All Comments

I called at 11:30 a.m. and left my French bashing story.  If you didn’t get it, please let me know and I will call again.

Vive la France!

If France were that insignifiant, then there would be no French Bashing…Period!
And BTW who cares about  this anti-French losers uh?

If France were that insignifiant, then there would be no French Bashing…Period!
And BTW who cares about  theses anti-French losers uh?

Please, please, please don’t assume that just because one is proud to be French (or French-American), that one is also Liberal, of that it’s suddenly OK to put down Conservatives on a site that is supposed to be about stopping hate. I’m willing to call Bush & Co.  on their French bashing, but much more am I looking for a condemnation of oh-so-“tolerant” Hollywood for exploiting this hatred. And, at no time, am I willing to vote Democrat.

Short version: some of the commenters here need to apologize to Conservatives, FAST, or forever be known as Grade A, premiere hypocrites.

Thanks everyone, I have received all your messages so far !
Merci beaucoup !

Kell, I agree. Conservatism should not be rejected in the name of fighting against French Bashing as many “liberals” have bashed the French as well (SNL). We have to address French Bashing without resorting to Anti-Conservatism as there are many on the right who are worthy friends of France and the French.

Let’s hope the Republican party will do some soul searching and walk away from the politics of extremism and über populism.

I wholeheartedly aggree. There is too much “role-playing” in the world, nowadays, anyways: “I’m a liberal, therefore I dress like this, listen to this or that music, watch this, do that”, and you can’t, somehow,make people understand that you can be a liberal, a conservative, or whatever, and differ in one of these “sacred points”.

So, I say, three cheers for our conservative friends (and our liberal friends, too).

Kell, I agree.  I belong to the N.Y.S. Conservative Party although I do not agree with them on everything.  I lost alot of respect for the Republican Party because of their French bashing.  

I was always proud to be an American.  However, French bashing has made me feel less proud, even ashamed at times, about being American but much prouder about my French heritage.  I am happy that France stood firm against the invasion of Iraq.   

And now, for something completely different … well plus ça change …

“In Paris we stopped at a creperie and ordered chocolate crepes. When we wanted to order more the owner said “You’ll have to leave now because we need to make room for customers.”

Something completely different too:

Did you know that America owes France their Thanksgiving Day too?

<a href=”http://hillblogger3.blogspot.com/2008/11/first-european-arrivals-seeking.html#links”>Thanksgiving Day: The first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French</a>

Argh, sorry about that Miquelon: Here’s a better version:

Did you know that America owes France their Thanksgiving Day too?

Thanksgiving Day: The first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French

Hillblogger, thanks for the link. War has broken out over at Reddit over this article and a few choice words I may have posted.

Thanksgiving and Anne, my bad.

Miquelon,

Hah! N’est-il pas plus approprié de souhaiter aux américains happy thanksgiving  en français ?

Btw, didn’t know that Anne Sinclair had a blog… thanks for the link.

“Brit Performs, French Surrender” – Very disappointed by TMZ’s French Bashing. By referring to the 1940 surrender to describe some pop culture news, TMZ is showing utter contempt and disdain for a people and their history. To the French, the 1940 surrender is as funny as 9/11 is to Americans. Please show some cultural understanding the next time you wish to write something about France or the French.

“No other national or ethnic group appears to get the same continually negative treatment in print media reserved for France and the French, with the possible exception of Arabs or Palestinians, and even there, the treatment is not so much cultural as political, linked to a specific context or event.If one were to substitute, for example, “Mexican” or “Japanese” or “Indian” for “French”, what would reader reaction be?”. Edward C.Knox, May 2002

The comment section is just replete with anti-French garbage.

Miquelon,

Anti-French comments coming from parochial commenters, whatever their political or cultural colour are as you say garbage and might I repeat, pure, unadulterated crap!

They’re thinking and talking from thei backsides.

I just wrote a new entry on the site.
Just when you think it dies down, French Bashing pops up somewhere else. It’s just like whack-a-mole.

Please feel free to leave your own comments over at TMZ’s page as well as comments to the staff. Just watched this evening’s show on cable and they mentioned Britney and France, but no attempt at Anti-French yuk yuks on air.

The staff, save Harvey Levin, seems to be comprised of 20somethings with a lot of blogging experience but the historical perspective of gnats.

What’s unfortunate, as I mentioned in a previous thread, is how fighting against French Bashing is like whack-a-mole. Every time you think things have quieted down, another case pops up somewhere else…

TMZ is the slimiest gossip website of all, and there’s no shortage of disgusting ones on the Net. They enjoy reactions to their french bashing the same way they enjoy taking videos of celebrities getting violent after a pap provoked them to that effect. Same tactics.

After I send them a comment (that disappeared within less than 2 minutes), asking them if they bashed the French because France is one of the only countries where privacy is protected by the law and they would not be able to do their disgusting “work” the way they do in the US, a flurry of very violent replies to my post were published (of the “nuke’em, kill’em” type), which is funny considering my original post had stayed online only a few minutes before it got taken down. Not so many people must have had the time to read my post, but it still got dozens of french-bashing replies… probably emanating from TMZ people and not readers, I guess.

Not really a direct comparison.   A big reason for the derision of the French regarding the surrender was the fact that they..and by they, I mean the government and it’s police, military, etc.. basically becaome an extension of the Nazi party in France with the Viche government.  It wasn’t just that the surrendered…they had no chance militarilily, so they cannot be faulted for that necessarily..but they paved the way for derision with their awful, awful behavior and support of the Nazi’s and making life difficult for the Allies in WWII…that has a lot to do with the attitude towards the French regarding WWII.  Unfortunately with regards to WWII, the French did alot to warrant a huge amount of criticism from allied nations.   This is a long standing prejudicial feeling towards the French by americans and other Allied countries…and the surrender itself is not really the issue

“..This is not a liberal rant; this is not a left-wing diatribe nor is it a politically motivated article…”

Good thing you mentioned that…because it had all the trappings of it…

Hey Bob, what about the Free French? What about the Résistance? Read up in “112 gripes” for some first-hand figures and facts, from the US intelligence bureau itself.

Sure, some were collaborators, but there were plenty who also, even after the defeat of their country, fought on at the Allies’ side. They campaigned extensively in Noth Africa (remember the heroic battle of Bir Hakeim!) Lebanon, Italy, France — by the end of the war, they fought their way into Germany alongside the U.S. divisions! Maybe they weren’t that decisive — that’s besides the point — but it’s the principle that counts.

You can’t lump all Frenchmen into a bunch of nazi sympathizers in Vichy. Most often, those were just gangs of blackshirts who, already before the war, were waiting for a chance to pounce — just like in Spain (Civil war) or Italy (Mussolini’s rise to power).

And what about the U.S’ willingness to recognize the Vichy government? What about the Miquelon incident? Does this speak well of the United States?

Let’s not be so one-sided. All I’m asking for is balance; we must forget neither the good nor the bad. But right now, Americans are remembering the bad, and hiding the good. How noble is that? That’s not America — that’s Murrrka. The Murrrka of the Patriot Act, the Murrrka of Freedom Fries.

A couple of suggestions:  we could all copy and paste Miquelon’s response (with miquelon’s permission of course) and send it to them en masse until the response is kept on the page.  They had no right to remove Miquelon’s response.  Another would be to ridicule TMZ itself.   Hajnal is right, TMZ is a well know gossip rag. 

I posted it, and posted a response to one of the bashers. Vive la France!

Poilu : well of course !

Poilu they censored the entry that was #40 something, but number #84 is still up, but let’s embarrass them.

Miquelon, I posted something yesterday but I don’t think it went up. Those guys at TMZ are probably high on drugs so they speak from their backsides.

LOL @ the French

Bob Dobbs,

I don’t know where you read your history — if you read some parochial edition published by some ignorant American printer, obviously, you’ll have a pathetically warped view of what was happening in France circa WWII. To say that the French military, police, etc all surrendered to the Nazis is <b> just a load of utter, despicable crap!</b> (Trust the likes of you to revise history!) You  are thinking and speaking from your stupid backside, man!

This is a problem with these folks who think or pretend to know everything that went on in Europe during WWII but they don’t!

Speaking of military history, Bob Dobbs, don’t try to put that holier than thou act — US government and military in WW II acted despicably against its own elements, black soldiers and Japanese-Americans that many black soldiers preferred to stay behind in France than be counted in America… not to mention how completely abusive Americans were vis a vis their fellow Americans who happened by accident of colour and features to be Japanese.

So don’t get on your holier than thou frigging crap — if you wanna do that, learn more about French history so you don’t spew utter nonsense and moronic generalities!

(And don’t you start spewing nonsense again because lemme tell you that this is one commenter here who comes from a family with a long military officers lineage that dates back from the Napoleonic Wars (with members in the military continuing to this day) — so, don’t even begin to think you can sell your revised history; sell your history to parochial Americans like you.)

Hillblogger # 9: Did you check your mail? They seem to send a confirmation email. Until you confirm it, the post doesn’t go up.

André, Is that so, OK, will check. Thanks.

J’ai moi meme essayé de poster un commentaire sur leur site plusieurs fois pour me plaindre de ce French bashing et il n’a jamais été publié! Par contre tous ceux qui insultaient les Français n’ont pas été censurés. Ce n’est pas la premiere fois que TMZ se moque de nous et censure les commentaires!
Merci de nous défendre!

Coco vérifie tes mèls, il y a des liens de confirmation pour chaque message. Par contre, s’il y a censure, tu le verras quand on laisse passer ton message, puis quelques heures plus tard il n’y sera plus.

Okay! Merci je vais le faire! 😉

Kan wanteth war — Kan getteth war. If only Tourville were here! In any case, let’s beat the cr*p out of this proto-basher.

Heh!   Ca marche…… 😀

Allez, les gars, tous ensemble! “La victoire en chantaaaant, nous ouvre la barrièèèèreuuu” 😉

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), and when the french army that had been fighting the japanese had to take refuge in China, they were kept there, under orders by Roosevelt.

FDR is one of the greatest presidents the United States have ever known, but as far as his dealings with France, he was completely in the wrong.

I clicked, “contact TMZ,” yesterday and expressed my disproval of their article.

Gerard Morvan #20 – A very interesting historical note indeed!  May i ask, where you read this?  I’d be interested in doing some more research for myself.  Merci!

So: What to do?
First, understand that if your friends like you, that’s a positive for French-American relations. Public opinion is just that. If we are the fourth largest ethnic group in the country, individually we count a lot.
Second, understand that America suffers from Attention Deficit Syndrome: It gets it’s messages and knowledge in sound bites. Unfortunately, lots of kids have learned to hate the French. It’s going to take positive feedback, not bitter words, to change things, and you should aim at youth, because as we all know, adults believe what they believe, period.
Third, time for the French government to get off its ass and conduct a publicity campaign here. There is a Catholic modesty thing going on in French PR efforts: Americans are just supposed to know that they should include French consciousness, culture, and cuisine in their lives. Why? Nobody tells them, really. Look at this society: We have Columbus day saluting an Italian hero, St. Patrick’s Day saluting an Irish icon; a pretty good knowledge of most major Jewish holidays, and now we’re learning African heritage through Kwanzaa and even Muslim culture with increasing post-911 publicity about such religious observances as Ramadan. Is there one French day of note? In New york, Bastille Day is celebrated by closing off one half block. Right now, the French might as well be Bosnians as far as being in American minds. “The French? Hey, don’t they make perfume and run at the first sign of trouble?” But go to France and you find the people there actually think Americans keep up with France as France keeps up with America. C’est triste.
The lesson here is that vacuums are vacuums and they will be filled by someone else if you don’t step in first. Next time this happens, see you at the French-American marcgh in Washington, and in the defamation lawsuit as it reaches class-action status. But until then, see you in earnest conversations all across the country…

I think it would be vital to draw attention from the French government; this could be done with a sufficiently large petition. The petition, the existence of sites such as this and SF, and Sarkoléon’s national pride could well be catalysts for the success of our mission; especially considering that, with Obama’s rise to power, there’s a general atmosphere of goodwill and a will to please the United States; I think it could work, especially with the positive scope offered by Claude.

Screw France, I’m St. Nazaire right now and have been to Paris as well. The French have notoriously bad attitudes. You can’t compare a surrendering to 9/11 as after 9/11 America struck back France rolled onto itself like little women.

A documentary about the history of Vietnam which aired on the cable and satellite channel Histoire. I’m pretty sure it’s in every history book about Indochina.

You are in Saint Nazaire, Will Ross? Well, it’s not that long a trip to the island of Sein. Go there and learn about what those breton islanders did in june 1940, and why De Gaulle called them “a quarter of France”.

“France rolled onto itself like little women.”

France was invaded by an army. The US were scared to death by three or four towelheads.

#23 Will Ross:  I bet you have trouble getting along with people everywhere you go.  You need to learn good manners.

I would like to give people some very important information about how some very brave French people fought back against the Nazis during world War II. Yad Vashem is a holocaust memorial museum that is located in Israel and it has an international award which is given to non-jews who risked their lives to save the Jewish people from the nazis during World War II. This award has been given to people all over the world. Would you like to guess which country has the third highest number of citizens who have received this award? It is France and 2,833 French citizens have received this wonderful honor. Only three Americans have received it. You can go to www1.yadvashem.org and read about these brave holocaust rescuers. After you learn about the French holocaust rescuers who helped save Jewish people’s lives, please feel free to tell their stories to as many people as you can because people need to know about them.

Of course, it isn’t enough to simply educate people about the work of the French citizen who received this international award for saving Jewish people from the Nazis. We don’t to ignore any genocides that could kill innocent people anywhere in the world because this is inhumane and it doesn’t honor the memory of the holocaust rescuers. Unfortunately, there is a genocide going on in Darfur, Sudan right now and not enough people are doing anything to stop it. You can help stop it by visiting the following websites: iabolish.com, www.savedarfurcoalition.org, and www.standnow.org. After you start helping these human rights organizations, ask the French bashers what they are doing to stop the current genocide in Darfur, Sudan and learn what their reaction is to your question. If those idiots do nothing to stop this current genocide, then they are hypocrites and don’t have a valid reason to bash anyone because some people are French.

I’m an American citizen but I’m also 1/8 French Canadian. My great-great-grandparents immigrated from Quebec, Canada to the USA in the 1880s. They lived in New York, NY for a while and then they moved to Macon, GA. My maternal grandmother was born in Macon, GA and my mother was born in Atlanta, GA. I was born in Virginia but grew up in Atlanta. I still live here.

Will Ross,

You must be a masochist. What on earth are you doing in St Nazaire if you don’t like the French? You must be so sick?

Jeez, creeps like you should not be allowed to travel.  You should be kept in isolation on bread and water treatment like many American low life jihadists.