Refractory Gauls, or the French politics thread

[Duque de Bragança]

Didn't spot this at the time, but on countries sharing boats - I can only imagine the Portugal, Qatar and North Korea boat must have been a bit weird

Unfair for Portugal to be lumped with those two. 

The joys of the alphabet P,Q,R (epublic of juche Korea).

Enough to ruin a photo.

[Norgy]

To be fair, Portugal spawned the one who said he was rubed at the beach 

[Josquius]

It's a surprise no country has ever changed its name primarily to switch seats at international events.

[grumbler]

This sounds very much like the Russian argument as to why they invaded Ukraine:  "they were mean so they forced me to invade."  The UK had peace after the Treaty of Amiens and they unilaterally broke the peace.

I don't think the analogy in the first sentence holds although I definitely agree with the second sentence.

The war party in Britain feared the growth in French power under Bonaparte, viewed conflict with the traditional rival as inevitable and were worried that waiting further could result in further consolidation of power by France and a weakening of Britain's relative position.

Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 for pretty much that exact reason, so it's not like that thinking was unique to the UK.  My argument was simply that Napoleon becoming emperor was not the result of personal vainglory nor were his wars all the results of French aggression.