I think it’s history. For the last six hundred years or so, the English and the French have been rivals for the leadership of Western civilization. The English (and by extension the Americans) eventually won. The French are bitter about having lost.
Parisians are no more rude, really, than New Yorkers. There is a stereotypical view in both countries that N’Yorkers/Parisians sneer down on the outlying country while the rest of the country considers them arrogant boors. (There are a few individuals in both cities that “live down” to the stereotypes, but they are a minority–if occasionally a noticeable one.)
However, the primary anti-French sentiment in the U.S. is a fairly recent (from the perspective of my advancing age) phenomenon. It is not based on actual French rudeness or American ignorance or any of the usual suspects.
The anti-French feelings arose from a complex series of political actions and misunderstandings that arose after WWII–and from the fine hand of Charles deGaulle.
DeGaulle was always a PITA to the allied command because he wanted to be treated as a complete equal. His point was that they were about to go tromping across his country and some French person should participate in the planning for that event. The position of the Allied commanders was that deGaulle did not have enough troops to justify giving him a fully equal say in the decision and that his position as the French leader was a self-proclaimed position at best. DeGaulle had any troops at all, only because they chose to follow him. (Certainly a strong point in his favor.) However, the French nation had never set up a government in exile. The elected government, such as it was, had folded with the country, and there was no genuine authority supporting deGaulle in his position.
After the war, deGaulle set out to get France back on its feet and used the ballot box to secure the authority that the wartime commanders had not acknowledged in him. When Ike was elected president in the U.S., there was enough low-key mutual dislike that they were never able to work together. DeGaulle wanted to re-establish the French Republic and the French Empire. However, Ike refused to support France in places such as Indochina (Vietnam). Ike stated quite clearly that he doubted that the American citizens would support wars to keep colonies tethered to the mother country. He urged French diplomats seeking any aid to provide evidence that the French were defending their colonies against Marxist uprisings. DeGaulle took these “suggestions” as rebuffs (and took them personally).
Once France had recovered its own industrial base to support a military re-supply program, deGaulle pulled France out of NATO. (They continued to participate in NATO joint exercises, but they simply chose to not belong to the organization.) In a series of (usually disastrous) military operations, deGaulle lost Indochina, Algeria, and several less visible colonies while interfering in mid-East politics with equally disastrous results. In every case except Indochina, the French found themselves on opposite sides of the political lines from the U.S.
(DeGaulle did not preside over every crisis. He was voted out of the presidency on several occasions. However, when he was in office, he put his stamp so firmly on the goals of the French government that his interim successors wound up having to carry out programs very similar to those he had sought.)
The American press reported most of these political and diplomatic differences of opinion as if they were personal insults hurled by deGaulle. (Certainly dGaulle provided enough intemperate comments to make that job easier.) Eventually, folks in the U.S. began to see the French as ungrateful, arrogant, and clannish.
Look at American movies made about Americans living in France in the 1950s. Compare them to attitudes 20 years later.
When France withdrew from NATO, there was a huge outcry against the move. There were charges that France intended to go Communist and join the Warsaw Pact. (The fact that Communists were a genuine political power in most European nations after WWII lent some (undeserved) credence to the fears). There were complaints rhat they were “ungrateful” for our WWII support. Most of this was arrant nonsense, but it played well in Peoria.
I’ll go with sofaking’s comments about mutual indebtedness, tomndebb [as usual], and offer the following, having lived and worked extensively in both places:
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France’s seeming conflict with the US in matters political during the Cold War (“What ? they got Communists in the gubbiment ?”) and recently (“What, they harbor Iranians ?”), and:
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Americans generally figure we own the patent on democracy, forgetting a good deal of history. But we also have always had a good deal of space, and lack of invasions. Imagine each state had its own language, foods, in otherwords a very distinct culture, and the present antipathy of Idahoans for Californicators, Virginians for New Yorkers, etc… might approach the self-protective instinct of the French to retain their language and culture, around since well before the “discovery” of the New World. The French defensiveness about culture (understood as snide or snobbish behavior by Leno, Letterman, and people who inform their politics by TV) is rooted in the startling erosion, in a generation or so, of their standing internationally. I’m not saying that English shouldn’t now be the language of diplomacy, or that you don’t have an education if you haven’t read Montaigne and Rousseau (without whom, in certain ways, the US wouldn’t exist), but that the sudden loss causes some tension.
The Wise Use Movement in the West is the closest analogy here, where also just a generation or two ago you could pretty much do what you wanted, and suddenly now ranchers feel hedged in, and lay claim to everything from birthright over US lands to traditional claims to wasteful or destructive practices, and “Damn them Easterner Liberals/Californicators”.
I would agree with everything said above, but I don’t think Americans hate the French. They just make fun of the French because all they ever hear about them seems a little snobbish and/or weak: surrendered in WWII, won’t let American words enter their language, decry the invasion American culture, rude to tourists, separated themselves from NATO… I think the problem is that Americans don’t hear enough about the French. The US is a significant portion of the news in France every night. Americans see France in the news about once a month and it is mostly things that confirm their opinions (French trash McDonald’s). If Americans heard more of the events going on in France, they would come to the conclusion that the French are pretty much like themselves, and that their differences, where they exist, are decreasing.
Of course Americans don’t hear much about the goings on in any country. The limited information they receive about the French, like the Polish before Solidarity, makes them easy to ridicule.
Several of the above posts note that Americans vilify/mock the French for surrendering in WW II . . . would you American posters be surprised to know that Canadian schoolchildern are taught that Americans were ‘Johnny-come-latelys’ to both wars, especially WW I, in which Canada lost more troops per capita than any other country. In WW II American firms made a fortune selling arms to both the Axis and the Allies before 1941, while Canadian troops and sailors were fighting in Europe, Asia and Africa.
There are records of American officers refusing to relieve Canadian units at the front in WW I out of fear that the Canadians (who had been in the trenches for 3 years before the Yanks arrived) would turn on their raw recruits in anger.
All this to say that nobody in Canada believes the Amercian military is afraid to fight today, so why let past historical dithering influence modern sentiment? Times were different in 1917 and 1939, no?
Come on, this is easy. I can’t tell you how many tourists coming back from Paris complain about the French. That’s where the image comes from. I know the rest of France is better than Paris, but how many tourists go to Lyon? Throw in France’s obsession for its own language and your off and running. By the way, I once asked a person with a French accent if she was from Canada (I don’t live far from there). She sniffed “No! I am the real thing!” I don’t think the French are all that impressed with the Quebecois.
All the above is good info, and good reasons for antipathy between the two countries. I was aware of the vast majority of the histories, including the De Gaulle issue which also carries over to French antipathy for the Brits, and vice-cersa. I know that world history as taught in American K-12 is different than world history taught in most of the rest of the world. I have heard from Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and even Danes that the U.S. is considered to have been slow to enter the WW’s and is therefore somewhat responsible for much of the damage done in the later stages of the wars, because they would have been over sooner if we had gotten involved sooner. (I won’t comment on the reasoning involved in that difference of opinion now, but I have had long discussions about it in the past.)
I also agree with Fernmeldetruppe that is isn’t really hate, it’s more like a general lack of respect in the media. It bothers me because as mentioned repeatedly above, historically the French, like many other nations, have been allies AND enemies of the U.S. on and off for all of our history. We wouldn’t have a history without them.
I still don’t see how the things above that caused the antipathy are enough to justify the disrespect shown in the media. Other nations have similar patterns of political behaviour but are not shown similar disrespect. Italy changed sides in both WW’s and Germany is seen as the aggressor and responsible party. If politics and wars are the driving force, shouldn’t our recently disolved cold war with Eastern Europe have them as the butt of our jokes? If it was strictly a perception of cultural snobishness then wouldn’t the Japanese be a target? As I understand it, while it is unlikely one would encounter a rude host in Japan, if you are not born into their culture you are likely to be considered a foreign person forever. Even natives who spend too much time in the U.S. or elsewhere are given a label as a type of foreigner. Japanese executives working in the U.S. are thought to rotate back to Japan every three years or so to prevent this.
To me there doesn’t seem to be enough of a difference between France and other nations to justify the continuous low levels of disrespect. I have three alternate explanations that maybe someone can give me feedback on:
(1) It is my perception - since talking with my Danish friend I have been specifically sensitive anything anti-French, much like people who read horoscopes remember only the accurate predictions, and none of the errors; (2) Other nationalities have more successful anti-defamation groups, due to larger concentrations of ex-patriots living in the U.S. (I would be a comedian making anti-French comments in New Orleans would find a somewhat hostile crowd.), and spend more effort on asking media personalities and their writers to stop, (3) It is just a persisting irrational issue, similar to sports team rivalries, which seem to fill the need for an opponent.
I think number 1 is most likely, but all the feedback above seems to dismiss it. I hate “all of the above” solutions, but sometimes that is just the way it is. People are too damn silly.
I’ve absolutely nothing against the french … as individuals.
I’d not trust them as a people. But then, I’m British 
France is a beautiful country, wasted on the french 
Has anyone noticed that almost every episode of The Simpsons has a French joke? It seems almost obligatory. I haven’t found anything concrete about that, though.
My grandfather was an Army Air Corps pilot in WWII and he completely WIGGED when I told him I was studying French back in middle school. He doesn’t trust the French, and he makes that fact very well known whenever someone brings up the French culture, language, etc. In fact, he and my grandmother got in a tiff when my grandmother wanted to visit France in the early '80s. He refused to go, and my mom had to go in his place.
I guess that some WWII veterans might be contributing to the anti-French sentiment. Maybe they pass it down to their kids.
Personally, I’m not anti-French. But I don’t think Americans can count on France like we did in the Revolutionary War days. Remember when the U.S. bombed Libya in '86 and Mitterand wouldn’t let the planes fly through French airspace?
I still think that if you watch movies and TV shows from the 1930s through the early 1960s, you are not going to find the pervasive appearance of an anti-French attititude. Posing it that way recalls a related issue to my earlier post: Vietnam.
The French fought their Indochina war as an attempt to hold on to the empire. Ike had suggested that if they wanted U.S. support, they had to frame it in terms of Communist containment. When the French finally left, Ike went to the southern division of the country and made good on his own recommendation. As Vietnam became a bigger and bigger war, the French publicly chastised the U.S. on numerous occasions for our involvement. Whether this was a matter of “You wouldn’t help us, but now you’re going to try it yourselves?” or some other feeling, it was certainly true that France was the loudest group condemning U.S. actions. If this feeling was general throughout the population, and not a manufactured response by the government, it might explain a lot of the person-to-person incidents of perceived rudeness.
The image of the rude French has been around for quite a while. My parents were warned about the rude French, but only encountered two rude people, one waiter and one salesclerk throughout France and Paris. I was warned about the rude French and did not encounter any rude people on multiple visits to Paris and France (in one year-long period–I don’t get to fly over each spring, or anything like that.)
However, jokes in which someone mentions France and someone else asks who they surrendered to, this time, are fairly recent. I wonder if South Park, The Simpsons, and a couple of other TV shows have been drumming up more anti-French feeling than is actually widespread in the country (much as “Polish” jokes made a splash across the country while Laugh In was on, then retreated to the Chicago/Detroit/Buffalo/Pittsburgh locations where they had been endemic for years).
I have to agree with tomndebb. I can’t cite specific examples, but I have a vague recollection of France, and especially Paris, being held up as an exotic, romantic, polished, erudite place in American television and film up to the 60’s (reruns). The whole “ah, Paree!” sort of thing. Now, such gushing affection could only fly if followed by a cutting remark.
However, I think it was the whole Lybia thing that really fanned the flames recently. Here are the brave American boys in blue, going in to fight the evil-dictator-of-the-month. Totally black and white. And here’s France displaying obstinacy and fear of reprisal–the sort of behavior Americans detest (when we’re not doing it ourselves–see WWII). And, just to underscore our contempt, we “accidentally” send a laser-guided bomb into the French Embassy’s flower garden. The whole incident has a “did it in spite of you, you coward” sort of feel to it that makes me a little uncomfortable at times.
I think it was at that point that the contempt grew into its own genre of humor. My guess is that prior to Lybia, there were plenty of Americans who had been turned off by the French, but largely on a personal basis–tourists, war veterans, perhaps businessmen. But after Lybia, all Americans were encouraged to view the French as stubborn, insular, and timid. That’s a ripe target for American humor.
What we really need is for a sociologist to hang some numbers on this, somehow.
As an added aside, I swear I read an article this year where John McCain was quoted in the Washington Post as saying something like “that’s just one more reason why I hate the French.” I can’t find it now. Anyone else see that quote?
Anti-French humor definitely predates Libya and The Simpsons. I remember reading numerous anti-French jokes in the National Lampoon, for example, back in the '70’s.
I think many have touched on these issues, but I thought it would be useful to state them. The relationship between the US and France is complex and not easily defined in a sentence. We agree with each other on somethings, but not others. Also, neither American nor French opinions are homogeneous. Americans have wide-ranging opinions on free trade, isolationism, military deployments… The American leadership is particularly divided on issues important to the international community like warhead reduction, green-house gases and the US debt to the UN. It must be quite difficult for non-Americans to square these issues and say “I like Americans” or “I don’t like Americans because they think…”, but I believe non-Americans accept the situation and think “Americans have done good things and bad things, but America is neither good nor bad”.
I think Americans have a hard time with this complexity. They prefer: “You are either with us or against us.” No doubt after Lockerbie, some French may believe that their denial of airspace to the Americans for the Libyan raid was justified. Other French still can’t believe that their country didn’t allow a US flyover. I am sure that this situation is viewed as a tactical difference of opinion at a particular point in time. To many Americans, this was a loyalty test; not a complex international issue. Americans like to categorize countries as friends or enemies: “If you don’t agree with us, you are our enemies.” The French are classic “non-agree-ers”. This allowed them to be labeled “non-friends” and therefore acceptable objects of derision.
Of course this is a generalization. As individuals, Americans are prefectly capable of dealing with these complex issues. However, not having dealt with a lot of French people personally (or not studying the issues), Americans revert to the friend-or-foe classification based on an insufficient sampling of French attitudes.
Without making this any longer, I agree with all three of Engineer Don’s causes. #2 probably being the one where the most in-roads can be made: “Better Marketing”.
Engineer Don says:
The next time one of my fellow Danes try to argue that point, please feel free to administer a swift kick to the seat of his pants and tell the ungrateful bastard it was from me. Denmark did just about all that France has been accused of: Surrendered with hardly a fight, had a highly collaborative government (at least until '43), helped build our part of the Atlantic wall, sent farm produce south etc. Sad to say, more Danes got killed wearing a German uniform than did in Allied service or the resistance. Not our finest hour - though we did manage to get (most of) the Jews to Sweden, which is about the only thing that makes the sad story even remotely bearable.
“Somewhat responsible”, indeed! America did what was needed when it was possible and I for one am grateful.
Sorry about the hijack (and the rant, for that matter…)
Spiny, you guys didn’t just get most of the Jews to Switzerland. Dennmark was the only example in WWII where an entire nation worked to rescue a hunted people. And you did it in a matter of days and weeks. That’s pretty admirable, in my opinion.
As for collaboration, well, every government under German control had their Quislings.
A subjective question for those with experience farther back than I have: is the current state of French-ragging greater now than it was in 1980? 1975? 1964? 1954?
SofaKing just reminded me of another issue here: the French have some dubious involvement with anti-Semitism, from WW2 back to the Dreyfus Affair, which may have left some lingering bad blood in the US and US media.