Eisenhower began the gradual process of quagmire into Vietnam because French support there was necessary to secure French cooperation over Berlin. Because France thought they were still a superpower and would be spiteful and inconvenient just to prove the point how independent they were.
THIS, I think. Well, maybe not the imperialism so much (or maybe so, argument for another day), but both countries formed their democracy at roughly the same time in drastically different ways and have been on that divine mission since.
That’s why it’s not being said. You’re referring to the Freedom Fries debacle which was stupid and made even more so because of where it started… but it was not the nation-wide mania you’re alleging. Those who’ve participated in this tangent have pointed that out. Yeah, I’ve seen ‘Freedom Fries’ on a menu --at Bubba’s Backcountry Snow Cone Hut & Fireworks Stand, and that’s about it, and I’m from the reddest districts of the Red States.
Do not insult Versailles! I immediately knew that was going to be my house someday the first time I stepped foot in it. The current economy is only making my goal that much easier. I will take the pictures of the fat, ugly kids off the wall after I close on it however.
We’re talking about two different things. I agree with you, anti-French sentiment is very widespread in the US. My post was specifically about the changing of “french fries” into “freedom fries,” which I still maintain was NOT widespread at ALL.
To me, the best answer to the question of American anti-French sentiment is that we inherited the British love-hate complex towards the French. A lot of the other reasons fall apart under observation:
*LOTS of countries go their own way regardless of what Washington wants, but that doesn’t effect the general populace’s feelings towards most of those countries.
*The most rabid, obnoxious anti-Americans I’ve ever met have been Canadian, not French, yet Americans don’t hate Canadians for it – instead, they persist on believing that all Canadians are automatically “nice”!
*The British famously (in the American imagination) believe their culture is superior to that of their boorish Americans cousins, but Americans still grovel at the sound of an British accent and at the trappings of British society, rather than hate the British for it.
*NO continental Europeans (in my experience) shower more or less than any other Europeans, but Americans only accuse the French of not showering.
*High class, “elite” movies, music, and fashion come out of Italy, but Americans love Italians, instead of hating them for it.
It just seems that there’s some deep-seated, intractable Francophobia in Anglo-Saxon derived cultures.
I love France-the country, the food, the language, the people. France is different-in a way I find pleasing. Take French cars (Citroen)-differnt way of doing things, and interesting designs. Also, the French are determined to resist globalization-which I like. 'd much rather dine in a Parisian bistro, than at McDonalds.
It would be a shame ifFrance became a smaller version of the USA-vive la differance"!
Yeppers - the summer student the Mr. and I had staying with us HATED Americans. She used to say things like ‘America has never done anything good for the world at all.’ Even after she found out that my best friend is American she continued to say shit like that.
Also, she was by far, the stinkyist person I’ve ever met. Sometimes when we were driving somewhere I would have to open the window (in the dead of winter) because the smell coming off her was so bad it was making me gag. Impressive, really. I suppose the fact that she only showered or bathed about once a week was the cause. And she ate with her mouth open and made smacking and slurping noises with every bite.
Anyhow, it was quite an experience for Mr. Wonderland and I.
Cultural, maybe, but check a globe - Portugal is nearer America than France is (assuming you don’t count French Guiana, St Pierre & Miquelon and one or two little garlic-flavoured rocks dotted about the Caribbean).
To be fair, we French mostly roll our collective eyes about it too.
The Académie Française and other “Francophonie” associations are widely ridiculed and/or ignored over here. Anyone with half a brain can figure out how absolutely asinine it is to try and turn the acronym CD-ROM into the noun “un cédérom”. Or to try and legislate a language, for that matter. Truth be told, we don’t really pay much attention to them. Dead white guys, all of 'em, who regrettably breathe still…
Being a parisian myself, I can attest to the notorious fact that most of us are rude, and not only to obvious tourists - the rest of France also finds us obnoxious, arrogant and generally unpleasant. The ignorant peasants.
As to the original question, while the thread has certainly demonstrated that everyone has his own reasons to hate/mock the French (me included. Hell, I got a lot more than you guys. Feh ! Amateurs.), I still tend to believe it’s an age-old British meme that hung around in UK’s old colonies.
And of course, it’s easier for such a meme to stay alive and well among the crowd that never passed the county line of Bumsville, Missouri. Just as the brave citizen of Trou-sur-Yvettes dans le Morbihan are quite happily spewing anti-american nonsense, with Gallic pride. Not that GW helped you guys any on the “they’re all ignorant & trigger-happy cowboys” front :D, but that’s not the point. Xenophobic asshats will be xenophobic asshats, no matter the race, color or creed.
I’ll leave you on a lighter note, courtesy of Pierre Desproges : know why we French chose the rooster as our national symbol ? Because it’s the only bird in the whole animal kingdom who’ll sing from atop a pile of crap.
Look, bad mouthing the French is a time honored tradition around here. One of Mark Twain’s better one liners is a shot at the French. As noted by someone above the English have been doing it for a millennium, although the English had much better reason to fear the French than Americans ever did. Of course the abuse is unwarranted, of course it is unfair, of course most of it originates from people who don’t really know much about the French or France.
There are a couple points I want to make. My wife and I have been to France as many as 10 or 12 times over the past 35 years. I don’t speak the language but my wife if fluent enough that she is taken as Belgian. We have never been treated rudely, not in Paris, not in Rouen, not in Nancy, not in Normandy, not in Strasbourg or down the Rhone Valley or in Provance or down the Loir or any place else else, including scores of small towns and cities. It just hasn’t happened. Not only that, there is no place in France that we didn’t feel safe. I can’t say that about most large American cities.
As for carping about French military power, or pretense to it, from the Middle Ages through WWI France was the dominant European power - which means it was the dominant world power. The First World War used up a generation of French men and essentially destroyed it as a dominant power. None the less, France made a substantial contribution to the allied effort in WWII and it was a French armored division that covered the coalition flank in Gulf I. When I was on active duty during Vietnam I was the liaison with a French mechanized infantry regiment that lived in a kaserne just down the road from my unit. It was a good unit, well trained, well equipped and as far as I could tell combat ready; its officers were friendly, generous and professional. I would have been happy to have served with them and I would have been content to have had them cover my flank.
Any one who wants to disparage French military traditions needs only to spend a day walking the battlefield at Verdun, a 100 square mile grave yard. Anyone who has been there and still mocks the French Army is a fool.
By the same token, anyone who has gone to Paris and seen the great monuments and great museums and has not been moved and impressed is likewise a fool.
I am the first person to defend the French from undeserved slights (see earlier in this thread), whether they be real or unintentional and have much admiration for both the country and the people, but the above statement is complete and utter rubbish. The UK was the dominant European and World military power from the Napoleonic Wars (or earlier) until the First World War.
Heh, you know, I really haven’t got a patriotic fibre in my body, but for some reason that particular attack on the French (i.e. “the French Army ? What’s that ?” etc…) still gets my goat from time to time.
However, a quick and easy rebuttal that doesn’t involve rehashing a thousand years of mil. history is “Google up the battle of Camerone\Camaròn”. Molon Labe, why dontcha.
When your *enemy *commemorates every year how tough as frickin’ nails your soldiers were… yeah.
The British certainly preformed well in Spain and Belgium during the Napoleonic Wars, but only with substantial help from allies in the field. The Spanish and the Portugese in Spain and the Dutch-Belgians and the Germans at Waterloo. It can be fairly argued that Waterloo was Germany’s victory, not England’s. From then on the British were not involved in a European war until 1914. In 1914 all they could provide was a puny six or seven long service regular division that were pretty well ground to powder before the innocents who were massacred at the Somme were able to take the field… In the mean time, all through the 19th Century the British made their reputation by fighting ill-armed and ill-organized and ill-trained native levies.
There are two exception to the 19th Century generality – the Crimea and the Boer Wars. The Crimea was won because the British were facing an adversary as inept as the British and because the French carried the greater part of the fight. The Charge of the Light Brigade might be good poetry but it was very bad war making.
The Boer Wars are an interesting study of what guerrillas with modern arms (the Mauser Rifle) and high motivations can do to a western army with an outmoded doctrine and obsolete equipment. In took the imposition of nearly genocidal methods for a world wide empire with unlimited manpower and funds to suppress the Boer.
This is hardly persuasive of the idea that Great Britain was the (or even a) dominant 19th Century military world power.
Because we avoided a continental commitment and fought General Bonaparte by proxy by financing coalitions. If one coalition was defeated it was always possible to assemble another one. Some here say Britain’s worst mistake was to assume a continental commitment in the 20th c., abandoning our traditional European stance, which had always relied on the navy to keep the homeland secure and watch the continental powers exhaust themselves. As Churchill said at the time, “Either we had command of the sea, or we did not. If we had it, we wanted fewer soldiers. If we had it not, we wanted more ships”.
