Trying to say something nice, Prince Charles has rather stepped in it.

FRENCH FARMERS HAVE GOT IT RIGHT, SAYS CHARLES

PARIS jULY 22, 2005 (Telegraph) - "Sometimes, nowadays, you get this awful feeling that everything has to be so efficient and relevant that there's no room in life for the things that make it all worthwhile," the prince told an awards ceremony for student teachers at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Among those "worthwhile" things, he said, were the small French farms whose heavy subsidies from the Common Agricultural Fund are seen by the Government, whether Labour or Tory, as central to the problems of EU finances.

"Why do so many people nowadays want to go and live and have their holidays in France?" Prince Charles asked. "They want to make the most of all the inefficiencies of so-called peasant farming life - the wine, the food, the ambience.

"We are in real danger of sucking out every drop of culture of the things that we value as important."

Now these are very pretty thoughts, and we have no objection to those who whimsically look forward to a future modeled on the 16th century. That said someone might have clued the Prince.

One cannot just expect the Prince to know that the whole of Britain is not vacationing in Normandy. And it may be a bit to ask for him to be aware of his government's struggle to free his subjects from both the burden of subsidizing quaint French farms and the cockeyed market that results for British produce.

Of course, when you yourself are subsidized by the Duchy of Cornwall to the tune of £13.274 million* (2K4-2K5), well, quaintness must seem not simply desirable but affordable.

* USD $23,291,315.27

PFFT (What is this?): Quaintness 4 | Rayonnement français 1