Why does France's proposed merger with Great Britain in 1956 (NYT, tiny article deep inside newspaper) not raise a few more eyebrows? Can you imagine the reaction of each country's respective populations if they were faced with such a merger? The British would finally have access to edible food, sure, but the French would have to call those obnoxious British tourists their countrymen! And Britain would have had access at a much earlier date to convenient retirement communities in Southern France, and perhaps France, with its comparably good weather would have become overrun with British, who would have threatened the purity of their perfect tongue!