IF the British people were in any doubt as to the French attitude to the British beef, they should have listened to the editor of French newspaper Le Monde on TV on October 22.

He said: "It is unsafe - we don't like it. The Germans don't like it, or the Dutch, or the Belgians. The British meat market is finished."

This was no idle comment, but a brutal statement, delivered with malevolence and frightening intensity, supported a few days later by the assistant editor of Le Figaro in no less a dismissal of British beef, spoken with sublime indifference and finality. The British beef market to the Continent is gone and if our mealy-mouthed pussy-footing government believes the market is recoverable, their stupifying lack of the most basic of common sense is even more lamentable, regardless of edifying statements from the EU.

Do our farmers, exporters and indeed anyone connected with British beef, truthfully think the continental "frau" and "madame" will accept or comply? Think again.

The French are traditionally nationalistic; the Germans patriotic to their fatherland. I am an Englishman and it is a sad indictment of this once-great land of ours that this island home seems no longer capable of flying our flag or staunchly defending our heritage.

Let them eat their beef, lamb, pork and chicken and we will eat ours.

ERIC BATES, Marsden Road, Burnley.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.