I’ve been to Paris many times, and tried to bumble along with my untutored French. I rarely, if ever, encountered any of the famous French snobbery. Most of the waiters/waitresses could speak some Enlgish, and they’d quickly say so if they could.
And if by chance you get snubbed, just chalk it up to being part of the French experience. Kinda like being yelled at by a cabbie in NYC.
It’s funny, Airman, because I have a good buddy who is an ex-military guy with pretty similar views to you. I was just telling him the other day, as we were watching the Tour, that he’d love it in France. As much as he loves to dump on the French (especially from a military point of view), I know he’d have a great time if he ever went there. I supspect you would, too.
Dunno about mustard, but the French will only allow sparkling wine to be called Champagne if it comes from the actual Champagne region of France. Why Airman has a problem with this, I also dunno.
Do you see what he cites as a glorious history? Christ, weren’t the Franks still comprised of Germanic tribes when they beat the Muslims? The best the French ever produced was a schizophrenic girl.
I don’t know. In my one experience in Paris, I met a lot of snobbery. There were also a lot of great people, too. I think there were a lot of people as generally happy to see foreigners as there were those who let you know that your accent wasn’t quite right. (Lord help the poor schmuck who doesn’t try to mimic a Parisienne accent with those people.) I think it’s fair to say that it’s no more unforgiving to foreigners than NYC is. Certainly I’ve seen a lot of people in the US mock foriegners who can’t speak the language fluently.
On the other hand, I do think that there is an art to the attitude in Paris that isn’t matched quite anywhere else in the world.
I think the important thing is he makes some compelling points, and that the French are just as much “pussies” as anyone else in military history. They’ve won some, and lost some.
I suspected that was it, but I can’t understand why he would be upset about it. One wonders if he would be upset if the US threw a stink if some distillery in Lyons was producing “Kentucky bourbon” or “Tennessee whiskey.”
I think you miss the point. I don’t care how tough they are or are not. I’ll withdraw my comments about their military in the face of what you and Neurotik posted. But regardless, when someone says something like that and then does not trouble himself to apologize for such asinine comments he opens himself and his country up to the same types of stereotypical insults that he himself was responsible for saying. Chirac invited another fusillade of venom in his direction.
Absolutely, positively agree about Chirac. The guy’s a total douche. Of course, he’s just trying to blame his failure to get the French people to ratify the constitution on the British and in order to get himself out of the fire.
You really should read Strange Victory, though. It’s an excellent, excellent book and pretty easy to read.
I’ve been to Paris as well and the only problem I had was at a crepes restaraunt that didn’t list the price of soft drinks and charged like 8 francs a glass. They were preying on unsuspecting Americans like me. I learned my lesson.
I think most people only care about the last 100 years for France’s prowess in war.
France as been the most adversarial Nato member towards the US.
Many if not most Americans (Yes, I mean US & Canada) feel we twice rescued there butts and maybe they should have been more thankful.
{I know the last statement isn’t completely fair but I believe it is an honest opinion.}
We share a common dislike of France with the UK, our closest ally by far. In doing so we inherited many of their prejudices.
The Simpson’s Surrender Monkey joke was very funny to most of us, should not be treated to seriously.
Our worst military blunder in the last 100 years was making the mistake of trying to correct the complete debacle in French Indochina. So our worst military action was inherited from these same French.
All this said. French food is generally regarded as great and English food as bad.
My personnel experience, having visited Scotland, England & France.
France is good, Scotland is good, England is poor and Italy blows everyone away for good tasting food and variety.
Actually, as a whole, English cuisine is on the upswing and French cuisine headed down. The best restaurants in England can stand toe to toe with to those in France. Although I think it goes overboard, check out the Money magazine article which rates 4 out of top 10 restaurants in the world as being in the UK.
You guys have it wrong. It goes: “The French only win when led by someone other than a Frenchman, or when most of the fighting is done by someone other than the French”
Vietnam, Algeria, WWII: lost
WWI: would have lost, saved by USA’s entry
Franco-Prussian War: Lost
Napoleonic Wars: untimately lost, successes were due to being led by a Corsican
Hundred Years War: Was losing, saved by leadership of a Frenchwoman.
