Characteristically, the British media has only paid sporadic attention to the street protests that have risen this year in France against President Macron's economic policies.
Interest peaked when these deferred what would have been the new King Charles' first overseas visit in March. Before that trip was truncated to just Germany instead, opinion-mongers might have occasionally dwelled on the notion that the protests were sparked by a new pension law delaying France's retirement age from 62 to 64 years old.
“Look how people refuse to put up and shut up in France” lamented some looking at those shrugging their shoulders at plans to raise the UK's pension age from 66 to 68. “They're unrealistic, we don't want a stronger state or more taxes” bellowed the usual suspects from the right.
The said plan is currently on hold because actuaries predict UK life expectancy declining by a couple of years in the coming decade. So that's all right then.
Differences between Britain and France are a perennially popular topic on both sides of the Channel. Regardless of ideology, commentators often make nostalgic allusions to perceived differences in national characteristics.
One country has a “revolutionary tradition,” the other wallows in “keeping calm and carrying on,” and this is why protesters in one country prefer putting quirky slogans on placards to putting buses on bonfires. Depending on one's predispositions, this situation is then to be either celebrated or deplored.
The monarchy is frequently blamed for exacerbating such contrasts between the UK and France. Its symbolic influence makes people more passive and accepting of systems of class, deference, and inequality by regarding them as subjects, not citizens.
A tempting line of argument for those inclined to republicanism like me, but in truth, elites in France (and everywhere else) seem to find plenty of ways of entrenching their power without having a world-famous celebrity monarchy.
As for France's revolutionary tradition, its reputation has had a half century long boost in popular culture from the mythologizing of the "événements" of May 1968, even though capitalism and the state in France have endured ever since its famed worker and student strikes.
Those had a worldwide resonance and are often linked in media with the violent attacks on peaceful young demonstrators by Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic Convention which helped highlight the global unpopularity of the US war on Vietnam.
Like so much else of course, this narrative reflects the worldview of the global North. Bangladeshis will be aware that popular uprisings later that same year, against the military regime of Ayub Khan across both wings of Pakistan, made more difference to the world in the long run.
Returning to the UK and France, it should be noted England got round to declaring a republic and chopping a king's head off well over a century before France, and the influence of competing factions and ideas during the English civil war is far more interesting than many appreciate today.
Undoubtedly, longevity boosted the late Queen Elizabeth's popularity but for most of the British public, the monarchy today is much like the Church of England -- an institution of constitutional significance which for the most part is taken seriously only by its hardcore fans and opponents.
With little but ageing male monarchs on the horizon, arguments for slimming down the Crown on Scandinavian lines may now be expected to grow but are unlikely to be most people's top priority.
Opinion polls show a clear majority of the British public not caring very much or at all about the impending coronation. This may reflect economic woes or shifting attitudes but could also just be fatigue; no act can follow last years' royal events.
Nonetheless, enthusiasts will still get to revel in the pageantry of the occasion, the press can fill more space with the Windsor's various soap operas, and everybody else can just get to enjoy a bonus bank holiday.
Rishi Sunak can count on the coronation to soak up more space than any bad news he gets from local council elections held two days earlier. Local elections typically have low turnouts but one year ahead of a general election, these polls may get more scrutiny. Not least because they will be the first time UK elections have ever required voters to bring photo ID.
It is remarkable given that a national ID card was one of the very few ideas former prime minister Tony Blair ever backed down on while in office, that such a requirement so at odds with the low-key civic atmosphere of British polling booths, would now quietly be pushed through Parliament.
It is almost certain the first time this law is applied to reduce turnout, but whether the move backfires on the government by putting off some of its own supporters remains to be seen.
How much apathy can one nation take? Well, if indeed “hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,” the answer might still be more “Please sir I want some more.”
Niaz Alam is London Bureau Chief of the Dhaka Tribune.