Have you ever actually been to France? I’ve been there several times, and the only obnoxious people I encountered were tourists, mostly American and German. As far as their leaders are concerned, I despise some of them as much as I despise some of ours.
If you’d typed that in all caps and boldface, they’d prolly surrender to ya…
We certainly couldn’t have won our revolution without their help; French troops, warships and money made a big difference in 1777-83. But we are culturally closer to Britain, and have inherited many of their anti-French prejudices, I think. And, as noted above, helping the French in two World Wars and then seeing them take a much more independent line during the Cold War really hurt Anglo-French ties. Ingratitude (or what seems to be ingratitude) does not go over well with most Americans. A perceived lack of French support during the War on Terror, and of self-dealing with Saddam-era Iraq and other unsavory regimes, have also done some damage. President Bush has also been… cool, at best, towards Paris, and that sets a tone for some.
I’m francophone and live in French speaking Switzerland. I’ve never heard anybody mocking the French, even pleasantly, not even my German Swiss friends. But perhaps I don’t frequent the same kind of people… If I meet anyone here making fun of Frenchmen, I’d just laugh along with him.
It’s telling that most U.S. French haters have never been in France, just like people here who criticize Americans have never been to the U.S.
(I mean “criticize”, not hate).
That’s what I’ve been asking right since the start of this business. Why are we tagging along for the ride?
I’ve come across quite a few gun-owning Americans on other boards who still seem to be stuck in 1776
If it wasn’t for the French, you’d all still be speaking British
A couple of years ago, one of the executives at my work was talking about his vacation in France. When he was out of earshot, my coworker said, “The only thing I need from the French is a fucking backbone.” He sounded like he meant it, too.
I really don’t understand the “Frenchies are cowards” meme. France didn’t surrender to the Nazis because they were cowards, they surrendered because they got the crap beat out of them. If you could somehow replace Typical 1930s Frenchman with Typical 1930s American, we would have got the crap beat out of us too.
I find it kind of baffling that some people seem to take France-bashing seriously. Among the folks I hang out with, we mock France for the same reason we mock New Jersey – tradition!
(Of course, we here in Minnesota more often mock Wisconsin than New Jersey, but I used Jersey as a more universally-understood point of reference.)
We need the French, if only to keep up from buying into the California idea that wine = fruit syrup.
Sorry about that, forgot this was in GQ.
Is it just the U.S. who hates the French?
I remember shortly post-CIS and dissolution of the USSR Billy Crystal was doing a comedy concert in Moscow and he said (paraphrased) *“We thought you were the enemy, you thought it was us – but we were both wrong it was the French!” *and he then began to “speak” in French a few real words interspersed with French sounding words and accents while pulling a snooty face and the Russians were clearly laughing and applauding – they really ate it up more than most of the rest of his act which got respectful applause and a few laughs.
In England I saw a fairly neat modern interpretation of Henry V – the French were depicted over the top fashinistas and effeminate snobs – and the English audience ate it up
As some have pointed out, France-bashing has gone on for a long time in America. And I think yabob is on to something when he links it to our Anglic heritage. While I think that’s the foundation of America’s France-bashing, I don’t think that’s all there is to it, since American France-bashing has a distinctly different tone from British France-bashing.
The American version seems to have started in nineteenth century class warfare. All of Europe held France up as the height of fashion, and a similar esteem caught on in America. If you were of the upper crust, you gilded your aristocratic glitter with Frenchness. Pretention is easily mocked, and since we Americans have always taken a distinct joy in mocking pretention, anything French got to be associated with anyone who was too rich and thus out of touch with the world, and thus not jes’ plain folk.
This seems to have lasted into the 1920s, when French fashion, French food and French wine were still all the rage among the high-hats-and-spats crowd. Fashions changed, but somehow, America’s old habit of mocking France didn’t. I guess that’s just because it’s an old habit and we really didn’t have any reason to change. Further, there wasn’t a large number of fresh French immigrants to this country to take offense, so it just continued.
During World War II, France got plenty of sympathy from America, and the French Resistance was romanticized (and important!) Despite Pétain and friends, most of the French didn’t collaborate; this attack is made up in modern times as a way to insult France for showing a little backbone in the international arena—having the gall (so to speak) to make its own foreign policy. They still do this, which leads to the perception that the French weren’t opposed to Soviet expansion, weren’t in favor of capitalism, and weren’t opposed to terrorism. That outdated stereotype of arrogance and condescention gets hitched to French independence and unfairly so. Further, I’ve noticed that the French are quite a bit more blunt than we Americans are, as I discovered during the year I lived in France. As an American, I found this simultaneously refreshing and uncomfortable.
In France, you’ll find citizens who have a kneejerk hatred of America and most any other country, just like you have plenty of Americans who hate France and most any other country. The word bigot derives from the name of a particular Frenchman, sure, but it’s hardly a distinctively French trait!
It seems that modern Americans who hate France are still buying into that outmoded idea that liking France equals arrogance and hating France equals salt-of-the-earthiness. I don’t think many of the France-haters are even aware of America’s history of anti-France bigotry, and just what it’s about. I think it’s gotten particularly mean-spirited these days, probably due to French resistance to Bush’s Iraq war policy, which has caused some to resent France to the point of loathing, and making up that stuff about their being terrorism supporters with a long history of Nazi collaboration and fine cheese production. Okay, the fine cheese production is true, but the rest are unfair, particularly in light of the fact that these people give Germany and Italy less crap about Nazi collaboration than they do France.
France is hardly a perfect society, but it’s also the unfortunate victim of the habits of backdated superficial populism and modern political disagreements. I say give 'em a break already, but that’s not going to happen. But I’d say that’s why France is such a popular target chez nous, les Américains.
They had a personal and very unpleasant experience with the Japanese occupation of Asia.
They must feel it’s in their self-interest somehow - defending the world against Saddam, or Communism, or something. Countries don’t do things that aren’t in their own self-interest. If the U.S. turned isolationist again, and decided leaving NATO was in our self-interest, we’d do it in a second, regardless of historical bonds.
And so that justifies hating an entire nation? Not very perceptive, were they?
Why don’t you ask the older residents of Nanjing, or other survivors of Japanese war crimes?
Imperial Japan was evil, and it wasn’t just because of a few bad eggs in the government and military. Some people wonder how much has changed when they read about the efforts of certain Japanese factions to rewrite history and ignore the crimes of Imperial Japan.
God damn… The “freedom fries” thing was a tongue-in-cheek joke. It was a reference to how people did the same thing during WW1 with German foods (ie, calling sauerkraut “victory cabbage”)
Actually the French have been rather helpful when it comes to Islamicists, they regarded the UK as foolish allowing such people to operate in Londonistan - something we woke up to on 7/7.
Not also, there are French troops in Afghanistan.
They are not keen on Iraq, and they don’t like Iran and Russia baiting.
From my visits to France, the place looks well run, the people affluent and they enjoy a good standard of living. There is bad unemployment among the young, but we in the UK have a similar problem which we conceal by fiddling the figures.
Historically the French don’t really trust the USA or the British governments, I can’t say that I blame them - there is a lot to be said for self reliance and the idea of the UK inserting itself into the EEC as a ‘spoiler’ did not appeal to them.
Like the UK, France is an old Colonial and Imperial nation, which means that it has unpleasant memories of things going wrong abroad - Algeria for example - which makes it difficult to go along with recent US foreign policy.
After seeing THIS I don’t see what there is about France to hate! 
Everyone left out one factor. Those Americans who do go to France probably spend most of their time in Paris. From personal experience everyone hates Parisians, including the rest of France. I remember talking with some French in the Hofbrauhaus tent at Ocktoberfest. They begged me not to judge the whole country by how they are in Paris.