Update (4th July 2014) – Plus ça change … Now that France has lost to Germany at SOCCER, social media is replete with more ‘surrender monkey’ and ‘French surrender’ messages.
Update (14 July 2011): Welcome to one of our most-tweeted articles. It seems everytime the French are mentioned anywhere in the media, legions of lemmings reach for their tweeting apparatus to make rather lame and pathetic “French Surrender” jokes. Be it Strauss-Kahn, Libya, Tennis, Bastille Day, Women’s Soccer.
Our original article from 2009: Pretty much everybody online fancies themselves a comedian; unfortunately most of us are and will remain wannabes. Now that “Eternal September” has hit twitter, legions of newbies clamoring for attention are using the micro-blogging platform to repeat, rehash and retweet their skewed and simplistic view of history and the world.
On average, about a dozen or so anti-French jabs are written on twitter per week, most of them being some form of “French Surrender” joke. While some are deliberately trying to be offensive, others are living proof there is a “long tail” to America’s recent spate of French BashingA few examples from 2009:
- @timchi – “You can try and run over a french bulldog but it would surrender first”
- @asianlunatic – “Mantastic: When ur in France for holiday, the French will surrender to u, just to be on the safe side.”
- @JohnHancock61 – “Great movie line from Flushed Away: Lead French frog: To action! French frog commandos: We Surrender!”
- @Simon4365 – “ahhhh the weekend or as the French say “we surrender”!!!”
- @Hondo11 – “I’ll say it. Pietrus is not only French (known to surrender) he looks strikingly erily to a Primate. FACT”
- @macslash – “It’s nice to hear Serlet attack Windows with a French accent. Would have expected him to just surrender.”
While most comedic outfits have abandoned French Bashing, especially Jay Leno and his forty or so jokes about supposed French cowardice and propensity to surrender, legions of twitterers, bloggers and comment contributors have kept the myth of French cowardice alive.
Having turned a traumatic historical event of epic proportions into a timeless character trait, French Haters have woven prejudice against France and the French into pop-culture.
Thankfully, one of North-America’s most astute international columnists has decided to take the myth of French cowardice and surrender head on. I present to you, Eric Margolis and his column : “Getting to the truth about World War II”. Thank You Eric. Merci.
Here are a few excerpts:
“France’s army did not simply surrender or run away in 1940, as ignorant American Know-Nothing conservatives claim. “
“Britain’s well-trained expeditionary force in France was beaten just as quickly and thoroughly as the French, and saved itself only by abandoning its French allies and fleeing across the Channel. “
“France lost 217,000 dead and 400,000 wounded. Compare that to America’s loss of 416,000 dead during four years of war in the Pacific and Europe.”
Eric Margolis is an award-winning columnist who contributes regularly to the Quebecor Media Company and the Huffington Post. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London to name a few. Eric Margolis has also appeared on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.
See also: French Bashers hit twitter @ Miquelon.org
[…] here: Miquelon.org – The Fighting French » Monitoring Anti-French … addthis_url = […]
Thanks a lot man !
This article should be posted on the walls of every big american newspaper. Maybe that would help them not to write non-historic crap on every article about WW2, even without mentioning the treatment of french “débâcle” , as with the D-Day glory believed in US to be the turning point in Europe. Not very nice to forget the Russians and the real turning point, which symbollically and on the ground were both the battle of Stalingrad.
You almost never post now, miquelon, but it was worth keeping you in my rss aggregator 😉
@Moktarama : Totally agree with you. I’m thankfull for the americans that free our country but many often forget that they didn’t saved us from nazi germany, we were saved from communist barbary!
I’m saying this because between 90% and 95% of whermacht losses were made on the eastern front. The Soviet Union would have completely wiped out the third reich anyways.
I’m often hear something like “without americans you would be speaking german” the truth is that without them we would be singing the international!
I saw the article on Reddit.com yesterday, Eric Margolis has always been very vocal when it comes to the way the French were portrayed by the neo-cons and Washington.
Read the Reddit.com link that you provided. It is good to know that there is at least some effort out there to try and have an intelligent conversation. I would also say that the “twitter” is a big pain that seems to have a lot of idiots playing with it. There are simply some idiots who like to play and will jump at the opportunity to stur up people by insulting them on any subject. Starve them of attention and they will die.
Is everyone on vacation? Is there a strike that I didn’t hear about? Is there a party that I missed? Did everyone go fishing?
I have gone… basher-fishing *evil, shifty eyes*
@thibault
“We were saved from communiste barbary”
This is the way Thibault rewrites history. What is meant by this ? The USSR ? But France is situated westwards of Germany and it is very unplausible, not to say absurd, that the Red Army could invade it. Did he mean the French Underground ? But the Communists were only a part (and a minority) of it, with a very limited control ol local territories.
Conclusion: You don’t need to be American to write stupid things about French history.
Next you’ll be saying that French arrogance is a lie too.
LOL
Awesome blog, I assume it’s a parody?
If not, LOL @ blog even harder!!
RUN AWAY!!!!
RUN AWAY!!!!
Make us, coward.
OH really? Then why all the countries liberated by USSR turned communist?
Why is it absurd to say that the russians would have liberated western europe anyways?
America fought axis and liberated us, but if it didn’t it would have been the russians and france would have turned communist.
Also I say it again more than 90% of german losses were on the eastern front.
And how can you pretend this is arrogance to say this? Arrogance would have been to say we liberated ourselves with the (little but brave) Free French Forces?
@Jean-Paul you seem to greatly lack knowledge of WWII and especially USSR military power.
Read some stuffs about Battle of Kursk, Operation Bagration and the battle of Berlin and you’ll see that USSR would have EASILY push westwards of Europe. At the end of the war they had everything an army could need, numbers, technologically advanced weaponry, and they progressed a lot in operationnal strategy.
The russian army that tried to invade finland was completely different 5 years later and was considered one of the best army.
Dear Satans Thong:
GTFO of Miquelon.org. Racist idiots like yourself aren’t welcome here.
[…] This post was Twitted by miquelon […]
The allied success in WWII was collabrative effort. I came here via reddit after somebody (probably a troll) made a crude comment. The american right that makes these offensive comments were not at the beach in Normandy for D-day. They just lay claim to the legacy.
Milwaukee CEO makes over 700 K annually, but has the cultural sensitivity of a 12 year old: http://twitter.com/rmeeusen
@rmeeusen “French taking over Cathedral Square? Yell at them in German and they’ll surrender!”
Just another example that wealth does not equal intelligence.
Fred, I find it amazing that people are using twitter in a way that demonstrates complete irresponsibility. The business world is usually very sensitive to such comments…
It’s quite sad to see today that “French” is now first and foremost associated with “Surrender” in American pop culture…
Find out what business/corporation this CEO works for and call for it’s boycott. Then we will see just how sensitive they are to such comments.
Poilu, I’ve already contacted the Alliance Française in charge of the festivities at Cathedral Square.
Richard Meeusen
CEO – Badger Meter – Co-chair of M7 Water Council
Bastille Day is now a pretext for anti-French hatred on twitter.
Miquelon, You indicated that there was approximately one per hour. I’m not sure that that construes a “run on the bank”, so to speak. We’ll never see the total end of this stupidicy, France is of consequence and there is always a negative price for importance. The improtant accomplishment, and you are much responsible for this, is the reduction in hatreds’ volume and number.
Correct, this is not a run on the bank but the LONG TAIL I have mentioned many times. I also believe a lot of this is the consequence of Jay Leno’s influence, he brought this meme to the mainstream of US Culture.
Miquelon, I do get the impression that you have really hit on something here. You seem to be making headway. Good for you!
Taunting the French is a time-honored tradition that predates the existence of the USA. France has honorable individuals and moments in its history, yes.
Yet the French, as a culture, have frequently (during my lifetime, at least) adopted an attitude of appeasement, as well as an attitude that America is the most evil/dangerous culture on the planet. It is better, it sometimes seems, to have the correct attitude, than it is to acknowledge a reality that does not match the correct attitude. This is one reason why, in post-invasion Iraq, one of the most common ways of saying that someone was lying was “He speaks French.”
Even apart from that, we’ve got to get even for the way we’re treated when we visit. 🙂 (Again, not by all the French, but by a noticeable contingent of them.)
“This is one reason why, in post-invasion Iraq, one of the most common ways of saying that someone was lying was “He speaks French.””
This is funny to hear this now that most of americans are against the war… do you say “he speaks Bush” nowadays? cause obviously he was lying about WMD.
It’s true we don’t treat the tourists as they should be treated . Many complains about it and it’s even and acknowledged fact.
“as well as an attitude that America is the most evil/dangerous culture on the planet” this sentence is total BS though
D. Jason, Your reference to “taunting” predating the US is correct, but, it is therefore generated by British prejudice, not American. It has been more of a political tool in the US, not a cultural one, and it is embraced by the more conservative elements who use France as a foil for a general dislike for all things foreign.
The appeasement is a suttle attack on the use of diplomacy. The old “munich” attack is totally misdirected in that the British were the ones trying to control the discussion, and France was in no position to go it alone. In addition, it was the Brits and the US that were pushing France to backdown (checkout “A Strange Defeat”). As far as Iraq is concerned, the French were right and the US was flat wrong, no argument. All in all, the French are truely not guilty of appeasement.
As a Briton who has lived in France I would just like to add my views. The whole French bashing thing in the USA when Chirac refused to publicy support the Iraq was childish. Just because they didn’t want to go along with the states does not mean they “betrayed” America and does not mean they are cowardly.
However, quite a lot of French people have forgotten how bad french conduct in the second war was and why they got a reputation for cowardice. They let the British down by surrendering in just three weeks despite assurances that they would fight on and then collobarated with the Nazis sending thousands of jews to the gas chamber. Not a great courage shown by the French state there.
But French people (except some of the elderly) unlike other European countries such as Holland, Norway or Greece seem to have forgotten that they owe the freedom of their country to the Americans, the British Empire and Canada. I think this is part of the problem, there is a sort of collective amnesia in France which still struggles to come to terms with its past.
TheBigM – let me answer you in point form.
World war II.
We’re not collectively and perpetually guilty of the sins of some.
The British Expeditionary Force was crushed in as little time as France.
France saved the BEF at Lille. We lost 100 000 men in 47 days.
Britain in WW II : Oswald Mosley is nothing to be proud of. Lord Halifax either. You had the English channel. Easy to bragg with that natural barrier between you and Europe.
Owing you something ? If I were to believe that, I would owe something to the men of WW II, not some snivelling loser using their sacrifice to score some cheap points. I also would like to quote the Information & Education Division’ of the US Occupation Forces : We didn’t come to Europe to save the the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn’t come to to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came to Europe because we in America were threatened by a hostile, aggressive and very dangerous power.
Now have some respect for the men and women of WW II and stop using them as cheap arguments.
The British Expeditary force took back tens of thousands of French, Belgian and Polish troops so this was not some “crushing defeat” as you suggest. We then continued to fight on ON OUR OWN until the USA joined the war
I am not suggesting the French people were cowardly but the leadership of the country were inept and lacked the courage to fight. That is clear.
Of course countries enter the war for political reasons. The UK supported France in both world wars because France was seen as a buffer against German aggression. I’m sure the USA was not that bothered about France, but the fact is, France was liberated at the cost of hundreds of thousands of allied lives. Yet no one in France seems to acknowledge this.
Thanks for the “snivelling loser” comment, how very haughty and French of you.
You know you’re a troll when you come to anti French-bashing blog to try and justify surrender jokes.
Owing something to people who think my family and I are cowardly scum who never bathe ? Not in this life
You don’t owe anything to me Barney. But you owe the hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers who died for your country some respect. Is that so difficult for you? Perhaps if the French showed a bit more humility they would not be accused of such things.
I, for one, think French coward jokes are wrong and I am not trying to justify them. But, the actions of your government in WW2 regardless of the brave French people who laid down their lives, contributed to this reputation. Those are the facts.
“You don’t owe anything to me Barney. But you owe the hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers who died for your country some respect.”
Those people are respected.
Armchair generals and otherwise French haters who use this sad page in our history to score some kind of moral victory over us nigh to 70 years after the fact. Not so much.
“if the French showed a bit more humility they would not be accused of such things. ”
Humility my ass. What you and the other degenerates over at Bremner’s blog want is for us to laugh along as you make fun of the biggest tragedy in French history so you can feel ok about your bigotry.
Not gonna happen.
” WW2 regardless of the brave French people who laid down their lives, contributed to this reputation. Those are the facts.”
Nobody is proud of France’s leadership in WWII. So what’s your point ?
You want us to wallow in sorrow and shame for all eternity ? To admit inferiority once and for all to the brave superhuman anglo-saxons ? Keep dreaming.
Once again if the Brits hadn’t had their island to run back to you’d be singing a different tune right about now.
And your willingness to remind us of those “facts” leaves very little doubt as for your true intentions.
Trolls will be trolls.
“Once again if the Brits hadn’t had their island to run back to you’d be singing a different tune right about now”
Such hatred, ignorance and disrepect from you.
While you are battling to defend France against anti-french comments perhaps I should set up a blog against anti-British comments made by ignorant, uninformed French people like yourself.
I assume by “running back” to our island you mean the evacuation of Dunkirk or “Operation dynamo” which involved the evacuation of 300, 000 ALLIED soldiers, including 140,00 FRENCH SOLDIERS.
In this “running back” 177 RAF planes were shot down and 200 boats sunk. I presume you know all this though?
Looks like you’re a master of dishing out historical histrionics but you can’t take it when it’s served back at you. We can debate WW II till the cows come home, fact is nobody has any right to lecture anyone on the actions of some nor to use the sacrifice of others to score cheap points.
Looks like you’re a master of dishing out historical histrionics but you can’t take it when it’s served back at you.
Exactly.
It’s always the same story with those guys.
They come here to troll their asses off and when they ‘ve pissed everybody off they act all offended when we dare protest.
And yes the Brits ran as fast as the French after the initial humiliation inflicted on the Allies by the German army but the only difference was that the Brits had somewhere to run to whereas that was pretty much it for the French in France.
Geographical circumstances allowed the Brits to regroup and fight back Not because they were more courageous than the French. Wether you like it or not.
Hi readers,
I agree that French Bashing is stupid, especially since my great grandad fought alongside some of the bravest Frenchmen on the planet at the time. For me to ridicule France would have me ridiculing the deeds and memory of those soldiers and my ancestor.
But…
When you lump me into a gang of Hateful, Bigotted, Arrogant, and Thoughtless people just because I Retweeted a pointless, non-threatening sqib, it makes me very angry, and makes me wonder who really is the Hateful, Bigotted, Arrogant, and Reactionary Ass.
EdgeOfDark, my apologies if we led you to think that. I’ve been running an experiment on twitter for some months right now and I respond to all messages about “french surrender”. When I am done with the experiment, I will write a post about it and review the positive / negative outcome of such an activist form of twittering.
I really hope you do get a chance to read some of the content here and learn more about our issue. Sorry again if I was too brusk with you.
Many thanks for bringing Eric Margolis’ piece to my attention. It is very thorough, lucid, and balanced. It is only unfortunate that it will not really influence French-bashers, since it is based on facts, something those people are not interested in.
After reading his article I, too, would like to say “merci, cher confrère”.
For the record: I too am a journalist, I’m French and I live in London.
Also: my thanks to you for this blog.
Salut Xavier, désolé de retard de ma réponse, c’est un peu la baston entre certains utilisateurs dans les autres sections du site.
Thanks for giving us some positive feedback, it’s much appreciated.
Learn to take a joke. It’s called a stereotype folks. Stereotypes aren’t necessarily true, and usually they’re exaggerations. White people will always be known for not being able to dance, black men for having large [Comment rule 4], Asians for not being able to drive, blondes for being dumb, and Germans for being Nazis. When used as an insult, yes, it’s not cool, but come on. A joke is a joke. If you’re French and someone makes a surrender joke it’s not a reflection on you, your friends, ancestors, or whatever. It’s based on a stereotype that was generated by one or more instances of it happening, but not absolute fact.
Brook, thanks for dropping by. The issue of what is or is not an acceptable joke has been debated on this site time and time again. All the stereotypes you mention are indeed common, but it does not make them right. By accepting them as merely jokes, you are perpetuating these stereotypes while you – and we – should all strive to do better and know better.
A joke is not just a joke. Because of social norms and pressures, certain jokes are not longer acceptable today. We – the French – do not have large lobbies to remind people of the offensive nature of some of those anti-French jokes people repeat with impunity. Our job is to redress this.
Let me also remind you that you joke about anything, just not with anyone. [quote from Pierre Desproges]
On a similar topic: How to Respond to a Racist Joke
If you’re a follower, you’ll laugh along at all racist / xenophobic jokes.
If you’re a leader, you’ll know how to show appropriate dissaproval.
“And yes the Brits ran as fast as the French after the initial humiliation inflicted on the Allies by the German army but the only difference was that the Brits had somewhere to run to whereas that was pretty much it for the French in France.”
Not exactly true Barny – France had overseas colonies and could have continued to fight the Germans from there. In fact, the prime minister of the time Paul Reynaud wanted to fight on, but other political figures chose not too however and surrended during the mass panic.
I agree that it is wrong to mock “French cowardice” in this day and age, but the French leadership hardly covered themselves in glory during this period.
Denigrating the British for “running away” however, isn’t really correct and won’t do your cause any favours AT ALL. Of course, the Channel helped Britain as it has saved us against other agressive forces like Napolean and the Spanish Armada.
I respect you right to fight against “French bashing” but don’t criticise the British and suggest that we would have surrended if it wasn’t for the Channel. Nobody knows what would have happened and Britain had a very large empire at that point that could have continued to fight the Germans.
Keep your lectures to yourself, my “friend”.
You people throw at us half truths and histrionics constantly. I do the same in return.
You don’t wanna to be offended then lecture your people not to start the bashing.
To Barney:
Your reply to The Big M –Post 45– was “right on”. The British haven’t been “right” since Hastings; inasmuch, the freeing of the Celtic element from their Saxon overlords by William the Conquerer did overturn the status of affairs. William’s first act upon taking the island was to have slave collars, found placed round the necks of the former –so-called knaves, to be removed. Among chores relegated to the knave had been that of a runner — to follow, on foot, his mounted master in service to his needs (poor fellow) . . . . . . .and it follows, an old saying emanating from the Celts of that day, was to the affect that — A stare from the Saxon was enough to chill the blood ! And so we see the English mind-set –of perpetuity, existing in resentment against the French to this day. What a shame; for, the English gained so much from that conquest as be incalculable; i.e., the following period of imposed French culture. Mentioned is the Doomsday Book, the Bayeaux Tapestry that marked the beginning of this transfer, a transfer that included all branches of learning and discipline extant !
I guess what we can learn from the foregoing is to never take away a man’s servant nor his slave.
you are a [tos 3: vulgarity] that picks out 1 tweet to satisfy [tos: personal attack] that is obviously spent defending your country’s supposed honour, get a [tos 3: vulgarity] life….if you bothered to read more than 1 tweet of mine you would realise that I stated instantly that it was a joke and i love France and many french people that i know ……you , [tos 3: vulgarity] ,categorically don’t come in that group ……[tos: personal attack] and get a [tos 3: vulgarity] proper life….i also mock the welsh ,scottish english and some ….but they can take a joke …now fuck off you [tos 3: vulgarity]…
And you, sir, are a brilliant example of the average French-basher. Smart, refined, and polite. /sarcasm
the sheer fact that Andre Wernesson had to put “sarcasm” at the end of his comment about me being a French basher ,goes to show that he isn’t confident in someone realising it was meant as sarcasm…I however have the intelligence to realise that even a very poor and unamusing little comment like that is sarcasm …I also have a sense of humour so find something very funny him calling me a basher,as in english coloquialism,that is a person that [tos 2 & tos 3] .So he is saying that i [tos 2 & tos 3] the french ,well it is obvious they need no help with that if he is anything to go by.And as for me not being polite ,well,the irony .
[[Not exactly true Barny – France had overseas colonies and could have continued to fight the Germans from there]]
And that’s exactly what the French did.
Thank you for showing your ignorance yet again.