I REMEMBER our early years in the old EEC – the Marché Comun – before it morphed horribly into today’s EU.

In those easier-going days of no more than nine member states, France (it was always France) would repeatedly and unconcernedly break a big rule in, say, fishing quotas and be warned and heavily fined.

At which point two things happened: France carried on breaking that rule, and France didn’t pay the fine.

Guess who’s still embedded at the heart of the EU? And Barnier [European chief negotiator for Brexit] thinks we’re anarchic rule-breakers wanting things all our own way?

I miss le Grand Charlot. De Gaulle would have had us out the door by now on his own with whatever the French for ‘boot up the jacksy’ is. And merde to the rest of the EU platoon.

ALLAN FRISWELL Keighley Road, Cowling