French ‘royalists’ seize British flag
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from September 1998.
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Flamboyant French author Jean Raspail, who claims to be a consul for "the kingdom" claimed by a 19th century French adventurer, was to hand the Union Jack back to the British Embassy in Paris this week, a spokesman for the writer said Tuesday.
Meanwhile the "Prince Philippe d'Araucanie," a relative of the adventurer, rejected the stunt as "burlesque" and dissociated himself from it. But he said he continues to defend the rights of the Mapuche ethnic group in Patagonia, a region spanning Argentina and Chile. Raspail led a sevenmember group - "a light division of the Fleet of Patagonia" - that landed Sunday at dawn on Minquiers, an uninhabited pile of rocks near the island of Jersey, said a statement by the "Consulate General of Patagonia."
In the daylong operation, the "volunteer Navy fuseliers" raised its blue, white and green flag and painted the colors on several rocks, the statement said, “to reaffirm the sovereignty of the kingdom on its colony of Minquiers.”
The group noted it “took possession” of Minquiers on 1 June 1984, two years after Britain repelled Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, which the group claims is part of the “Kingdom of Patagonia.”
At the British Embassy in Paris, spokesman Tim Livesy said officials were “very pleased to hear that a British yachtsman,” who sailed to the island for a picnic with his wife, “duly lowered said foreign flag and raised in its place the rightful Union flag.”
Livesy said British officials took the incident in “good-humored” fashion.
The French government declined to comment, saying it was a British affair.
