Forget the football pitch – there's nothing quite like quarterly growth statistics to bring out the latent nationalism of Europeans. News this week that the French and German economies grew by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter, against a contraction of 0.8 per cent in the UK, had Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, positively crowing with delight.
Breaking short her holiday to pre-announce the news on the radio, she declared that "France is distinguishing itself clearly from its neighbours". In cautious, Teutonic manner, the German economics minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was less inclined to uncork the Riesling, yet even he could barely disguise his sense of national pride.
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