# Lets not pardon the French?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 24, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703 "2003-07-24T20:07:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/1 "2003-07-24T20:07:08Z")
I dont know if there is much of a debate here, but I found [this](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92768,00.html) article on Fox just hilarious. It’s the contention of the author (from what I could tell…sorry, the tears of mirth were literally streaming down my face) that the French as a people are a bunch of uncivilized barbarians…oh, and they screw a lot too.
From Fox web site, Julia Gorin is the author of the newly released The Buddy Chronicles, available through [bruiserbooks.com](http://bruiserbooks.com)
> [@](#):
>
> Consider the book that was a 2001 bestseller in France, The Sexual Life of Catherine M (search), (Grove Press), the true-life memoir of Parisian editor and art critic Catherine Millet who “loves penises,” as the June 2002 review in Elle Magazine reads.
>
> In one scene, writes reviewer Will Blythe, an entire caravan of cars gets lost on its way to an outdoor orgy at a sports stadium. At another point in the book, Millet writes: “In the bigger orgies … there could be up to about 150 people … and I would take on the organs of around a quarter or a fifth of them in all the available ways.”
They are also, appearently cruel to animals as can be clearly shown here:
From Fox web site, Julia Gorin is the author of the newly released The Buddy Chronicles, available through [bruiserbooks.com](http://bruiserbooks.com)
> [@](#):
>
> The French even managed to innovate in animal cruelty. The popular dish Foie Grois (search) is liver from a goose that has been mechanically force-fed to make its liver work overtime and become soft and fatty. Last April, a top Paris restaurant celebrated its one-millionth 8-week-old duckling to be strangled and cooked in cognac and its own blood, then served with a souvenir numbered tag. Its owner reportedly remarked, “If for the chef each dish is a work of art, for me, it’s … the return of a happy moment. … There is nothing more serious than pleasure.”
So, I guess the debate is: ARE the French uncivilized barbarians (who like to screw and torture animals) or is that just the puritanical American view of our more cultured/civilized cousins across the sea? And, if they are or aren’t, how is this relavant at all? Oh, and what do the British think?
-XT
---
### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/2 "2003-07-24T20:36:11Z")
Such things would be a lot funnier if Faux News wasn’t the only source of information that lots of people use. Don’t they have the largerst audience for all news networks?
I guess they can get away with the sex bit because very few people who watch Faux News have ever read true-blue, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Frank Harris’ book, _My Life And Loves_.
And they have never visited an egg factory where hens are kept in tiny cages with their beaks clipped to avoid injury to themselves and each other. The “foie gras” goose has a bed of roses in comparison.
---
### Author:  [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/3 "2003-07-24T21:06:30Z")
While I’ve never been one to love the French (and if I had been, 5 years of their language in school surely would have beaten it out of me), I have to say that I saw that article on [www.foxnews.com](http://www.foxnews.com), and I have never seen such an appaling piece of “journalism”.
I read it and kept waiting for the punch line. As I got closer and closer to the end, I started to understand that they were actually serious.
All the -isms the could be used to desribe that article could fill a damned thesaurus.
-Joe
---
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/4 "2003-07-24T21:20:13Z")
Its a very good insight into the kind of audiance that Fox is pandering too…IMO. It just seems so over the top. “My god Helen, that Frenchy is talking about letting strange men do…THINGS…to her!” “I know, and they torture geese too! Depraved!” lol.
I’m not a lover of the French either (I’ve been to Paris several times), but this stuff is just way out in left field. What I don’t get is, this is like old style Republican psudo-religious drivel. I was under the impression that Fox was considered a neo-con haven (though I’ve never see the term clearly defined).
Doesn’t anyone feel like defending the article and bashing the French some? The DO kill geese after all. Not much of a debate if no one wants to play. ☹
At any rate, I thought the article was a riot. I haven’t laughed this hard since I read the latest creationist position paper of ‘facts’…
-XT
---
### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/5 "2003-07-24T21:39:00Z")
I have long been of the opinion that different cultures have only different practices – not different spirits.
It seems to me that sex would further the cause of civilization. It’s the repressed societies that appear to be the most hostile.
Moi? I don’t have an angry bone in my body…
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/6 "2003-07-24T22:30:28Z")
Americans don’t have orgies and eat animals? Is everyone in the USA a vegetarian?
Christ, what a stupid article.
Can anyone remember such government- and media-inspired hatred for a country and a people that was being encouraged for the country/people doing _nothing at all?_ You’d think France had blown up the Twin Towers.
---
### Author:  [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/7 "2003-07-24T22:48:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RickJay \*
> \*\* You’d think France had blown up the Twin Towers. \*\*
20% of the Germans think the U.S. Gov’t sponsored [**9/11**]([http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/](http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/)
europe/07/24/german.poll.reut/index.html),so why can’t some of us blame the French? 😛
---
### Author:  [@Jpeg\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jpeg_Jones)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/8 "2003-07-24T23:25:05Z")
Did the article also mention that the French fart in your general direction?
---
### Author:  [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/9 "2003-07-24T23:41:31Z")
Julia Gorin would doubtless be able to explain away the fact that_The Sexual Life of Catherine M_ [sold pretty darn well](http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/1940305) here in the States, too.
Sex sells… imagine that. I guess we’re all pretty much immoral brutes.
---
### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/10 "2003-07-25T01:19:50Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by kniz \*
> \*\*… so why can’t some of us blame the French? 😛 \*\*
For what?
---
### Author:  [@ChaosGod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChaosGod)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/11 "2003-07-25T03:16:44Z")
Imagine there’s no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too
---
### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/12 "2003-07-25T03:21:25Z")
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead Frog’s eye…
---
### Author:  [@SnoopyFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnoopyFan)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/13 "2003-07-25T03:57:53Z")
**… so why can’t some of us blame the French?**
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by David Simmons \*
> \*\*For what? \*\*
Do we have to have something specific in mind? 😃
---
### Author:  [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/14 "2003-07-25T08:14:11Z")
When visiting the South-west of France a few years back, I went to buy some foie gras and associated products (rillettes d’oie were invented by angels for God’s delectation, in my opinion). Before buying anything, I was shown around the farm, including the part where happy fat ducks and geese enter and leave as a collection of delicacies. A lab would be a term that does it justice. Well insofar as ducks and geese can be happy, the resident poultry looked fine. They were completely free range, had a pond to swim in, were clearly well-fed, and about as content as fat anatidae can be.
More importantly, they tasted absolutely gorgeous, and the skill and experience involved in making this happen is wonderful. Compared to battery farmed chickens and intensively reared cattle, these ducks were as happy as hare in a terrine (direct translation of _heureux comme un lièvre dans un pâté_, which is a wonderful but weird expression.
By the way, I often thought that it was great that the guy showed us the full production process beforehand. I just can’t imagine a British farmer doing the same: most people in this country are far too damned squeamish and seem to think that the countryside is a theme park.
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/15 "2003-07-25T08:22:28Z")
Je suis le walrus.
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/16 "2003-07-25T08:27:31Z")
By the way, despite what **Zorro** says, the method of making foie gras is [hideously cruel](http://www.poultry.org/foiegras.htm).
> [@](#):
>
> At a typical foie gras company, workers grab a young adult male bird, stretch his neck upward, force open his bill, shove a hard pipe all the way down his throat to his stomach, and pump in an enormous amount of mashed-up corn mixed with oil, water, and salt. Sometimes force-feeding causes birds’ stomachs to burst.
>
> This is done three times a day for about four weeks.
It’s also delicious.
That article is too pathetic to insult.
---
### Author:  [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/17 "2003-07-25T10:47:04Z")
Since they kindly included a link suggesting that reader should “Respond to the writer”, I did.
\*Sir,
As a Frenchman living in the UK, I am used to a certain amount of “Frog-bashing” in the mainstream press, but I have never encountered an article this crass and insulting even in the worst British tabloids. This goes beyond standard xenophobic caricature, it is aggressive demonisation, it slanders sixty million people.
As one of the USA’s foremost news and information services, Fox has a responsability to provide balanced commentary and professional journalism to American audiences. This sort of writing promotes intolerance, and its publication by Fox furthers the cause of obscurantism, values that the admirable founders of the United States of America fought so hard to eradicate from the new nation built on Enlightenment ideas.
Whereas freedom of speech is also an essential part of this legacy, opinion pieces of this nature betray the very principles that the USA was created to defend and propagate.\*
That’ll learn 'em.
---
### Author:  [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/18 "2003-07-25T11:08:20Z")
The article makes a claim that French culture connoisseurship is a cloak for depravity, that is _moral corruption or degradation_. That’s an interesting question to ask, and not just about the French. Another thread here looks at the question of how the very cultured Germans, with Beethoven, Goethe, Schhiller, etc., could turn to Nazism. Cultured people in many countries embraced Stalinism.
Whether sexual libertines are more likely to take an amoral view of cruelties is a worthwhile debate. _From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life_
by Jacques Barzun takes the position that modern western culture has declined to a stated of decadence. Note that _Decadence_ was “A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations.” It would be interesting to consider just how decadent various aspects of western culture have become.
Unfortunately, the cited article has a poorly chosen title and an uneven hodgepodge of examples. IMHO the French deserve serious criticism for supporting cruel dictators in a number of countries, but it’s just silly to ding them for inventing the Guillitine.
---
### Author:  [@stick\_monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stick_monkey)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/19 "2003-07-25T11:58:09Z")
And I suppose veal is a humanitarian effort here in America.
(don’t get me wrong, I love veal, just making a point)
And what was the argument against the origies, I got lost somewhere in the description?
---
### Author:  [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2003, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703/20 "2003-07-25T12:06:44Z")
The French have orgies, so they are depraved enough to support evil dictators. Since the US has supported way more evil dictators, their orgies must be _really_ wild.
I think that was the gist of the argument.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-not-pardon-the-french/190703.md?page=2)