“You can’t compare a surrendering to 9/11 as after 9/11 America struck back France rolled onto itself like little women.”
Do you know how many French “little women” paid for their lives during WW2, Will Ross (600 000)? Oh and while you’re in France, I suggest you visit the battlefields of WW1 and try to understand what a devastating war at home and 1.5 million dead soldiers really means.
It’s amazing, how the US are held in check by a bunch of determined outlaws, and spend years throwing punches in the dark and not hitting a damn thing (“War on terror”, A-stan, Iraq) and they dare gloat about how they “struck back”. And still, they’ve got the cheek to claim that our 100,000 dead, 200,000 wounded and missing in the first six weeks of fighting, are “rolling over like little women”. Hah!
But still, I guess 9-11 was a new experience to you; one of the first few times Americans get bombed on their home turf, I guess it’s normal for you to crap your pants. We French have been bombed on our home turf, and have had the fighting at our doorstep for hundreds of years.
Little women? After 9/11 the US overreacted like a hysterical adolescent girl, that’s what.
#24
The Yad Vashem memorial (the garden in fact) is not exactly a site commited to celebrate Resistance, fighting, but to remember those who helped Jews escaping the extermination planned by Hitler, which is not exactly the same. So it is objectionable to present the fact that a fair amount of French is represented there as an evidence that many French “fought back against the Nazis during world War II.” You can save Jewish lifes without “fighting back against the nazis” and similarly be a resistant without saving Jews. And anyway the fact that Americans are hardly represented has a very simple explanation : the US were never occupied. Saving a Jew threatened in his life is a personal moral act that can happen only in an occupied country. That’s why you also have many Poles in the Yas Vashem garden and only a few Britons.
[…] Miquelon.org » Monitoring Anti-French Activity » TMZ, French …I’ve recently learned how the United States treated the French soldiers in Indochina when the Japanese army invaded Vietnam. No air support (except for Claire Chennault’s, which led to the destitution of the leader of the Flying Tigers) … […]
Sorry for being away from Miquelon.org, tragedy has hit St Pierre & Miquelon and time was spent updating news for the community over at RadioBarachois.com
Not sure what the pipes pick up on the web. They scour sites for “surrender monkey” among other keywords. Didn’t get a chance to investigate.
On another note, here’s a reddit thread on some ridiculous caffeine drink that offers French American Vanilla …
That thread is actually hope instilling — there is some very light bashing, but more often than not, people seem to condemn the bashing rather than revel in it.
I am beginning to think that French-bashing was almost necessary — as the puncture of a bubo on a plague-infested man. There was too much “bashing potential” built up, with all the Dennis Miller and whatnot.
Precisely, the other day, I saw an old post from a forum in… 2002, saying something like the French were unhappy and would surrender en masse.
So much for the Iraq war… I think it was just a catalyst, but that French Bashing has deeper, less tangible reasons.
I am not sure whether or not to make this an issue more that to point out to MTV what they have done. The more they look at this, and reflect on what they are saying, the more likely that they will recognize how silly and ignorant they appear.
Allright chaps, let’s make a model for a letter to send to these backstards (mixture of backstabber and bastard). Here’s my proposal:
To whom it may concern:
My name is ______, and I am a French-American/French citizen/whatever, and I was gravely disappointed when I saw that on your website, jokes.com, you indulged in propagating hatred of the French. Examples would include jokes such as:
“Why do the French Smell? So blind people can hate them too!” or “What is the first thing the French Army teaches at basic training? How to surrender in at least 10 languages.”
I find it hardly necessary to underline the extremely offensive allusions to body odour, “surrender”, and, in general, hatred of the French which caused the French expatriate community so much harm, especially during the prelude to the Iraq war in 2003.
Since then, French-Americans, French expatriates, and French culture in general have been subjected to abuse on various levels, from large-scale, indiscriminate bashing to personal-level abuse such as insults, damage to property, being fired from work, &c.
I hope you will understand how painful it is for me, then, to see that these hateful feelings are alive and well, and being propagated through your site. It would do you much credit as a person of humanity and integrity if you were to see this as well, as there is no reason for which we French should be submitted to systematic abuse whereas replacing “French” with “Mexican”, “Jew” or “Chinese” would draw immediate backlash.
I therefore ask you to take our plea into consideration, and remove the hateful material from your website; in doing so, you would not only better your image as a humane person, but would also prevent The Comedy Central from appearing as a vulgar hate monger.
Ça commence à bien faire, tout de même! On n’en a rien à foutre de leur économie!
“But how they envy our success in everything else. How they delighted in the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Not in a good way, but simply because it meant that America and Britain were proved wrong.”
Hé donc, nous ne déconviendrons pas de ce que veut nous dire l’auteur, comme quoi nous sommes jaloux leur succès avec les armes de déstruction massive.
” They have always touted their outdated views that their quasi-socialist economy”
Chapeau, à présent, nous sommes quasi-socialistes? Maintenant que nous sommes pris dans le tourbillon libéraliste de l’Euroland? Et nos “outdated views”, c’est quoi, la charte des droits de l’homme? Ouais, c’est vrai, c’est pas tout à fait niveau Guantanamo…
“It’s not that they are tight with money—they just don’t trust anyone.”
Avec des amis comme vous…
“Perhaps this time they were right.”
Attention: ensuite c’est nous les arrogants…
“They have been predicting “the fall of America” for years, in the way that Gibbon described the fall of Rome.”
Boah, y’a pas de mérite — tout casse, tout passe, tout lasse.
“They seem to think hard times will never happen in Paris.”
Ce qui nous mène à la conclusion de que l’auteur vit sur Mars.
“This means that the lazy, insolent functionnaire mentality prevails rather than a hard-working energetic one.”
Toute une anthropologie est à l’oeuvre dans ce passage; remarquez l’éternel “lazy” et “insolent” appliqué aux pays qu’ils appellent “latins”.
“In the food market of Le Bon Marche, possibly one of the most expensive food shops in the world next to Harrods in London, people load their chariots with hunks of foie gras, dark chocolate truffles and bottle after bottle of Tattinger champagne.”
Alors là, chapeau. Évidemment, si on cherche, on trouve. Je parie que si j’allais chez Harrod’s, on y trouverait aussi bien des bourgeois en train de faire leurs courses, pour aller voir le décervelaaaage…
“My friend Jean Marc, a French journalist, reckons it’s an innate jealousy the French have towards the Americans and Brits because of the valiant way they behaved during World War Two, when the liberated France from Nazi tyranny.”
Bravo! L’auteur s’est trouvé un traître, un vrai, un vendu, qui leur débite ce qu’ils veulent entendre.
”
“We could never have done that,” he says. “We caved in the moment the Germans arrived.” The British ability to maintain a stiff upper lip during the worse of times has long drive the overly passionate Gauls mad with jealousy.”
Mort au traître. C’est infame — il répète tout le discours basher: “we could never have done that”. Inferiorité raciale? Sans doute, car on y trouve des élémets typiques du racisme anglais: “the overly passionate Gauls…”
“The author of four books, she is currently writing a book for Knopf/Bloomsbury about Parisian life.”
Ce qui me surprend, c’est que n’importe qui peut se faire publier, de nos jours.
Messieurs/mesdames de Miquelon.org, c’est la guerre! Sus à l’article!
J’adore tout particulièrement le passage sur la seconde guerre mondial.
Si je comprends bien, les Français fêtent noël parce qu’ils sont jaloux des anglais !
Mais au delà de cet argument admirable, cet article est tout simplement écoeurant, surtout qu’en ce moment les Français sentent bien que la crise est là.
En éffet, on se défoule de notre éternelle jalousie, de notre frustration, car on n’a pas eu la chance d’être nés Anglais. C’est affreux, je rêve parfois de chapeaux-melon, de sauce à la menthe, de gros hooligans bourrés… Je n’en peux plus! Que ne serais-je né Angloys, et non pas un singe continental inévitablement inférieur!
Ce que j’aime, c’est aussi la non-remise en cause de leur politique, aussi bien économique que militaire !
Alors que nous, Français, même quand nous avons raison nous avons tort ! Que ce soit pour les armes de destructions massives ou l’économie. Tout cela appuyé par l’argument exquis de la seconde guerre mondiale.
But I’m afraid that, when the International Court of Justice at long last indicts that sorry bunch, our grounds for litigation will be very small in comparison with those of the millions who died in a war of aggression which they conspired to launch and to wage (the very same indictment which sent a few dozen German leaders swinging from a rope in Nuremberg).
André Wernesson #5: Thank you for your sample letter. I just posted a complaint at Comedy Central. Although I did not copy your sample I found it helpful.
I too sent an e-mail to Comedy Central complaining about the anti-French jokes. Let’s see what happens. Than you Miquelon and Andre for pointing that out.
One day, a fat American acquaintance and I were walking towards another friend’s house, talking about a couple of the girls we had met at a party the weekend before. I noticed that he kept looking back from time to time. I asked him what the matter was — he said, “Umph, nothing… nothing!” He did a few times.
Anyway, we walked on. Suddenly, he stood still, turned around and violently smashed a snail.
I asked, “Why did you do that?”
His reply: “What do you mean? Did you see that that stupid snail had been following us for the last half hour?”
Maintaining a stiff upper lip or being sedate is fine but socking it to those hate peddlers is one way to get back at them too.
There are plenty of ‘stories’ that can be recycled and which can be used to bash the Americans too. Once they’re published on the net, Google takes care of circulating them around. Heck, I’ve heard Russians mocking Americans, simply odious stuff about Americans. Those can be translated and published.
(Pity! I’ve got American friends who might not love the French but respect them.)
Hillblogger — I don’t know, it may be satisfying to “bash back”, but then, wouldn’t we just be confirming the “anti-american” stereotype? After all, it’s their main defense! “Hey, they hate us, why not hate them?”
No, I think we must neither be conciliatory nor aggressive: we must be firm. You know — “Humble and gentle in victory, gracious and dignified in defeat”.
Jay’s last foray in the world of Anti-French materials seems to be from late 2006 – so far we have had no reports or comments reported to us to the contrary. I am watching developments with the 10 pm slot and we’re also going forth with Educating Jay – Thanks for your message
Hey, as a French-American, I appreciate what you’re doing with this site. It’s sad that people can blindly bash and hate us with no repercussions, but if another culture or race were bashed, then the penalties suddenly come into existence.
One thing I can say that most of you cannot, I’ve been to 28 countries spanning five continents in my lifetime… including such countries as Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE. In all the countries I’ve been to, the French were the rudest people I have ever met. It wasn’t just one time either, I’ve been to St. Nazaire, Paris, Nantes (all work related travel). Iraqis that clean crap houses were friendlier.
Its a sad truth, and very unfortunate, but in the end, the french just need to learn a little more politeness and put aside their differences and arrogance. Granted that may just be my perception, but perception is what it is.
Comparing the french occupancy to 9/11 is not even possible, yes we were attacked by 21 total identified hijackers, and its also true that as a result we went and occupied several countries in the middle east for it. We hung Iraq’s dictator, killed his sons, permanently imprisoned those caught and tried and did so at the further expense of more than over 4,000 additional American lives. France invaded Germany when?
William, you only can speak of your experience in France as we were not there. On a sidenote, I found the people from Charleston West Virginia not only rude but creepy. I mean easy-rider scene in Louisiana pie shop “they ain’t making it to the parish line” creepy… but do I hold a grudge against all West-Virginians – or Americans – for that matter? Nope. May I raise the “self fulfilling” hypothesis here?
Anyway, my comparison deals with the hurt caused society and nation by each historical event. 9/11 hurt America deeply, and so did the 1940 “armistice” by Marshall Pétain given the ensuing occupation and its trail of misery.
Insofar as America’s response to 9/11, please explain to us how Saudi terrorists protected by Pakistanis and Talibans led to the invasion and occupation of Irak and a stalemate in Afghanistan ?
Disgusting. I found your whack-a-mole image very inspiring; that’s pretty much it. The fact is, the French-bashers have lost the battle, but they’ve won the war: Now that official French-bashing is finally over, we’re going to have to face a much tougher foe: unofficial French-bashing, delicately woven into the fabric of pop culture.
I can empathize with your exhaustion. It’s depressing.
We invaded them back in Louis XIV’s time, the Germans surrendered in four weeks when Napoleon invaded them, and we also invaded Germany in WWI, and once during the interval between WWI and WWII when we occupied the Rhuhr region.
“we went and occupied several countries in the middle east for it. We hung Iraq’s dictator, killed his sons, permanently imprisoned those caught and tried and did so at the further expense of more than over 4,000 additional American lives.”
That’s called throwing punches in the dark.
4,000 American lives? That’s dandy. 100,000 Frenchmen DIED and another 200,000 were wounded during the six weeks of the Battle of France.
And also, what merit is there in invading such a weak and worthless country? The Iraqis didn’t even put up a fight! Hey, tell you what — if we Frenchmen were to invade Burkina Faso and kill a whole lot of people, would we be any better?!?
Enough with the “SURRENDER MEME” in the comment sections every time the Huffington Post has an item about France.
For over five years, we – French expatriates in America – have had to endure all kinds of harassment, public humiliation and ridicule, all because our government refused to follow the Bush / Cheney in lock and step over the invasion of Irak.
Mocking the 1940 armistice by Marshall Pétain show lack of understanding and respect. 92,000 men died fighting in 1939-40 and 20,000 French resistance fighters and 40,000 POWs died from 1940 to 1945. Civilian losses include 120,000 killed due to military action and 230,000 victims of Nazi reprisals and genocide including 83,000 FRENCH Jews.
This is no laughing matter, yet day in, day out, Monday morning quarterbacks spew their hatred of the French here and elsewhere with the impunity that comes with remote disconnection.
Once again I shall maintain that mocking the 1940 deblacle is as funny to the French as 9/11 is to Americans. It’s time to get past the Jonah Goldberg / Grounds keeper Willie zingers and show some mutual respect between our sister republics.
You forgot that France invaded Germany in 1945 as well. In fact, Leclerc’s troops (despite what they said in the TV series) were the first to reach Berchtesgaden. And then, we occupied the south of the country and north of Berlin for more than fifty years. I should know, my father was stationed in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden Oos, Rastatt and Berlin for a cumulative total of ten years, and myself, I did my military service in Trier.
A huge bravo for Marc who has remained dignified and calm amidst the vitriol against the French because our government refused, and rightly so, to sanction President Bush’s illegal, immoral and criminal invasion of and war on Iraq.
I find it bizarre to hear all these French people complaining about people being anti-french when you are notorious for being major assholes to americans and being extremely anti-american. So why not shine light on both issues and defeat them together. that way the French aren’t being discriminated against and neither are the Americans. everyone wins!
I agree that its disgusting to make jokes about French being cowards and what not else when so many lives were lost, but there must be a mutual respect.
When I was in grade school in San Antonio Texas (after moving to America with my French mother and American military father from Paris) I was harassed by three volatile little mexicanos, two girls and a boy. They beat me with a stick calling me a cheese eating surrender monkey and laughed at my accent. I ran home crying and told my mom and she called the school because I had an abbrasion on my left cheek from the stick. The school did nothing! So the next day it happened again but I beat them up.
I must say Hillblogger you are very hypocritical and paranoid. You seem so hurt and think all Americans are anti-french but yet you insult them at the same time. now what am I supposed to get out of that?
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