Needless to say, the Brits aren't flavour of the month in Paris.
Mind you, when have we ever been?
Britain has long been accused by our continental brethren of being a Member State that wants all the benefits of the EU at none of the cost, a view compounded in the most dramatic of fashions with David Cameron's veto last week. The metaphorical rubbing of salt into the wounds of the eurozone economy.
And now we have a further round of mud-slinging from Paris. The "my dad's better than your dad" strategy of a primary school child has been written into the books of international diplomacy, with France Central Bank chief Christian Noyer declaring "my economy's better than yours."
I can almost hear the slow, eerie hand claps in the corridors of Whitehall from here.
Noyer said, "They [the credit ratings agencies] should start by degrading the United Kingdom, which has greater deficits, as much debt, more inflation and less growth than us."
French Finance Minister Francois Baroin echoed this view, but with even more pointed language. "The economic situation in Britain today is very worrying, and you'd rather be French than British in economic terms...We don't want to be given any lessons and we don't give any."
Somewhat against that grain, he went on to say that if the ratings agencies considered the economic facts on merit, then Britain should be downgraded before France.
Yet the truth is that it's France's credit rating that faces the more immediate downgrade.
Perhaps Monsieurs Noyer and Baroin have forgotten one key fact in their Anglo-Franco comparison: the Euro. And the UK has a credible plan in place for dealing with the deficit, whilst the Eurozone is still in the mire.
But there's little point in me laying out the economics, far more qualified people than I have done so. Whatever the truth of the matter is, what is more interesting is what Noyer and Baroin are actually trying to achieve in this war of words.
It seems immediately outrageous that the governor of another country's central bank should be calling for the downgrade of another sovereign state.
Perhaps the only rational explanation is the French thinking their pointing at Britain will have any impact on the ratings agencies. This seems a desperate last throw of the dice, knowing they are economically imprisoned by the Eurozone crisis and economic woes of other Member States hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The Sun probably summed it up best: "Monsieur Noyer, you're a AAA-rated fool."
And, lest we forget, when times are tough nothing motivates the British more than a good spat with the French.