Europe has a big cheese problem

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” — Charles de Gaulle. As cities across France are burnt and ransacked by protesters, it seems the French general was right. Paris now looks less like La Ville-Lumière and more like the aftermath of the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg, Tennessee — the home of that particular spirit but not a place you can drink it, as it is a “dry” county (and they say Americans don’t do irony). France has been having a bad time of late, and it’s not just because of riots, fires and looting — incidentally, if anyone wants 250 slightly singed Paris Saint-Germain football jerseys and several dozen boxes of apéricubes , please look for me on eBay.