'Stop being so bloody French!'

France is panicking. Not only is it no longer acceptable to be a politician and spend one’s free time at orgies (yes, you, Dominique Strauss-Kahn…), but, even worse, its food culture is under attack.

And what makes the latter so much worse, so insulting, so jaw-droppingly painful, is that the attack is coming from us – les Rosbifs – we Brits who, many Frenchmen would have it, couldn’t tell red from white wine, wouldn’t know the difference between a pudding and a dessert, a beurre manié from a beurre noisette, a roux from a rouille.

Yet so triumphant has been the march of British food culture in recent years that the French government has been meeting in secret to discuss ways to thwart our advance. Its top foodies were, in the months leading up to Christmas, summoned to the foreign ministry, no less, to discuss tactics for Le Foodie Fight-Back. And earlier this week, we saw phase one in this, how you say, War on Terroir.

For Laurent Fabuis, France’s foreign minister, decided to hijack the launch of the 2015 Michelin Guide, that all-powerful food handbook, and host it in the splendid mid-19th century confines of the Quai d’Orsay. It would be like David Cameron telling his aides to clear his diary, abort that COBRA meeting, cancel Prime Minister’s Questions and hold a bash at Downing Street for the Good Food Guide. It shows just how worried the French are. Indeed, government spokespeople themselves have talked of their “gastro-diplomatic” efforts to stop an “Anglo-Saxon” plot to remove France from its position at the top of the culinary pyramid.

After leading French chefs Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy knocked heads together with government flunkies in those covert talks, Michelin has decided to add to the list of 24 restaurants in France that hold the accolade of three stars.

It’s what the French see as a nifty left-hook following last year’s publication of the British-based World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards, which saw just five French chefs gain entries. Meanwhile, the new 2015 French Michelin guide cites 80 two-star restaurants and 503 with one star.

This compares in the UK to just four restaurants with three stars, 21 with two stars and 142 with one star. The message is: “Take that, you fish-and-chip-munching British fools!”

At the time, the 50 Best list was attacked by Ducasse and Savoy as biased and unfair – but even they admitted that their country ought to think strategically about how to “influence, communicate and spread our gastronomy around the world”.

Yet this latest response from France is by no means hysterical. Britain has indeed become a major player in the world of food over the last few decades. And about time, too. For too long this nation acquiesced to the dominance of French gastronomy. For hundreds of years, no nobleman worth his salt would dream of hiring a Brit to run his kitchen. And if the chef wasn’t French, it was kept very much under wraps.

There were, however, some noble exceptions to this cow-towing to the Gauls. Hannah Glasse, the Delia of the mid-18th century, mocked the fancy ways of French cooking in her 1747 book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. “If Gentlemen will have French cooks, they must pay for French tricks,” she wrote tartly. “So much is the blind folly of this age, that they would rather be imposed on by a French booby, than give encouragement to a good English cook.”

But she was a lone voice. Both fact and fiction have underscored the global straddle of the French chef. The cook, for example, whom countless guests of Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia attempt to poach from her country house Brinkley Court, is a Frenchmen called Anatole. The British Royal family have, of old, written the menus for banquets in French.

And the French didn’t even have to battle hard to achieve this position. As food historian Colin Spencer once noted: “That a whole nation could embrace the cooking of a nation that had been historically its fiercest rival and enemy might seem astonishing.”

But it wasn’t just the British whose dining rooms were conquered by the French. Charles Ranhofer had flown the flag in 1860s New York, and Hippolyte Gouffé, the brother of Queen Victoria’s pastry chef, Jules, was Russia’s most famous 19th-century cook. Paris, declared Larousse Gastronomique, had become “the mecca of gastronomy”.

While there was an early birth of British food culture in the 1900s, two world wars, rationing and a natural, Victorian abhorrence in taking pleasure from food stymied its emergence. Indeed, it was not until the 1990s that food became an acceptable topic of conversation at the British dinner table. Two years after the series, MasterChef – on which I am now a critic – started its joyfully never-ending run on TV, its original host Loyd Grossman was collared by a waiter in a London restaurant. He told him that before his show he had never heard people talk about food – golf or business, but never food. “Food had not been regarded as a legitimate subject for conversation,” says Grossman. “It was almost rude.”

How different the situation had always been in France. We never had a character like early-19th century cook and philosopher Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, whose aphorisms include “The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are fed” and “The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star”.

It was Elizabeth David who got domestic middle-class tastebuds working in the 1950s. And it was, ironically, two Frenchmen who revolutionised our restaurant culture in the 1970s. Michel and Albert Roux changed the British dining scene forever when they opened the likes of Le Gavroche in London and The Waterside Inn in Bray. They did it not out of kindness, but because they spotted an opportunity. And it is telling that in those early days virtually all of their suppliers were French.

Today, the situation is very different. Generations of chefs – many of whom came through the Roux brothers’ establishments – champion British suppliers. Indeed, so many now compete to state that they only buy fresh ingredients locally.

Meanwhile, and of particular annoyance to the folk across the Channel, many of our homegrown cooks actually do French food better than the French. Just look at Marco Pierre White or Henry Harris. We now also have a celebrated cheese industry, a growing wine culture, our supermarkets stock every conceivable ingredient. Food is on television 24 hours a day, its most successful formats are food-based – from The Great British Bake Off to Come Dine With Me – and many of our best-known celebrities are chefs. Online, food bloggers lurk at every turn, and, pornography aside, the most searched-for items are recipes.

Tragically for the French, they didn’t notice their decline. Fast food crept up on them, its proliferation furthering the erosion of its gastronomic culture. Youth culture, fed by the digital revolution, embraced pizzas. The country is now the second most profitable for McDonald’s after the United States.

A lack of spending money in the beleaguered French economy has meant that dining out has become irregular. In those establishments that survive, France’s 35-hour working week prevents maintenance of even a basic standard that was de rigueur 30 years ago.

So France stands like a wounded animal, beset on all sides by venomous enemies scratching at the fraying rags of ancient gastronomy. And, according to Michel Roux Snr, they are in a battle they might not win. “The gastro-diplomatic efforts in France are too late,” he says. “The best French people have emigrated to the UK. While British food has gone from better to great, France has gone backwards. France hasn’t lost it, but it is pretty close. It’s a sad story. If you want to work and achieve something, you need to come to the UK.”

If France wants a stab at returning to foodie supremacy, it should take a few lessons from us Brits. Firstly, cast aside the tired and snooty obsession with Michelin: it’s not how real people eat today. Welcome other food cultures to your table (fusion is anathema to most Michelin judges...), as we have done with great success. Champion what you have: wonderful small producers, meat dishes with no horrid vegetables.

And above all, stop being so bloody French!

William Sitwell's seven favourite French restaurants

The Waterside Inn, Bray

Impeccable service, classic but up-to-date French food - in Berkshire. Overseen by the charming godfather of gallic cooking Michel Roux Snr. Now had three Michelin stars for 30 years.

L’Arpège, Paris

Alain Passard’s inspiring, creative, modern French. Very clever with veg.

La Gorges de Pennafort, Saint-Tropez

Worth a journey just to taste the foie gras ravioli.

Racine, Knightsbridge

Ok, so Henry Harris has just closed it – but this was where you could eat better French food than in most bistros across France. Watch for a reincarnation of Racine Kitchen later this year.

Daniel, New York

Daniel Boulud’s flagship restaurant. One of the most famous French chefs in the US – now with branches of his brilliant brasserie, Bar Boulud, all over the world.

Le Gavroche, London

A Mayfair institution run by the brilliant Michel Roux Jnr (son of Albert), this civilised restaurant never fails to deliver perfection and has an amazingly good value lunch menu.

La Petite Maison, Dubai

Against stiff competition, probably the best restaurant in the UAE. Shut your eyes, taste and you could be back in the Côte d’Azur…

William Sitwell is editor of Waitrose Kitchen and presents Biting Talk on Soho Radio