C’est vrai… the French can’t get enough of all things British

King Charles’ wildly successful ‘entente royale’ visit to France – during which even Parisians greeted him with cheers of ‘Vive le Roi!’ – is proof that my fellow countrymen are ardent but shy anglophiles, writes Benedicte Paviot

King Charles greets crowds at a Parisian flower market named after his late mother (PA)

A little against the odds – and certainly against nation moods – King Charles’s three-day state visit to France has been an unmitigated triumph.

It was by no means guaranteed. The visit had been planned for earlier this year, the new king’s first engagement abroad, but it had to be cancelled amid violent nationwide clashes over pension reforms. During several days of rioting, police fired tear gas at thousands of protestors on the very streets where French royalty had been guillotined two centuries ago. As backdrops to a royal visit go, “les optiques” would have been foreboding, to say the least.

And then there’s hundreds of years of well-documented love-hate relations between our two countries to take the edge off any entente cordiale. But this past week, we’ve seen only a love-love relationship.