Victorian small businesses offer to buy guillotines from France to help improve relations

Recently EZFKA ditched a deal to buy imaginary French submarines in 2035 and instead opted to buy imaginary USA submarines in 2038. The deal has deeply hurt EZFKA-French relations and in the days since, the chagrined French have displayed much pouting. Tensions between the two countries are at their worst state since Russell Crowe sang in Les Misérables and now the French ambassador has taken his accordion and monkey home. At Sydney airport the enraged ambassador was heard yelling “I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”

Hearing of the news, a group of Victorian small business owners have offered to buy guillotines from the French to repair international relations. A spokesperson for the small businesses said:

“Look, as we enter week 36 of short, sharp, lock-downs, many Victorian small businesses are doing it tough with some even unable to afford to buy bread. But despite this hardship, many small businesses have rallied to help the EZFKA government mend a growing problem with our French brethren. We’ve passed the hat around and have managed to raise one hundred thousand dollars. With this money we hope to buy a few guillotines and display them as pop-up art installations around the City of Melbourne.

Now we don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about this – the guillotines are purely art and we’ll be disabling them by putting a bobby pin in the déclic or something like that. We’ll even make sure they’re covid-safe by having a basket of disinfectant wipes nearby to clean up any mess.”

Asked about the best locations for the guillotines the spokesperson said:

“Well, we’d really like to make sure they get a lot of media coverage so we’re thinking of putting one outside of Nine News in Docklands, one outside ABC Southbank and maybe one on Spring Street behind the daily press conference.

If that doesn’t mend relations with the French then maybe we could rename a few buildings? St Paul’s on Swanston Street could be renamed Notre-Dame, the Arts Centre could be renamed Musee d’St Kilda Road and the West Melbourne Police Station could be renamed La Bastille.”

When told of the plan, Dan Andrews instantly dismissed the idea saying “That’s silly. International relations are the responsibility of the Federal Government, not some megalomaniac in Victoria. This is EZFKA not France, so we’re not renaming anything unless it’s to do with pronouns or history. Moreover, if small businesses can’t afford to buy bread then let them eat concrete!”