And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the English version of my column!

My heartfelt thanks to you, my English and Welsh friends. You have managed to resist all argumentations - from the rational to the apocalyptic - of those who backed ‘REMAIN’. You have chosen to disregard the risks of your glorious country exploding - the Scots and the Northern Irish, two of the remaining four countries of your Empire, having voted massively – and shamefully– in favour of the Union. You have risked dividing your society in the long term between, on the one hand, the young, educated urban youth who are massively in favour of ‘REMAIN’, and on the other hand the older, less-qualified country dwellers supporting ‘LEAVE’, resulting in what amounts to a long-lasting social fracture. An incredibly brave choice because it has politically devastated and will economically weaken your country, for which Europe will be eternally grateful to you.

This demonstrates your sense of sacrifice which has already benefited the continent on several occasions, for instance when you saved it from the grasp of Napoleon, and subsequently twice from German hegemony. You have finally come to the conclusion that the place of your island is not within the Union. Even if you were already well and truly ‘outside’ (budget, euro, Schengen, security and immigration policies, banking union, etc.), the mere fact that you were there was always enough to block all attempts at further integration - not only in fear of displeasing you - but because each time we had to create extra unnecessarily complex procedures to enable you to keep your ‘special status’. The result of this is that the reforms have always ended up, thanks to you, in making this very Union more and more unreadable in the eyes of its citizens and thereby distancing them from it. Once again, despite all our efforts you continued to consider this European Union ultra dogmatic and over-controlled : we were not fortunate enough to have experienced Thatcherism and we remained for the most part attached to the welfare state, state interventionism, regulated markets – all of which horrified you. We also had to accept a watering down of the vision of the founding nations and adoption of short-term policies which, in the end, please no one : Europe has accomplished the amazing feat of inventing regulatory ultraliberalism.

You witnessed the successive crises which have shaken the Union since 2008 and you understood that it was doomed to perish beneath its contradictions, its paralyses, its compromises and the mediocrity of its national leaders who encourage ever greater scepticism of a European project held responsible for all national issues. You have therefore decided to give us a monumental kick up the backside: if the shock of the departure of one of the four largest countries in the Union does not wake us up, if we do not mobilise ourselves in order to revitalise the construction of the European Union, which has ensured peace on our continent for 70 years, then we no longer deserve to exist. Your Churchillian gesture will go down in history! So you know what awaits you : after World War II you descended into such economic depression that the IMF had to come to your aid, almost as if you were like petty Greece! When you joined in 1973 your GDP was one of the lowest in the EEC, and this is why you adhered to a project you despised. If Churchill believed in the United States of Europe, it had to be with the United Kingdom occupying the role of super power and certainly not a simple member with no more importance than France!

As always, I am amazed by your sense of sacrifice and general interest. When I think what lies ahead of you, both in cutting the links between you and us (200 commercial deals safeguarded by the Union and which you will need to renegotiate, 80,000 pages of community based laws which you will need to sort through to avoid legal loopholes, the many transactions in euros which will desert you for the Continent) and your need to maintain access to the single market, in particular for your banks and financial services, I can only salute your courage! Ahead of you are years of uncertainty, torment and heartrending moments! I salute you, my English friends ! I hope we will be seen as worthy of your sacrifice! In any case, bonne chance for the lonely journey which awaits you!

Traduction: team Vadot (Gordes-Bruxelles-Canberra). Merci à elles et eux!