French-bashing - the historical origin?

Verbose said:

Unlike the British? Known for their immense gratitude?

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Oi! He's a yank!

So Mr, insulting-the-wrong-nation-silly-man-whos-father-smells-of-elderberries, what have the Brits been ungreatful to the French or Sweedish for?

GinandTonic said:

Oi! He's a yank!

So Mr, insulting-the-wrong-nation-silly-man-whos-father-smells-of-elderberries, what have the Brits been ungreatful to the French or Sweedish for?

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Ooops! Didn't notice any Americans around before. Sorry!

I just find the oblique statement "They're ungrateful" inherently funny.

Since when is "gratitude" in general terms considered a much asked for virtue in a nation? (I know that's not how he meant it.)

And that goes for Britain as much as anyone else.

The French have much to be grateful to the English for!

They founded the Sorbonne, so we kindly built Oxford to show them how it should be done.

They produced Joan of Arc, and we sensibly burned her so they could have a martyr all of their own.

They produced Descartes, and we thoughtfully provided Newton and Locke to show why he was completely wrong.

They produced Napoleon, and we helpfully defeated him to save them the trouble of having to run the whole of Europe.

They produced Derrida, and we dutifully laughed at this excellent joke!

Plotinus said:

The French have much to be grateful to the English for!

They founded the Sorbonne, so we kindly built Oxford to show them how it should be done.

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But no one else ever looked at Oxford.
Which for most of its history has been an excellent place, if you wanted to instill a smattering of classics in the progeny of the upper crust and turn out "muscular Christians" for the CoE. At least until the Germans showed every one how a Uni should really operate. Curiously except for the French with their grand ecoles doing the same job.

Plotinus said:

They produced Joan of Arc, and we sensibly burned her so they could have a martyr all of their own.

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For which the English should be eternally greatful. Winning that war would have left you eternally in bed with the French.

Plotinus said:

They produced Descartes, and we thoughtfully provided Newton and Locke to show why he was completely wrong.

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No matter. We still live in a Cartesian world most of the time. The rest of it we spend in the one of Einstein and Heisenberg. In the intermediary period we inhabited the Kant-Laplacian world.

Plotinus said:

They produced Napoleon, and we helpfully defeated him to save them the trouble of having to run the whole of Europe.

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Intsead setting the Germans up to spend the next century and half trying to do it instead...

Plotinus said:

They produced Derrida, and we dutifully laughed at this excellent joke!

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You liked that one? Try Deleuze next time then!

i think it's a modern phenomenon. it only goes as far back as Charles Aznavour!

hey , a good thread to read , but as always one must avoid links and stuff .

de Gaulle.

I haven't read the whole thread, sorry, but Charles de Gaulle could be a real piece of work as an ally in war*, and went to a lot of trouble to be troublesome -often bordering on being an enemy- afterwards. His reasons were what they were, but irritating.

-Throw that in on top of the history of British antipathy influencing us and we ethnocentric Americans are naturally going to resent any nation as arrogant as we are, thus the jokes and slander. Same goes for the Japanese.


*Winston Churchill: "He felt it was essential to his position before the French people that he should maintain a proud and haughty demeanour towards "perfidious Albion", although in exile, dependent upon our protection and dwelling in our midst. He had to be rude to the British to prove to French eyes that he was not a British puppet. He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance".

The French definitely wanted to keep their integrity intact as much as possible in World War II (in complete ignorance of the facts as they were), but, considering Roosevelt felt France should be occupied as a collaborationist power after the war, he was somewhat right to do so (although it was frustrating from the allied perspective because France simply wasn't a real factor in the major war efforts). After the war, it was easy to think the UK ended up more grateful for the US actions than France was. I don't think it was true, but it certainly helped to have Churchill touring the US than DeGaulle.

And, yes, I realize this is a eight year old thread, which is why I'm trying only to reply to recent posts.

Eight years old thread, but in all fairness that link has to be some of the most interesting thread necro I've seen in...ever.

Louis XXIV said:

The French definitely wanted to keep their integrity intact as much as possible in World War II (in complete ignorance of the facts as they were), but, considering Roosevelt felt France should be occupied as a collaborationist power after the war, he was somewhat right to do so (although it was frustrating from the allied perspective because France simply wasn't a real factor in the major war efforts). After the war, it was easy to think the UK ended up more grateful for the US actions than France was. I don't think it was true, but it certainly helped to have Churchill touring the US than DeGaulle.

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Lord Baal put it best; de Gaulle was to weak to be granted a seat at the big kids table in WWII, but was too powerful and influential to run around doing whatever he wanted.
As far as Franco-American relations, it is important to remember Roosevelt despised de Gaulle on a completely irrational level. I mean, Roosevelt tried to set up Petain as the leader of post-war France despite everyone telling him it was a Very Bad Idea.

Yep. And it's also fair to point out that the American media loved de Gaulle (forcing Roosevelt to be better towards him). This obviously wouldn't be the case if the public hated France.

There was a lot of frustration in the decades after the war, though, when France frequently wanted to go her own way and not play in the anglo alliance's reindeer games/plans for ordering the world... I do expect most of the antipathy is down to that.

Oda Nobunaga said:

Eight years old thread, but in all fairness that link has to be some of the most interesting thread necro I've seen in...ever.

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Indeed. That was a great read.

I have only been to Paris once for 3 days. I just ran into one person who was openly hostile towards me when he found out I was an American. He was my waiter in a restaurant. But an English waiter saw what was happening, handed me a menu in English, and got assigned to my table instead. Everybody else was quite friendly for the most part and even openly curious about Americans.

I even ventured into a packed bar that had a Formula 1 theme. Lots of famous drivers helmets from the past were on display. The crowd was very boisterous and quite drunk. Being nearly 6'4" I towered over everybody else in the bar and stood out like a sore thumb not being able to speak a word of French. I received a few looks that might have been taken to be a bit hostile, but I got even more smiles and a few shrugs from others.

I really don't understand the depth of enmity in this country towards France. I guess some of it is likely due to Anglo-French relations in the past. But other than that, it is a mystery why so many Americans openly despise the French. This is particularly true of conservatives.

Louis XXIV said:

Yep. And it's also fair to point out that the American media loved de Gaulle (forcing Roosevelt to be better towards him). This obviously wouldn't be the case if the public hated France.

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De Gaulle touring the US, visiting New York, in 1944, being introduced by the NYC mayor La Guardia, and in response makes a kooky little impromptu speech in accented English:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/new-york-welcomes-de-gaulle-on-sleeve-as-gen-de/query/Guardia

I've never understood why any Americans wouldn't like France. I've always assumed those that do are just tools following their crowd of buffoons around, without ever having set foot in France (or met a French person, or eaten French food, or seen a French movie, or...).

EgonSpengler said:

I've never understood why any Americans wouldn't like France. I've always assumed those that do are just tools following their crowd of buffoons around, without ever having set foot in France (or met a French person, or eaten French food, or seen a French movie, or...).

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The rightwingers refuse to forgive the French for their refusal to follow Bush on his foredoomed invasion of Iraq. They didn't believe him when he claimed that Saddam was about to give nuclear weapons to al Qaeda, and American conservatives despise anyone who catches Bush in a lie.

Moreover, and it's likely American do not know this, but at the time president Chirac made an interview on of the major public network, and during national news (so it was followed by a lot of people, not something he said "discretly").
He basically said:
- We don't have evidence of WMD in Iraq (and by they way, where are they? Still have not found them?) and we believe the UN inspectors are much more cost effective to check Iraq progress on this issue than an armed invasion. So we cannot support US for a military intervention on this ground.
- If the purpose is to remove a dictator, France is ready to consider it and provide a significant force, but we want to have this as a clearly stated objectives, and we want to have serious plans for post invasion clearly set up in advance.