Our office resembled something out of the West Wing today, as a major diplomatic incident broke out.
One of our major customers is based in France, and it's fair to say that our relations with them have not been great over the past few months. Today, they sank to new depths.
A delegation of our employees has been sent over to carry out some work at their Headquarters just outside Paris. This should have been a straightforward job, but as always these things turn out to be anything but.
The problem came when the delegation arrived at our customer’s site.
One of employees that we sent over is from Eastern Europe, and this was apparently enough for the French to refuse him access to their site.
The country he is from is a member of the EU, but this was irrelevant news for our friends in France, who steadfastly refused to even contemplate letting him on site, even though it would be to do work for us and paid by us, rather than for them.
The Polish Embassy in Paris was apparently aghast at this, which seems to break some kind of law in France. However, we decided that in the interests of international relations it would be best just to fly our employee home.
To be honest, the utter arrogance of the French to deny him access to their site may have been an annoyance to our company, but I couldn't help admire it. I just love the attitude, and hope that they never lose it.
Vive la France!
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