Madam, - It is ludicrous for Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins to say that de Gaulle had a "dream of a united Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals" (August 22nd). The French president said "Europe is France and Germany, everything else is just the trimmings".
He vetoed Britain's application to join the EEC in 1963 exactly because he did not want an Anglo-Saxon influence in Europe.
By Anglo-Saxon, de Gaulle meant what every continental still means: any English-speaking country with strong historic, cultural and economic ties to Britain or America.
Like it or not, that's us. - Yours, etc,
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MARY ELLEN SYNON, Dublin 4.