UNTIL yesterday, it looked as if we were to enjoy a summer free from continental disruption. Neither Spanish or Greek air traffic controllers had gone on strike and all seemed quiet on the other side of the Channel.

Alas, we were lulled into a false sense of security. French agitators waited until the last week of August to spring their patented brand of misery on British holidaymakers. Thousands have been stuck in jams caused by the French fishermen's blockade of Channel ports.

This typically Gallic demonstration is all too familiar. It exposes as a pipe dream the hopes of federalists for a centralised, harmonised Europe. The barricades go up far too freely for that to ever become a reality.

The ferry companies have sought redress in a European court. But that will not help the families and the haulage companies stuck in the middle of this dispute. They are left to pay the price for the French zeal for rebellion.

The English Channel may only be about 20 miles wide, but the gulf between the two nations it separates is far wider. We need only look at the issue at the centre of the current row: fuel prices.

The French fishermen are unhappy with the price of boat fuel. They are demanding it is cut from 20p to 11p a litre. To this end, they have brought every Channel port to a standstill, costing British industry an estimated £1 million a day.

Compare that with British protests over petrol prices. We pay more than almost anyone, causing real economic hardship to rural motorists in particular.

This anger was channelled into the Dump The Pumps campaign. For one day drivers were asked to boycott petrol stations. Even this low-key demonstration drew a somewhat patchy response.

Current anti-French feeling may bolster the pioneering Knaresborough campaign for a referendum of townsfolk on keeping the pound. This small-scale, politely defiant and eccentric campaign is as characteristically British as the Channel blockade is characteristically French.