If only France had a tabloid press...

The latest salvoes against the perfidies of France in the British newspapers have gone mostly unnoticed

The elderly Frenchman who phoned a chat-show on the radio station Europe 1 spoke for an aggrieved nation. How dare Donald Rumsfeld dismiss France as part of an "old Europe"? Of course France was "old", he said. It was already "old" when it mid-wived the birth of a nation from a feeble collection of English-speaking colonies more than two centuries ago. If France had not rescued America – with soldiers and cash – from "British tyranny" in the 1770s, there would have been no United States.

And as for the "les Anglais", their ingratitude was also "insupportable". Had the French not allowed them to join the European Community, despite the warnings of Charles de Gaulle? Did the French not build them a Channel Tunnel so that they could escape the rain more easily and fill Calais with shops to buy cheap drink? "We should cut off les Anglais and let them float away into the Atlantic, if that is what they want," the old man concluded.

Incidentally, the latest salvoes against the perfidies of France in the British newspapers have gone mostly unnoticed across the Channel. Robert Mugabe's invitation to an African summit in Paris has been reported by French press, but down-page, with polite understanding for the irritation of the British government.

The French have African problems of their own. If Tony Blair was taking seriously his tabloid-dictated duty to bash the frogs, he would ring up the President of the Ivory Coast. Although defended from rebels by 2,000 French troops, Laurent Gbagbo is almost certainly choreographing the anti-French riots in Abidjan. What would the French newspapers say if he was invited to London, one wonders?

Not much, probably. It is at moments like this that France misses a tabloid press. Although the French newspapers spluttered angrily against Donald Rumsfeld, they lacked the verbal and emotional brutality to convey the nation's sense of wounded outrage. Le Monde published a measured, and intelligent, leader under the title "Ce Vieux Rumsfeld" ("this old Rumsfeld"). There was no "Le Soleil" or "Miroir" to advise the US Defence Secretary to "Quack Off, Donald" (or whatever the equivalent in French tabloidese might be).

In France, unlike Britain, the committed Right is as permanently suspicious of America as the committed Left. However, the attitudes of the informed but non-politically obsessed are similar north and south of the Channel Tunnel. Saddam is evil and may be dangerous, but why, people ask, is he more evil and dangerous now than he was two years ago (or when Mr Rumsfeld in person was offering him US military aid in the 1980s)?

None the less, Mr Rumsfeld's words hit home with the precision of one of the Pentagon's laser-guided bombs. They coincided with the celebrations of 40 years of official French and German friendship. Although the two countries have achieved a great deal together, they know that they cannot lead, or dominate, the "new" enlarged Europe of the 21st century as they did the last decades of the 20th century.

Their restated marriage vows last week were surprisingly defensive, a declaration that they were determined to protect what they have, rather than to create something new. In that sense, Mr Rumsfeld was right. France and Germany do represent the "old". The enlarged European Union represents something new and untried, which may be too diffuse politically to stand up to the United States.

Beyond that, France and Germany are self-conscious about their "age" in other ways. Both have serious demographic problems that will make pensions policy a nightmare; both have sluggish economies; neither is willing to challenge the consensus that has given them excellent public services but, according to Anglo-Saxon economic orthodoxy, sapped their creativity and dynamism.

Mr Rumsfeld may be a rude man with a short memory (France has been a staunch ally in the war against terrorism), but he knows how to pack a lot of insult power into two words. It might seem that Jacques Chirac can only win domestically from a quarrel with such a man. President Chirac himself is not so sure. He noticeably refused to join in the slanging match and gagged those cabinet ministers (mostly junior) who did.

France, however clumsily at times, has been trying to influence rather than just annoy or impede the US administration. It has been trying to delay the war, keep its own military options open, maintain friendships with both Washington and the Arab world and preserve the importance of the UN (partly for selfish reasons, as a permanent security council member).

President Chirac knew that last week's public row meant that he had fallen off the tightrope. It was a failure of French diplomacy, and not something to be proud of.

indyparis@compuserve.com