Frenchman Benjamin Carle likes a challenge. First he set out to live using only French-made products. Then he decided to make a sandwich from scratch, including growing his own wheat and catching his own tuna.

Now Carle, 31, has completed what may be his toughest test so far: trying to understand and identify with the English.

The idea, triggered by Brexit, is the subject of his latest documentary, Meilleurs Ennemis – Ma Relation Avec La Perfide Albion (Best of Enemies – My Relation with Perfidious Albion).

In it, the self-confessed Anglophile travelled to the UK, armed only with a love of the Beatles, David Bowie and Liverpool FC, to find out how much affinity he truly has with France’s cross-Channel neighbours.

During this journey, he visits Basildon (having been told it is the heart of Middle England), discovers the mysteries of the British pub, jellied eels, afternoon tea, imperial measures and Marmite. As a result of his trip, he decides he is not as English as he had thought.

“I thought it would be easier to be English,” he admits, during an interview at the République of Coffee (questionable Gallic credentials) in Paris. Carle is early (not at all French), gives two bises (a peck on each cheek – very French) and commits the Parisian sacrilege of ordering a large mug of filter coffee.

“I didn’t exactly think it would be easy but I thought my love for England and my understanding of the codes and particularities would help. Instead, I came back to France and realised I was more French than I thought,” he says, almost ruefully.

“Still,” he perks up: “At a time when everyone watches the same television series, listens to the same music and has the same cultural references, it’s good that there are so many differences between countries that are so close. We don’t need to all have the same cultural identity.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘William the Conqueror is important to the British but little known in France,’ says Benjamin Carle. Photograph: Culture Club/Getty Images

Carle’s documentary, to be aired on Canal+ in September, opens at a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings won by William the Conqueror in 1066. “I discovered it’s such an important date in England, but relatively little known in France, perhaps because William was Norman and France wasn’t a unified country back then.

“We went back through the history books and calculated that in roughly 1,000 years of history there have been a total of 250 years of war in 30 conflicts between France and England and millions of deaths, most of them, unlike Hastings, outside of England.”

Carle suggests the roots of the current love-hate relationship between France and England dates back to Joan of Arc in the 15th century. “We learn in school to thank Jeanne d’Arc for kicking the English out of France. It was a deliberate political policy to create this legend, to say here is the enemy, we kicked them out and now France is French; it’s our country. Even if we know history isn’t quite that simple, it has become the cement holding our nation together.”

In the film, we see Carle out with members from the Active Resistance to Metrication, whose undercover late-night operations involve changing road signs from metres and kilometres to yards and miles.

“They were mostly older men, Brexiters who said the English had used their own system for ever and they didn’t see why it had to change. They were real rebels, but ultra-polite and correct and very precise about how they pasted their stickers,” he says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marmite? Why do you eat this thing?’ says Benjamin Carle. Photograph: Alamy

Carle says he didn’t want to make a programme focused on Brexit, but he was surprised by the casual attitude of the English towards their impending departure from the EU. “I was there in the run-up to the original Brexit day in March. When I mentioned the risks or asked if people were worried, they said: ‘It’s OK, there’s time.’ And there were no demonstrations. That surprised me, but I’m a bit English in that way. I complain about things afterwards,” he says.

So what did Carle like, dislike and not understand after his journey of discovery among the people the French love to hate?

“I didn’t like that people found it impossible to say no. They wouldn’t say, ‘No, sorry, I don’t want to be interviewed by you’, they’d make excuses. Just say no,” he says. “Then there were the constant references to the French being ‘cowards’.

“I liked the absence of harassment of women in the streets; France has a lot to learn here. And I liked English jokes like: how do you plant an English lawn? You sow the seeds and wait for it to rain for 600 years.”

The food? “Hmm, people kept saying it has improved, but to be honest, I didn’t find it that good. Jellied eels that manage to be both salty and tasteless, meat pies with gelatinous parsley sauces, and cutting afternoon tea cakes into small pieces. What’s that about?”

People couldn’t say no ... and there were constant references to the French being 'cowards' Benjamin Carle

And Marmite? (In the documentary, Carle is seen pasting a thick layer of the yeast-extract spread over his toast.) “Non, non, non,” he grimaces. “Why do you eat this thing? Is it something that’s part of your heritage that you just can’t let go of?

“To be honest, I think the English are more open to the world and know France better than the French know the English. And that means they like us more. Sometimes we French are very self-satisfied and smug; we think we know England because we have visited London for the weekend, but we know very little about the English.

“Before I made this film, I would have said I was 25 to 30% English. Now, although I feel more French, I have a greater respect for the English, because I realise I’m not one of them. Today, I feel 10% English.”

And that, he says, is a good thing. Vive la différence!