Britain by making a deliberate "mess"of key elements of Brexit. He went on to warn other MEPs not to listen to Barnier who he said wanted to impose a bad Brexit deal on Britain.

I have not heard Herr Henkel's views reported on the BBC. I wonder why? They are detailed in the Times Thunderer column today and are well worth reading. The Germans are much more pragmatic than the French and thank goodness the Germans pay the piper and they will call the tune.