Bastille Day means it’s adieu to Bernard Emié

Berets off to Bernard Emié, the French ambassador who is making way for Sylvie-Agnès Bermann next month. Among the dignitaries toasting Emié with champagne and foie gras at last night’s Bastille celebrations at the French residence in Kensington Park, was newly appointed Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, former Labour MP Denis MacShane and Axelle Lemaire, who saw off the Right-wing party of then President Nicolas Sarkozy to become the National Assembly’s representative of French citizens in the UK.

Emié will be remembered for his generosity after London, which had beaten Paris to be the Olympic host city, struggled with the G4S security fiasco. “We have military people and gendarmes who can help,” he said back in 2012. What a bon oeuf.