In Praise Of... Arsène Wenger

A few years back, whenever the conversation turned to Gordon Brown, French officials used to shake their heads. Try as we might, we seem unable to get through to your chancellor (as he then was), they would lament over a glass of Chateau Brown claret. How can we get him to show any interest in France? Perhaps, Brown watchers responded, you could play the football card: invite him to lunch with Arsène Wenger. Maybe the lure of the Arsenal manager to the football-obsessed minister can refresh the parts of the Anglo-French relationship that the other Gallic blandishments cannot reach. If that suggestion was indeed followed up, then yesterday it paid off handsomely when Mr Wenger played host at the Emirates Stadium to the inter-governmental talks between President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Brown and their ministers. Mr Wenger may suffer from a curious inability to see incidents a few yards away from him, but in other respects he is a man of vision. In a very real sense he has paved the way for the success of the Sarkozy visit this week. Few people better embody the Europeanization of British life than he. None has done more to transform a part of Britain with a reputation for pragmatism into one that is a byword for excitement. As befits a native of Alsace, Mr Wenger is at ease in a melting-pot world. Save in Tottenham, Mr Wenger is probably the most popularly revered French citizen to settle here since Victor Hugo, no less, went into exile in the Channel Islands more than 150 years ago.