# Why do Americans dislike France?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 9, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327 "2008-12-09T00:25:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/41 "2008-12-09T04:36:46Z")
Americans EXPECT other countries to act against our wishes when it’s in their selfish interests to do so. We understand, and don’t hold it against them.
Similarly, we EXPECT other countries to act against our wishes when it’s a matter of principle. We understand, and don’t hold that against them.
France is exasperating because they’re the one and only nation that frequently acts against our wishes for no other reason than sheer spite.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/42 "2008-12-09T04:41:06Z")
One other thing- has anybody here actually eaten at a restaurant that renamed its dishes “freedom fries” or “freedom toast”? I haven’t, and I live in Texas, for crying out loud. I never once saw an actual restaurant using those terms.
It just didn’t happen. Not on any kind of wide scale, anyway.
The widely publicized “boycotts” of France amounted to almost nothing. Yes, American tourism to France plummeted, but that probably had more to do with exchange rates and the dollar’s shrinking value than it did with boycotts.
Did anyone in the US stop buying Michelin tires? Did anyone stop eating Dannon yogurt? Any US-based airlines stop buying planes from Airbus?
Of COURSE not. The “boycott” was a joke, and the few people using words like “Freedom Fries” got infinitely more publicity and attention than they warranted.
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### Author:  [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broadswordcallingdannyboy)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/43 "2008-12-09T04:42:18Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#):
>
> How about the fact that they have no shame in trafficking arms to shady characters around the world? It was an exocet missile that sank the Sheffield, as I recall.
You’re joking, right?
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/44 "2008-12-09T04:44:19Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> Forty years ago I spent a summer in France.
>
> They didn’t like Americans, either.
I think that’s it, actually: they disliked us _first_. And we have reacted to that in an emotionally insecure way.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/45 "2008-12-09T04:58:19Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#):
>
> How about the fact that they have no shame in trafficking arms to shady characters around the world? It was an exocet missile that sank the Sheffield, as I recall.
> [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](#):
>
> You’re joking, right?
It’s true that that happened. But two versions of French cooperation with Britain in the war are [here](http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-41004.html).
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/46 "2008-12-09T05:05:01Z")
On top of everything else, French wine is over-priced, over-hyped plonk. California, Australia, Chile, Spain, Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, hell even South Africa make better wine.
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### Author:  [@oliversarmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oliversarmy)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/47 "2008-12-09T05:07:06Z")
Why in the world would any normal American dislike the French?
We may disagree with the policies of their government at times, but they have been a long-standing American ally and, I expect, they will be in the future.
I know they certainly disagree with many of our governmental policies. Why shouldn’t they? They’re French. They have their own vision of government and how things should work.
And, using convoluted logic, I suspect that the French people who don’t like Americans probably don’t like the Americans they read or hear about in the press. I know they don’t like a lot of things about how American culture infiltrates their society.
But, it has been my experience, that they’re just like everybody else. Once you get to know someone from another country or culture, they tend to be your friend for life.
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### Author:  [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broadswordcallingdannyboy)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/48 "2008-12-09T05:10:45Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> It’s true that that happened. But two versions of French cooperation with Britain in the war are [here](http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-41004.html).
Thank you for bringing up that point. The help given by French intelligence, and the support of the French Government of the time, is a little known aspect of the Falklands War. Without their cooperation, the British Task Force would have faced a much greater threat from Argentina’s Exocet missile capability.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/49 "2008-12-09T05:12:11Z")
> [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](#):
>
> Thank you for bringing up that point. The help given by French intelligence and the support of the French Government of the time is a little known aspect of the Falklands War. Without their cooperation the British Task Force would have faced a much greater threat from Argentina’s Exocet missile capability.
It’s still a shame about their funny little hats.
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### Author:  [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broadswordcallingdannyboy)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/50 "2008-12-09T05:18:24Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> It’s still a shame about their funny little hats.
Is it also a shame the U.S. Military has adopted them for its own uniforms? 😃
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/51 "2008-12-09T05:20:59Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#):
>
> “Ban”? :dubious: Every language evolves through usage. As far as I know, “courriel”, “courrier électronique” and “e-mail” are currently fighting for the upper hand as the French word for “electronic mail” (in my dialect of French anyway, which isn’t France French). We’ll see what word wins, but it seems to me that you’re asking why the French don’t speak English.
>
> “Courriel” is masculine, by the way. 😛
Oh sure, throw French at me 😛
No, I’m not asking why the French don’t speak English, just making light of the Ministry of Culture. It’s not like we’re forcing [McDonalds](http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/290cd0/) restaurants on them.:smack: (well at least they serve french fries).
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### Author:  [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/52 "2008-12-09T05:23:45Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> France is exasperating because they’re the one and only nation that frequently acts against our wishes for no other reason than sheer spite.
Can you give some examples? I can’t think of any.
I frequently see people base their perceptions on mistaken beliefs or general misunderstanding. For instance, even on these boards, around the start of the Iraq war, there were some claiming that France “frequently” used its veto against the US in the security council. In fact, France only used its veto unilaterally once, a long time ago, on an issue that affected it directly. Every other time, it used it alongside the US and/or the UK but you never hear people complaining about the UK vetoing the US “out of spite”.
The old “email/courriel” canard is an example of people indulging in their misunderstanding. The truth is that currently francophones have not yet agreed on a single term for “electronic mail”. There’s “email”, “e-mail”, “mail” and “courriel”. Probably every large institution, anywhere in the world, has style guides that its employees are to follow when writing official documents and whatnot. It just happens that the French government decided that “electronic mail” would be known as “courriel” in its official documents. The only way that this was newsworthy is that the term originated in Canada rather than in France. It’s seems to me that many Americans believe that the French government through the Académie Française is holding a gun to its citizens’ heads to force word usage on them. That is simply not the case. The average French person doesn’t give a damn about the Académie and when someone needs to look up a word, they go to the Robert or Larousse dictionaries, which base their entries on usage.
I think, though, that in part it boils down to the fact that people often have difficulty making distinctions between a foreign country’s people and its government. From my perspective, French and Americans are the two biggest victims of this.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/53 "2008-12-09T05:25:43Z")
> [@Broadswordcallingdannyboy](#):
>
> Is it also a shame the U.S. Military has adopted them for its own uniforms? 😃
Nah, they only look funny on Frenchmen. 😛
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/54 "2008-12-09T05:27:07Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> I think it’s those little hats they wear.
Which are now worn by the whole US Army.
I think it’s a weird mix of the following three things:
1. France was a place dog soldiers saw a lot of in WWII; some got a strong case of culture shock & came back with stories about how vile the French were. Could have been almost any foreign country.
2. More recently, British TV gets imported to the US, & we hear British jokes about the French without understanding the context. (Hence, we just know Daleks are French, etc.)
3. Many Yanks have cultural roots in Germany or the British Isles. Relatively few have recent or close roots to France. So there’s less similarity to French culture in Midwestern American culture.
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### Author:  [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/55 "2008-12-09T05:32:06Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> France forced America into Indochina? This is just ridiculous. It seems to me more like the French had their asses handed to them there and America played macho and said to themselves “we’ll teach the French how these things are done”. And then got their own asses handed to them.
>
> Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and all that.
>
> It seems to me America after WWII expected France to fall into the “lapdog” category together with Britain and it does not forgive that France would rather have some independence even while being on friendly terms with the USA. The USA does not want a friend but a servant. So when France decides to have its own force de frappe or its own foreign policy that is something America cannot forgive. The whole freedom fries thing was so embarrassing but that was what passed for foreign policy with Bush. That and installing a brutal colonial regime in Iraq.
1. I never said they forced them into it. Don’t be so obstinate.
2. If not for France’s insistence on reasserting their colonial glory, Communist revolutionaries may have never flourished there.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/56 "2008-12-09T06:12:24Z")
How about this: The US and France frequently hate each other because they BOTH regard themselves as having a divine mission to share their culture and civilization with the rest of the world… whether the rest of the world wants it or not.
This world isn’t big enough for TWO cultural imperialist powers.
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### Author:  [@greatshakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greatshakes)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/57 "2008-12-09T06:20:14Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#):
>
> Americans think they’re the best in the world when it comes to pretty much everything. They get tetchy whenever someone disagrees. France disagrees manifestly and has centuries of culture, science, and technology to make their own case for superiority. This strikes anxiety into the insecure heart of the middle-class American, who must then make a joke like “cheese-eating surrender monkey” to restore their sense of national dignity.
And their latest scientific, cultural, and technological breakthroughs are…?
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### Author:  [@greatshakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greatshakes)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/58 "2008-12-09T06:34:12Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> Nah, they only look funny on Frenchmen. 😛
Well, the hat didn’t help out Rusty Griswold any, did it?
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### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/59 "2008-12-09T07:35:00Z")
Personally, I like pretty much everything about the French, including the Arab associations, car-burning, Socialism, & slacking; except that the actual French people from France that I have met myself here in California have all been somewhat argumentative or, you know, testy.
And they _won’t_ say, _“Zut alors!”_
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-dislike-france/476327/60 "2008-12-09T08:04:27Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> French women are damned hot too. Dear Mother of Jesus, I don’t really care if they bathe or not, it would still be worthwhile.
Bleah! I don’t know which are worse, French women or British women.
Joe
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