By Caroline Davies
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/01/2007
Your View: What would life be like if Britain and France had merged?
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/01/2007
Your View: What would life be like if Britain and France had merged?
Mon Dieu! the Queen as La Reine de la France? C'est impossible, n'est ce pas? Not entirely, according to documents housed at the National Archives in Kew.
They show that in 1956 Britain and France considered a "union" and the possibility of our Queen as the first regal head of this avowedly republican country since previous occupants of the post literally lost theirs.
A sense of unity as the Queen makes a speech from in front of the Union flag and the Tricolour during a state visit to France
Yesterday the prospect rendered one eminent French historian almost speechless. "Really, I am stuttering because this idea is so preposterous," stammered Prof Henri Soutou, from the Sorbonne.
But a British cabinet note shows that the French prime minister, Guy Mollet, first broached the subject during a meeting in London with his British counterpart, Anthony Eden.
The note of Sept 10, 1956, states: "When the French prime minister, Monsieur Mollet, was recently in London he raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the United Kingdom and France."
They show that in 1956 Britain and France considered a "union" and the possibility of our Queen as the first regal head of this avowedly republican country since previous occupants of the post literally lost theirs.
A sense of unity as the Queen makes a speech from in front of the Union flag and the Tricolour during a state visit to France
Yesterday the prospect rendered one eminent French historian almost speechless. "Really, I am stuttering because this idea is so preposterous," stammered Prof Henri Soutou, from the Sorbonne.
But a British cabinet note shows that the French prime minister, Guy Mollet, first broached the subject during a meeting in London with his British counterpart, Anthony Eden.
The note of Sept 10, 1956, states: "When the French prime minister, Monsieur Mollet, was recently in London he raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the United Kingdom and France."
Read more on this article in The Telegraph uk
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