Brexit has robbed Paris of baked beans

 

To grasp the impact of Brexit, says John Lichfield, you could do worse than study the “unlikely love affair” between M&S and France. It opened a store in Paris in 1975, the first of 18 large French outlets, and despite teething problems (marmalade pots were labelled sans préservatifs – “without condoms”) became an “ambassador for the British way of life and underwear”. But after a while, the French tired of M&S clothes (“comfortable but not very elegant... irretrievably English”, as one disillusioned consumer put it), leading the retailer to close all its stores in 2001. Yet the French still retained a soft spot for M&S delicacies, notably baked beans (haricots à la sauce tomate), scotch eggs (viande aux oeufs) and mini-sausages; and ever since, a small chain of M&S food outlets has done a roaring trade. But now, thanks to Brexit-induced customs rules, such goodies can no longer roll into France, from the main M&S depot in Northampton, unimpeded. The French shelves are empty. Brexit was meant to deliver a “new Global Britain”, and one day perhaps it will. “But one of its first achievements may be the eviction of the British sausage from France.”