Laughing at Yourself

Over dinner a few days ago, I expressed a sneaky admiration for the French. They simply don’t care what people think of them, and will test nukes, burn sheep, block roads, sink ships belonging to charities, make their own search engines, &c. &c. A lot of this is very objectionable, but there’s something likable about France’s persistent, hotheaded refusal to see what the rest of the world sees.

BBC News has an item on a demonstration on New Year’s Eve in Paris, parodying this same refusenik tendancy.