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.
Read the whole “article”. Sent a reply. The amazing thing is that the stupid remark had nothing to do with the subject of the article! It is there simply because she wanted to BE insulting. What a waste.
Exactly ! My next article will probably be called six-degrees to French Surrender … There is rarely a week that passes when I don’t see some article with some reference to “French Surrender”. Strike in France, strikers set fire, bosses cave in : French surrender to strikers. Tour de France, Sarkozy faints, you name it, someone out there has tied any of those stories to … French surrender.
Hi! I just saw this article:
France Surrenders to Ahmadinejad
http://globalpolitician.com/25775-france-iran
sounds like a 2003’s article but no… don’t know what’s that site or who’s the guy…
Picking our battles: FrancisK, I am not surprized by that response. We need to pick our battles. Mind you I have been experimenting with twitter and the use of such a tool to propagate some information about what we do at Miquelon.org but when it comes to Web 2.0, there are so many avenues for Anti-French comments it is almost impossible to get to all of them.
Especially YouTube. I got a number of messages on there from some very nice people about anti-French attitudes on the video sharing site. Thanks to rosetteyg, thecajuncutthroat, Napo89350, Napo124 for pointing out the excesses of such haters as youtube.com/CLACKBLEEP but I can’t be going after every one. We need to choose who we want to address : media, journalists (from real newspapers, not hate sites disguised as think tanks), politicians …
Miquelon, you do far more than your share to help. I do get concerned that since French-bashing rose in the age of YouTube, it will remain large and forever (same as ignorance). My hope is that technology will move quickly to replace the technology with an update that moves people on to the new mode and away for YouTube.
More French Bashing from the TimesOnline, and shocker – it’s not Charles Bremner ! A childish piece by Hugo Rifkind about Nicolas Sarkozy’s self hatred. While Sarkozy is fair game for anything – being a public figure – the column reads more like an Anti-French hate piece more than anything else.
Forget YouTube! By the way, America-bashing is as prevalent there, if not more, than French-bashing. Interestingly enough, most of the more virulent US-bashing is done from countries other than France, and I’ve spent a lot of time on it. And you’re right, let’s address the more “serious” medias. Thanks for exposing them.
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.
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.
You don’t tend to hear Bristish surrender jokes, because, err.. we didn’t surrender. We evacuated from Dunkirk taking not only Britsh soldiers but also tens of thousands of French, Belgian and Polish soilders with us.
We then fought (on our own) until the USA joined the war a few years later even though Hitler had no quarrel with us.
This is because we had leadership that was courageous and was prepared to fight nazism.
Did you know that Britain lost 900,000 men in the first world war defending France?
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.
The Big M, There should be NO bashingof anyone who suffers or dies defending democracy. I seriously doubt that Hitler was planning on stopping at Dunkirk or Bismark was going to stop at Paris.
Both France and the UK have terrible losses from thses wars. In WWI, France lost 4.29% of its’ population and had an additional 4,266,000 injured. Britain lost 2.19% of its’ population and had 1,663,435 injured (Note that the French can only estimate. Happens when the fighting is on ones’ own soil). These losses are terrible and our societies are continuing to pay the price for these losses.
Allies need to respect and honor eachother, without the stupid bashing retoric.
“”Did you know that Britain lost 900,000 men in the first world war defending France?””
Did you know that WWI and WWI were fought mainly on French soil resulting in massive destruction and civilian casualties ?
Did you know that France lost more men than Britain in both World Wars combined ?
Did you know that the only thing saving Britain from defeat and surrender was the English channel ?
France without doubt suffered more civilian casualties in WW2 as they were occupied by the Germans and an estimated 80,000 French jews were sent to concentration camps by the Vichy regime. But Britain suffered far more military casualties than France in the second world war.
The war was not just fought on French soil either, it was fought all over the world, in Asia and Africa and my grandfathers fought in Africa against the Germans and in the far east against Japan.
What evidence do you have that Britain would have been defeated if they did not have the channel? It’s a rather trite thing to say.
We had a government that was prepared to fight Nazism even though Hitler had no quarrel with us and it’s a good job that we did. How do you know we would have surrended?
I respect France and can separate the appalling actions of the French government in WW2 from the French people, but why can’t the French nowdays not acknowledge or respect what Britain or the USA did to fight nazism without saying things like “it was only the channel that saved Britain from defeat” “the British abandoned us at Dunkirk” etc.
It’s just as undignified as saying that the French are all cowards because of the actions of their government in the second world war.
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax : In August 2008, under the Freedom of Information Act the MI5 released documents revealing the attempts of James Lonsdale-Bryans to seek a peace treaty between Britain and Germany, and implicated Halifax as James Lonsdale-Bryans’ strongest proponent in Parliament. Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7589251.stm
Arthur Neville Chamberlain : appeasement, the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous …
Sorry Miquelon, I don’t understand the relevance of the information you have left above. Of course, there were some in Britain who wanted to strike an agreement with Hitler (some aristocrats) as Hitler had no desire to fight the British Empire.
Chamberlain having seen the hell of WW1 was committed to peace, but Britain was constantly rearming up to 1939, spending half its budget on defence in that year. Chamberlain’s policy was a policy of containment which allowed us to build up arms. Remember, at this point, we had no allies: the USA refused to get involved and France was seen as unreliable, refusing to comitt any troops.
Regardless of the above though, Britain decided to fight the Nazis and did not surrender in three weeks like France.
I wonder if France would have supported the UK, if the roles were reversed. I’m not so sure.
You have clearly shown that you have no respect for what Britain did in the war and would rather paste links that put Britain in a bad light. You are unable to give Britain any credit at all, are you?
It must really hurt your French pride that your leaders capitulated in such a short time and your country was liberated by the terrible “anglo-saxons” quelle horreur!
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 wantis 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.
The BigM, Now you don’t make any sense. As an American, I only see the French attacking the bashers, not the Brits themselves. I do see vast examples of Brits bashing anything French.
As for the weird WWII case that you make, the UK has adopted, since inception of the Nation, a foreign policy to secure create a balance of power in Europe and, in no way, could afford to allow Germany to dominate on the Contienent. British participation was guaranteed.
“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.
Ah c’était bien ce que je disais.
C’était donc bien un troll de Bremner. Ce pauvre roquet en l’occurrence qui passe son existence en France dans la haine des français.
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.
If you read back in the archives in this blog you will see that you stand no chance in trying to reason historical facts with Mr. Miquelon and his band of 5 merry warriors. Unfortunately if you persist you will be branded a French basher and banned on this blog.
I give you one e mail to my box and you just used it up. Other than that we can communicate through your site. If you don’t like what I say just ban me but please don’t start the e mail verification schtick. In over 5 years of blogging I have never received an e mail from a blog verifying my e mail. Not really a good idea but I’ll give you this once.
You have had sufficient time over the years to check me out and know who I am.
Roquet is a pathological French-hater whose “five years of blogging” consist of bashing the French daily on Bremner’s blog and previously on SF’s blog where SF himself recognized later that he was a French basher.
They guy’s so obsessed with bashing the French that now he has to go and troll here of all places.
Let him stay, miquelon.
It will be fun to rip that guy a new one where Bremner and the other resident xenophobes can’t protect him.
For every anti-French caricature there is in the US there are literally thousands of anti-American caricatures in france. In fact, the anti-french sentiment in the US is a reaction to european (french) anti-Americanism. You better get used to more of it! Personally I’m glad to see Americans finally realizing that europe is no friend.
Name ONE French TV personality who has an evening show who made at least 40 anti-American jokes.
Name ONE French journalist from a MAJOR FRENCH newspaper who made 9/11 jokes
Name ONE French politician who made a 9/11 joke
Do your homework, and then we’ll talk. In any case this isn’t about tit for tat, this is about reprehensible attitudes in the US media that actually say more about the people who do it that the people they target – us the French. Because when is all said and done, what these people said about the French is what they dare not say about others…
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.
After observing this site for quite some time now it is only too obvious that this is a basically a propaganda site, hence the hostility to historical facts which in any way show France in a bad light.
Anyone who dares to provide historical facts to counter the distortions, half truths, twisting of facts & lies posted by participants here to bash the British & Americans…..will immediately be called a “troll” or “French basher” and accused of belonging to various so called nefarious blogs which most people have never even heard of.
This pattern is repeated time and time again . The latest example is Big M’s reasoned rebuttal to some vicious ant-British propaganda about Dunkirk .
Bashing is telling lies, half truths, distortions & twisting of facts in order to demonise . Telling the truth is not bashing. France surrendered and was occuppied by the Germans, Vichy collaborated with the Nazis. What bought about these events was a lack of courage by the French leadership. Anybody who dares point this out this fact will immediately be branded a troll and French basher in this propanda site.
It appears that the Fascist mentality is still alive in Europe . Not surprising as fascism, nazism & communism were made in Europe Yes, I know pointing out this fact thatt Europe gave birth to these three murderous ideologies will immediately result in be being branded as a troll and basher.
Sharon, Thank you for your viewpoint. I do not necessarily agree that this blog is anti-truth, UK or US, but more of a clarification site that takes issue with certain positions taken by CERTAIN (not all) Brits, Americans, wrters and pundents. Granted, the thrust of the conversation is not about the vast accomplisments of the British or Americans, but, I believe that that is due to the need to deal with the attacks of a few. I do think that we can probably agree that the US, Britain and France have within their population some 35%, give or take, that are aggresively negative about a lot of issues, including the “foreign” elements that they see in their own nation but especially other nations. Of that percentage, maybe a quarter can be described as rabid. I would contend that this site, and others, are targeted at identifying and supporting the reduction of the rabid bashers – American, British and French, especially French-bashers.
As for Dunkirk, the Brits were fantastic with the individuals who sailled over in their little boats and rescued the troops. Please do also honor the sacrifice of the French troops who did give their all to make it all possible. I, personally, find it rather easy to horor and respect both.
Funny, I didn’t hear you tell those posters here who made snide remarks about the British runing away at Dunkirk & runing back to their little island to honor the sacrifice of the British troops at Dunkirk . This double standard is what I am talking about.
So, I think your remarks about honoring the sacrifice of all Allied troops should be directed at them.
Granted their is French bashing, just as their is American bashing & British bashing. This is probably indulged by a tiny minority but the problem with this site is that most (including you) counter even valid criticism of France with American & British bashing. There are countless examples of you in this site when faced with some unflattering facts about France, trying to paint the Brits or Americans as even worse by indulging in half truths , distortions & twisting of facts.
Prehaps you & others in site who complain about French bashing should practise what you preach……telling people to not bash France while countering any valid criticism of France with attacks on America/Britain by distorting or twisting of facts, half truths or bringing up past American sins is what generally goes on here. You can’t have it both ways.
Reading the various posts here, one cannot help but notice that this site is a comfortable place for [ Blog comment rule 3 ] who are prejudiced against Americans & Brits.
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