Sorry, this is all wrong.
The working class don’t hate the French. I have never heard a working class person express hatred of the French.
What they do understand – and what educated middle class progressive types are too stupid to understand – is that France is different: France and England have irreconcilable cultural differences and any attempt to politically unify the countries as the EU did is bound to result in catastrophe.
I Love France. I studied there, worked there, I would spend every holiday there if I could. I love the culture, the food, the people. But I do not in a million years want to share a government with them. (Which pretty much goes for Germany and Italy too.)
True. I’ve vacationed in France twice. Both times I thought Paris was unfriendly and overrated. In the countryside people were much more relaxed and tolerant of my attempts to speak their language.
No I’m English, not a self-deprecating one either.but it is entirely true that most of the planet hates the English and England.
The French are either neutral and somewhat positive about us.
So we should probably appreciate our French neighbours
Idiot!
Of course they don’t.
It might have escaped your notice that large numbers are trying cross the Channel in canoes and rubber boats to escape the horrors of France and beg for asylum here.
Of course it isn’t horrible in France; I know that well, but the fact that thousands are camped around the Channel ports looking for a way to sneak across, says something about your stupid assertion.
Argentinians, indians,Irish,Spanish,Indian, africans,Irish Americans , a lot of other americans,South Americans(which surprised me) , a lot of russians,Hungarians,East Asians (go to aznidentity on reddit),Israelis and also Palestinians ,Pakistanis, some Portuguese and even some italians unfortunately (who I’m fond of,lot of Russians ,Arabs all of them,
So in conclusion the French who don’t really “brit bash” like the english French bash are really one of our few friends
People forget ,that outside Europe people still hold ancient animosities
Still think about history alnld leven in Leurope people still hate and look down at the english or find some other reason to hate the english
Look its just true – large swathes of the global population hate the english, from Ireland, the americas (Argentina but also other South american countries and even US)
Africa,India,the Muslim world ,even east Asians ,Isrealis,
Also go outside english speaking Internet
And even inside the english speaking Internet a lot of people don’t really understand us they way we understand ourselves
Which is just ridiculous signaling. The world picks up on our self-loathing, and it becomes the thing to reference. As an American, I find it pretty loathesome that every American is trying to stay far from every other American and to signal that they are not like the other Americans. Ha! While carelessly bringing over our ridiculous political provincialism, I will add.
I have experienced among the British, but to a far lesser degree.
The English are excessively self depreciating I agree and I have seen a lot of that type of anti compatriot signalling from the english too.its tiresome
Untrue.. Ireland Wales and Scotland don’t like England and it was really obvious through this crisis because none of them could work together as a team to provide a clear message to the Brits! They were all a joke. I am
Welsh, lived in England , love Scotland but now live in NZ . It’s amazing what you see when you are outside.
Charles de Gaulle understood that too. He knew that Britain would never fit in what was then the Common Market which was conceived mainly to seal France and Germany together and thus avoid further battles.
De Gaulle’s calculation was more pragmatic – ‘managing’ Germany was the most important thing for French foreign policy – that would simply be more difficult if the UK was in the club. Two’s company, three’s a crowd.
De Gaulle was always scared of Germany and had a chip on his shoulder about Britain because without a Britain there wouldn’t have been a France for him to lord over.
I would dress that up in Grayling-Houellebecq-Fukuyama-ese with a few big words, spin it out a bit and write a book about it…but I’m a bit busy just now, y’know..no people to see, no places to go…
I’m working class and I only voted for Brexit on the vague promise of a possible war with France. We should’ve made them write it on the side of a bus, to make it a proper commitment. Quite frankly, I feel cheated. Oh well, c’est la vie… as they say in Wolverhampton.
Yes its interesting that the French Normans came here and then had an almost continuous war against the French Normans. It hasn’t been the same since the entente cordial that broke out after Napolean.
Yes, it really has which is sad. The reason for this as I discovered the other day, is that around 70% of the food and sauces that used to be prepared and cooked in local cafes, bistros and restaurants now comes frozen and preprepared from vast centralised catering suppliers. This is because with sky high taxes, a high minimum wage, short working weeks and a retirement age at 62 most restauranteurs simply can’t afford to employ the staff to make food in situ all they have staff for is to reheat it.
Yes, been here for 30 years. Only snag is the bureaucracy, but although I like the French people I wouldn’t trust their government as far as I could throw them…
Back in the 90s, I ran the UK computers for a French multinational. They kindly offered us a training course “Dealing with your French colleagues” led by an academic, who was a follower of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and showed us analyses of cultural attitudes across various nationalities. As you might expect, British, US, Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians all looked quite similar, while Japanese and Koreans were very different. But, on nearly every measure, the French came out as very different indeed.
As our lecturer told us, when dealing with the French “think of them as Japanese – then you won’t be as surprised by anything they might do”.
The middle classes also consider the French sophisticated-so it is Hyacinth Bouquet ( not Bucket) and Quiche Lorraine ( not ham and egg pie). It was a way of seperating from the ‘lower orders’-nineteenth century novels are full of conversations in French and is still used to sell perfume and make-up-parfum and creme for example.
‘Menu French’ as we used to call it.
Plus not a few Englishman used to call themselves ‘de’ something or other, to give themselves a certain sense of ‘’cachet’, whilst their wives strove to be so ‘chic’.
Fortunately this ridiculous affectation is now almost dead, even if not quite buried.
However even today it lingers on with the ‘bien pensants’ of inner Quislington, and other such outposts of absurdity.
Why does Unherd keep forcing my utterly correct and true posts to moderation? Nothing offencive, do you all have this? Is it because I am not mainstream, Right really, and this is a kind of gentler canceling than the Dorsey Zukerberg practices? I never return to re-read my old posts but will to see if any have this issue (My post sent to moderation above was to give French history with USA and UK since WWI), Up vote if you get moderated.
‘Then, thanks to his lockdown policies, the Economistdowngraded France to a “flawed democracy”, along with all the Visegrad bad boys and Modi’s India.’ In 2017 an Economist cover showed Macron walking on water. Just another example of the imbecility and appalling predictive powers of the MSM.
Well we have now learned that the MSM lied completely about the claim that Trump asked someone in Georgia to find X thousand votes. The Washington Post has even issued a retraction. This was a blatant lie that was repeated by the media across the world, None of them checked it, and the whole story came from one source who claimed to have overheard the conversation.
And even the MSM (in the form of Newsweek) admitted some weeks ago that the election was ‘fortified’ via the use of ballot harvesting etc, and this suppression of new stories that damaged the Democrats, such as Cuomo killing 13,000 people in care homes. Newsweek even used the word ‘conspiracy’.
The fact is that the MSM not only peddles fake news, it is proud of the fact that it peddles fake news.
Mainstream Media
Which having written it out for the first time – makes me question why the heck is it MSM not MM?
I blame our transatlantic cousins who too often display flagrant recklessness with their acronym discipline!
I very much dislike acronyms too and I had to be informed what MSM meant. With regard to current American parlance, I find annoying POTUS and its variations. At first I thought it was something out of the Roman Empire which it may be.
Love acronyms, must dash to work, but a quick few any literate person must know, MENA, REMF, WWG1WGA, KSA, CCP, SCOTUS, FUBAR – have to run, please add to the must know or you are completely ignorant of the world, list.
They got the story right and haven’t apologised for it. They got the quotes wrong. “Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now,’”reads the correction, in part.”
yes, your first quote is the most damning…unless you read or listen to what he said and find in fact it is absolutely nothing. Not a story…nothing, in fact.
For the first time EVER the president of USA called a state election official demanding a recount. On a phone call. – that is the best case scenario. But as you say not a story!
“Well we have now learned that the MSM lied completely about the claim that Trump asked someone in Georgia to find X thousand votes.” Uhm, no. They retracted part of the claim, a single misquote. But the call to Raffensperger is there for all the world to hear. It is real. And even without the misquote it is damning. It is not “completely” a lie. It is still quite obvious what Trump was up to. I remember listening to the call before I had read any quotes or transcript and found it hideous – and I say that as someone generally on the “right,” certainly not a Dem.
Nor here (UK) to the women who claimed they were raped by Alex Salmond , former leader of the Scottish National Party.
At the very least they should be charged with Perjury.
They are not for the people’s enlightenment, the press and the politicians. They are an elite clique and we continue to give them power to run our lives for their benefit.
Lets be real, the MSM did nothing but investigate every utterance Trump made, using the most spurious of ‘Fact Checkers’ and then used that to attack him every time, and when he did good things totally refused to cover that. MSM are the enemy within the gates. They will not investigate Biden and his crime family, not fact check his endless lies, or report on the utter destruction Biden and his handlers are causing in America.
I would go further and describe the Economist as the most over-rated collection of paper that has ever been stapled together. Where do these people come from (I mean the writers?) Cliche after cliche, in their heads: no real insight into anything, and reliably behind the curve on everything of significance. Take their China reporting for example, which I have been reading, intermittently, since the mid-1980’s. Here you find every fashion in the liberal elite’s view of China faithfully mirrored, from global bad boy 1989-95, to stunned disbelief 2003-2010, to imminent collapse 2010-2019. It’s as if someone from their US office interviews a few people in Wall Street and San Francisco once a month, sends the results back to Economist HQ in London, and then they work beaver-like to form the results into something that they believe will tell people in America what they already think – giving therefore, a guaranteed sale and a satisfied customer, at least on Main Street, which is their main market. I’ve stopped reading it, except for comedy value.
As a student I got a cheap subscription for the Economist and I don’t remember a single article that interested me or even vaguely entertained me. Full of self-important metrolibs with nothing of interest to say, obsessed only over their ability to write smug platitudes that only interests people with similar tendencies who want to appear intelligent by reading it in public
The accountants got hold of it, and it went downhill. It always happens when cashflow dominates creativity.
Last edited 3 years ago by Giles Chance
Richard Lord
3 years ago
My visits to France have been mixed. I’ve found that the really rural French love the British and are very friendly, especially if you at least try to speak some French. The reaction in metropolitan and main holiday areas seems different, where the French seem to tolerate the British to get us to spend money. On our last trip, the restaurant staff could speak no English (not that we have any right to expect them to) – until we left them a tip.
The impression given by the French political class is one of outright hostility to Britain. Is it true that they can’t forgive Britain for their apparent humiliation during WW2?
The problem seems to be to getting to the point of speaking English. In fairness to French service staff, they probably have had some brushes with arrogant Brits or USians who think that anyone can understand English if it is spoken sufficiently loudly and slowly.
An old friend of our family advised that the best way to defuse the situation is to start off in a 3rd language, e.g. Zulu, after which there is no shame in using English as a common language.
“…arrogant Brits or USians who think that anyone can understand English if it is spoken sufficiently loudly and slowly.” It’s not just native-English people who think that. Afghanis, Belgians, Chinese, Dutch, Egyptians, Finnish (see where I am going with this?) EVERYONE when travelling abroad assumes other people speak English. It’s only once you have travelled do you realise that people of just about every nationality expect people to speak English.
I agree. I once learnt some Mandarin and wante to try it out. My teacher suggested a restaurant in Cambridge where the spoke Mandarin in addition to Contonese. I asked for a bottle of beer in Mandarin. The waiter paused for a few seconds and I could see him trying to understand what I said in the languages he knew. He eventually switched to Mandarin! He obviously did no expect me to speak in any lanuage other than English!
Actually, to learn perfect French is extremely hard for Brits. I have heard almost no British speakers who do not have a French father or mother who are in this category.
I’m told it is because vowel pronunciations are very different between French and English, and so anyone bought up deep learning one language will struggle to master pronunciation of the other (and disguise their accent). Not so Scandinavians, which is why they not only can achieve accent less English, but also master our regional accents – like the Danish footballers who speak English with a perfect Scouse accent!
Very interesting, because I’ve noticed several times the Scandi chameleon-like quality – ie. accommodating to, and blending in with…whatever. I wonder what the reason is ?
The last time I was in Paris about two years ago, the city was heaving with Chinese tourists. The waiters had started to speak English. Not because of the Brits.
The trouble for the French is if you want to know who has the Empire follow the language and Latin ( from both Roman and Holy Roman ) then morphed into English because the Americans chose English not French after 1776 ( even though the French paid for their revolution) and German was the language most Americans spoke.
I speak fluent French but in Paris not a single waiter will admit it, and instead talks to me in appalling English. Makes ordering a lot slower than it needs to be.
I have lived/worked in Paris and I often visit rural France to visit wine makers etc. Most normal people like the British and one of them even thanked me for getting rid of Napoleon.
As you say, the French political class has never forgiven the Allies for winning the war, although they have forgiven themselves for their collaboration with the Germans. I read a book about this collaboration a couple of years ago and it was far worse than I had realised.
The collaboration was on such a massive scale that it makes the period 1940-44 the most humiliating in French history, even exceeding ,if that is possible, the events of 1870.
Even worse, some of it is recorded on film/video, thus the infamy will last forever.
The killing was far worse in the Vendee than during the so-called Terreur, where the wonderful Republique demonstrated genocide to great effect. All nicely overlooked and forgotten now, of course. Except in the Vendee.
It’s easy to spurn the French for collaborating avec les Boches, but please ask yourself if the Brits would have been any different (see SS by Len Deighton).
Nonsense! Also your syntax is so incoherent.
Wherever you went to school, presumably the USA or Ireland, you should ask for your money back. They have patently failed.
So loathed that in WW1 and 2 that vast numbers of people from Asia and Africa volunteered to fight in the Armed Forces and Merchant Navy with people being commissioned, fighting with great courage and some winning the VC and GCs. People from the Commonwealth still volunteer fro the British Armed Forces.
In N Africa were there more men from India fighting than from occupied Europe?
Throughout the Commonwealth , countries still follow traditions aquired from the British where they are of use.
Those who are leaders often are loathed as they show up others inadequacies.
I have a wonderful, part memory, of an evening on holiday at a very rural French farm. The French family spoke no English, we had very rudimentary French. They invited us to join them for a barbecue. When we arrived it was clear that this was a gentlemens evening, which my sister ignored. There followed an evening of great food, wine and conversation as best we could,with lots of hand gestures. As the evening progressed they produced bottles of the spirits they made on the farm, hence the part memory. They were unbelievably friendly and hospitable.
They have been very hard on themselves over the Occupation. Lockdown has made me question whether the British or the Americans would have behaved so better in that situation. France is very much divided on Napoleon, some people loving his memory, others deploring it. I have heard more nostalgia over Napoleon from Britons than in France. I remember telling a French princess of an Englishwoman in Paris who told me of her admiration for Napoleon. The Frenchwoman was appalled by this frivolity, saying that Napoleon was the start of the mass murders that were to mark the twentieth century.
I should like to read such a book; do you by chance remember the name or author? For clarity, not to reinforce any judgement on my part 🙂 but a genuine interest in WWII. Thank you!
A good starting point for me was The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la Pitié) comprising interviews and reminiscences of those affected by the occupation. It is a two part film not a book, but offers an extraordinary intimacy impossible to capture in the written word alone. Seeing it changed my perspective of the French, exposing the myriad hidden tensions buried below the surface of family and community. Even now, only the J***** community is fully conversant with their government’s collaboration. The extent of governmental collaboration has been hidden from the wider population ever since.
(Edited to remove the trigger words N**i geno***e and J****h that apparently flagged this post)
My many visits to France show that it’s also the rural French that dislike the metropolitan French. A particular hatred is loathing for Parisiennes to teh extent that many vehicles with a Paris number plate (19), often get vandalised outside of Paris.
While staying with friends in the country, I went for a walk with my hostess. She greeted a local in his car. She and her family had a retreat there for decades and she knew the local and how much he made a point of hating Parisians. We were enjoying our walk but to tease him, she asked him if he would give us a lift. “No Parisians allowed in my car,” he sputtered and drove away. “He would have let Anne-Marie in his car,” my hostess said to me, Anne-Marie being her sister and a great beauty and femme fatale.
An old soldier I knew hated the French. In WW2 his tank was driving through a French village when it was hit by a shell from a disabled German tank. He was blown out of the turret but his crew were all killed. He was left for dead in a ditch after the French liberated him of his watch and wallet. A US soldier found him and saved his life hours later when he heard groans coming from the ditch.
… exactly — no good turn goes unpunished – especially the deep, deep humiliation of The Fall of France and ingrate de Gaulle’s scuttle trans Channel to, of course, England .
Richard, your experience exactly matches ours! When working we used to visit France regularly and, with the exception of Paris, generally found the populace welcoming and polite. We even entertained the dream of retiring in France, but to the south where the weather would be better. Accordingly we rented an apartment for 12 months in Mandeliu, near Cannes, with a view to sussing out the south for somewhere to buy. Au secours, quelle surprise! One of our tasks was to renew some insurance that the owners needed, so we trotted off to the local office where my wife asked, very politely, in French, did they speak English, because she was not confident about doing an insurance transaction. “Non.” came the stern reply. “Espanol?” from wife; “Si” from la grenouille. So in Spanish it went. After the transaction finished la grenouille, in perfect English, said, “Here are your papers, your Spanish is excellent”. Similar experiences led to my wife saying that no way would we live here; visit, yes, but live, no. So now rent on and off in Spain and their various islands and ‘todo esta bien!’.
I loved France until I discovered Spain; the old Spain, away from the Med. What a country, what a people, what style, what class. And even, what food and drink.
I agree, and the people are so much more spontaneous and individual. I can’t stand the conformity and uniformity in France. When you’re in a restaurant there is a whole stilted ritual about how it is served. The server has to recite the composition of the dish and then wish you ‘bonne continuation’. Some may like it but I prefer a bit of friendly banter.
Me too! I’ve spent time nearly every year in France, St Malo to be precise. But Spain is so so much better. I love the informality and free spiritedness in Spain. France is too uptight.
How is Spain ” informal” or ” free spiritedness”
They are bourgeois, conformist, insular,classist,
Last edited 3 years ago by Jake C
Philip Adams
3 years ago
This country has always had a love it or hate it relationship with France (i.e. Churchill well known Francophile) but maybe we should say love the difference, there are things to admire and things that make you cringe badly, it was also this type of difference which made me believe that European super state aspersions can never be realistic because the very difference in people in every individual country and culture does keep us separate, culture of ones own country should be celebrated not watered down, that also does not stop country’s admiring each other and working together for harmony that’s freedom of will, there is always a need to work together on many things but it doesn’t need to be homogenised into a super state conglomeration, I’m happy to Visit France and enjoy the country and people but always happy we have the Channel between the Continent and Great Britain
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
What is astonishing is how France has pulled itself together in the past seventy years, particularly after the humiliation of 1940.
When I first visited France in the 50’s it was staggeringly primitive compared to the UK.
Most of the population appeared to be dressed in identical dark blue overalls and black berets, there were few cars and then mainly little wobbly Citroens or tiny Renault vans, but thousands of bicycles and onions everywhere.
Men were regularly seen urinating at the side of the road, the water, even in ‘smart’ hotels undrinkable, and the lavatories and general plumbing, simply medieval.
Personal hygiene was of a very low order, and it was particularly noticeable that even young women didn’t shave their armpits. We used to joke that the French had ‘invented’ perfume to mask the stench from not washing. What we used to say about that pinnacle of Gallic civilisation, the
Bidet, is unprintable.
There were only two types of cigarettes available, both state produced, and reputed to be made of Camel dung and sold in rather cheap packets.
The omnipotence of the State was everywhere, and particularly infuriating when booking into Hotels etc. Everywhere you looked there were heavily armed Gendarmes of one type or another. Driving, particularly at night was a terrifying experience, but slightly better than Italy.
However the food and wine were magnificent and off course, everything was “as cheap as chips”. Consequently as a confirmed masochist I have returned nearly every year since!
And what an astonishing contrast! The TGV, superb, empty motorways, 40 or is it 80 Nuclear Power Stations, plumbing that works, drinkable water,
an a general feeling of wealth that was so absent in the past. However despite this wonderful Renaissance, one bugbear remains …..the Bidet!
Several of the things you mentioned reminded me too of France in 1954.
Nigel Clarke
3 years ago
Nah, us plebs hate the French because we fought them on and off for over a 1000 years.
They hate us because they hate everything that’s not French. They are, without any shadow of a doubt, the most arrogant and racist peoples in Europe.
I think someone once described them as cheese eating surrender monkeys, very apt I thought.
Are you not being a little harsh saying “nonsense”? I was aware of the Mers-el-Kebir incident but if asked “were France and Britain fighting each other in 1940?” I must confess I would have said no.
Remember, after the Brits defeated the Vichy French in Syria/Iraq, WWII, with lots of deaths in the fight, they gave the captured French the choice to return to France or fight as Free French with DeGual – almost all of them went Home! CESM!
The tragedy of Mens-el-Kebir was that far more of the French fleet wasn’t sent to the bottom. It could not have been allowed to fall into the hands of the Germans.
Agreed. The Navy’s shooting was rather poor considering many of the French targets were stationary at the time. I have heard that the ‘Mighty Hood’ in particular could have shot better. Perhaps this was one the causes of her subsequent demise some months later?
Quite so. And let’s not forget that the French were told of the consequences of their decision should they not hand over their fleet. Unfortunately they dithered… et voila!
Slaughtered? They were given 4 opportunities to surrender but refused, leaving the RN no choice but to sink the fleet to prevent it getting into German hands.
ACTUALLY – there was a second reason UK sank the French Fleet – USA was dithering waiting to see if UK really was in for the fight 100%, and if the French Fleet was handed to the Germans USA could not keep the Atlantic open, so they had to sink the fleet to show USA that Britain was really in the fight to the death. FDR understood this.
In 1940 Vichy was the legitimate government, which together with German occupation zone which accounted for 99% of the French population. There is no getting away from that very unpleasant fact.
Still not a fair point. The Nazis and the Soviets following them installed quisling regimes in many countries and you would not call any of them legitimate governments in terms of the point at issue
One of the great ironies of the world. We love France and we love the French. Can you imagine how our lives would be impoverished if France and the French did not exist.
At the same time they infuriate us and we infuriate them. It will never change and we probably dont want it to change. Life would be so boring
I think there is an ideological component this misses out – the French usually take a top-down approach, the British a bottom up one, like Plato and Aristotle made into nations. The French state during the scientific revolution would only allow articles to be published after they had been checked by a committee of experts. In Britain, anyone who had access to a printing press could churn out whatever they wanted. British philosophy, pre the 20th century, is basically empiricism, while the French have never met anything they didn’t want to systematise. While classical liberalism may have had its isolated French admirers, it is hard to see that it could have taken off there in the way it did here. It’s not that we dislike the French, it’s that we do not understand them, nor they us.
At least Macron has the guts to defend statues in France and announce that not single one will be taken down or mutilated. I don’t think Boris’s cabinet or Biden for that matter, are anything to gloat over.
You’ve hit it in on the head. The French, whether they be Communists or Fascists are inordinately proud of France, whilst the UK is stuffed with ‘Oiks’ who hate their own country with a vengeance.
It’s also about soap. The Froggies are lovely but they whiff, as even my good friend, a French lady who has lived in the UK for 30 years frequently remarks.
‘My sister smells!’ she exclaimed after her last visit to Rennes.
The French enjoy their natural aroma and shun soap and deodorants. They find the smell of sweat arousing in the same way they like ripe cheese that would never pass delicate English lips.
For further proof, look no further than the French cop show, Spiral – 8 seasons and no sight of the shower or the funny little slippery thing that is sometimes found in there. The two main protagonists were forever having a romp then getting dressed again sans douche or even laver les mains. I just finished watching another French cracker, Call My Agent, on Netflix. Again, four seasons of stylish clothes, parfum et vin, but never a single trip to the salle de bains. You could smell the cologne mingled with eau d’armpit throughout.
Granted, to them, we probably all stink like the perfume counter at John Lewis.
Henri IV , the most popular of French kings, used to tell his mistresses when he was coming to stay the night since he relished their natural feminine scent.
Many (50?) years ago I went on a two-week school exchange visit to St-Etienne. We were each paired with a French family. When we met up at the end to go home, one of the girls in the Brit party could not get over the fact that her host opposite number did not change her underwear for the entire fortnight!
Hello from (near) Paris.
We love you, too
We take a shower at least once a year, even when it’s not necessary. Since Louis XIV we the french are as clean as one can get. Feet smell ripe cheese, etc.
Howard Medwell
3 years ago
France and Britain are very similar – we have a monarchy – the Fifth republic has a monarchical president; we both have areas formerly characterised by heavy industry and left wing voting, now industrial wastelands where people vote for Brexit or Marine Le Pen; neither of us like immigration very much; we both face the future with anxiety…
I chuckled throughout this piece and the comments – such a mix of half-truths and nonsense. It is simply not the case that the French hate the British, whereas, as this list demonstrates, there is a lot of anti-French feeling among Brits. I have been married for over thirty years to a French man and have never ever met with the slightest hostility from locals. On the contrary, my ‘charming’ accent seems to add to whatever appeal I might have. Of course there are maddening aspects to living here – the way the fuit and veg are categorised in the local supermarket, for instance, and the chaotic administration, illustrated by the fiasco of the vaccine programme. To use a polite version of the idiom the French couldn’t organise a bun fight in a boulangerie….But it’s so enriching to discover where the personal ends and where the cultural begins, to engage with differences – as expressed in literature, art, music as well as in every day life. Plus – to add one more generalisation – men and women like each other here, desire circulates easily and freely, which is one of the reasons French women took a stand against the Me Too movement. They don’t want to lose the pleasures of seduction and flirtation….
The French don’t hate the British – they hate the English. If you explain to a frenchman that you are not ‘anglais’ but are ‘ecossais’ – and are insulted by the confusion (just as the French would be if you called them Belgian) they are first apologetic, and then the embodiment of charm. They like the Scots (but then, so does everyone.)
Pierre Whalon
3 years ago
What an odd article, and the comments even more so.
If any Brits hate the French and most do not, it is only because the French have so much more class and style, not forgetting wonderful food and great wine.
Geoff H
3 years ago
J’adore la France with a passion. Four happy years in Normandy until circumstances dictated a move, went to Ireland – rather than back to the UK – where it’s the closest thing you will get to living in the French countryside. And the people are great too.
Vive la France! Vive Irelande!
Last edited 3 years ago by Geoff H
Phil Bradbury
3 years ago
Not complicated. In the sixties, Brigitte Bardot, Francoise Hardy, Anouk Aimee and their chums packed far more of a punch for the lads than any of our homegrown talent, (Marianne Faithful excepted….but she had a certain je ne sais quoi) For the ladies, Alain Delon, Jean Paul Belmondo and Sacha Distel. Our culture, despite the better music, seemed a bit strait laced by comparison. It’s so different now!
Last edited 3 years ago by Phil Bradbury
jack hayward
3 years ago
As to the last conflict being Waterloo, we have almost come to blows many times since 1815. Most of the Victorian Forts on the South Coast were built in anticipation of a French invasion during Victoria’s reign and what about the Fashoda incident in 1898 which could easily have led to war? In WW2 British and Imperial troops fought the French in Vichy territories in North Africa and famously sank the French Fleet at Mers el Kebir which some French are still very bitter about today. Then there are the dark rumours about weapons supply to the Argentinians during the Falklands War!
The Exocet missile used to devastating effect by the Argentinians was French I believe. I remember a news report from the time of the Falklands War that British and French sailors came to blows in a French port because of this apparent treachery of our near neighbours.
I chose to live in France. I hope to become a French Citizen in a couple of years. For all its idiosyncrasies, bureaucracy and love of paperwork it’s still a great place to live. Best of all is the love of good food and wine – where lunches can go on for hours and the conversation never stops. Not forgetting of course, the local west coast beaches – which are stunning.
Brits hate the French because they’re you’re next door neighbor. Americans hate the French because they’re too much like us. French hate Americans because I just said that.
Last edited 3 years ago by Charles Rense
Deb Grant
3 years ago
My husband worked for a French multinational for 15 years. At one stage, a senior French executive commented on one of the UK’s sales tactics. He said, seriously and without a scintilla of sarcasm, that “it might work in practice but it won’t work in theory”.
Philosophical debate took precedence over robust analysis.
And yet France is a very rich country with more global 500 companies than UK. Did they do that by “philosophical debate”?
Des Wynne
3 years ago
A hilariously stupid article, trying to maintain a vague semblance of balance but constantly tipping over into xenophobic rants. The french ruling class may we’ll be a meritocratic elite but most french people I’ve met are warm welcoming and hospitable.
Brian McGinty
3 years ago
Naturellement Scots like myself love the French and we had a long-standing alliance with them . I wonder why.
Terence Riordan
3 years ago
Of course but differentiation between france and Frech Politics is fundamental. Personally I have always found Italy much more fun than France and the people in general much more friendly.
David Foot
3 years ago
It is not true, I love the French and believe that we should share our vaccines with them, even if they have been so dirty towards our Oxford vaccine, once the last British hampster has had its second dose we should send all the rest of our stock to France!
William Cameron
3 years ago
I would question when the French have been our allies . They were there when we had to fight Germany but allies is a bit strong. The last conflict they were involved in with us was selling and supporting Exocet missiles for Argentina.
Surely the French only wanted to be ‘our allies’ to protect them from the Germans. One of the ironies of Brexit is that by helping to drive the British out of the EU they are now at the mercy of the Germans and their Fourth Reich (aka the EU).
They were always at the mercy of the Germans. Everyone in the EU is. If the French don’t know this, they are dimmer than I thought because it’s patently obvious. The Germans run the EU.
Simon Baseley
3 years ago
What the British dislike about French (if that is the case), is that they have France, and we have this country. Or more precisely they have all that land. Anyone who has travelled on the other side of the channel knows that the British would make a far better job of looking after the French countryside than our Gallic neighbours. Consider what relocating Brits have done to revive rural France, which the French have rejected in favour of sitting at pavement cafes drinking heavily and sucking in exhaust fumes or lounging about in apartments discussing Marxism. Every year hundreds of thousands of our countrymen and women shell out eye watering sums, in order to spend their annual holiday in accommodation which possibly only a few months previously will have housed three hundred geese and a family of ten. As most of our urban areas demonstrate the British are hopeless at towns and roads, but brilliant when it comes to the countryside. If we could do a swap, I think it would put an end to years of sniping and set Anglo-French relations on the sort of footing that would make us the Torville and Dean of international affairs.
What a load of BS.
I have driven around France! Have i seen all of it? No! Who has?
But the parts of rural France I have seen are pretty, clean with excellent roads. I did witness a tire burning show by farmers in Lorraine. Other than that the countryside was beautifully kept.
And France is one of the richest countries in the world – that wasn’t achieved by discussing Marxism or Tolstoy. They are (brace yourself) more productive than the British.
Geoff M
3 years ago
I live in Brittany (much of france considers them to be English anyway). Recently I realised when at lunch with some Friends….the English and French are like an old married couple.
We love each other…but also hate each other.
eugene power
3 years ago
Permettez moi de ramener le debat a La france actuelle. Coiffee par un macro , echec lamentable a la recherche du vaccin covid, des millions d’ euros allemands perdus , fin d’empire culturelle et linguistique .(en EU on parle anglais) .Cuisine = macdo. Vin= piquette trop cher .
Il ne reste qu’une fantasme qui sert de chiffon d’ identite d’une bougeoisie de cons
Sour grapes??
Dommage que vous n’avez mangé que chez MacDo !
Keith Barber
3 years ago
This is the thing, we do not hate ‘the French’. We hate their metropolitan elite. Your average Frenchman is un ein gutes Ei (a good egg), and they are just as down-trodden by Les Parisienne as we are by London’s elite, except they do it with knobs on.
Daisy D
3 years ago
American w/Norman ancestry here. I recall my first trip to Paris w/my husband who observed, when I exclaimed that I couldn’t understand why our American friends hated the French so much because I was so enjoying them, “that’s because you hate all the same things they hate”.
I’m wondering if the most simple explanation of the English contempt for the French isn’t their Catholicism? Catholicism, from a Jungian perspective, is chthonic and so, deeply Feminine in nature. Protastantism, is more Apollonian, more stringently Masculine. Vive la dif·fé·rence does seem to come more naturally to the French than it does the English.
Yes, as long as you’re doing it their way, the French are indeed all for Vive la difference! But if it’s the Catholicism, then where does that leave British Catholics? Not to mention the Irish, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese? Do you find the English to hold all of them in contempt?
Who do the French get along with? They have anxieties and insecurities regardless of who they are dealing with. the US, the UK, Germany, there’s always the frantic effort to be seen as relevant.
“But if it’s the Catholicism, then where does that leave British Catholics? Not to mention the Irish, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese? Do you find the English to hold all of them in contempt?” Well, now that you asked .. 😉
Alex Aldemar
3 years ago
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if my country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year? If not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our great History, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values..
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
Last edited 3 years ago by Alex Aldemar
Tom Graham
3 years ago
How many of those fighting at Waterloo could have foreseen that, when the guns fell silent, it would be the last time the two countries ever fought, and the start of 200-and-counting years of friendship, a military alliance far stronger than the supposed “special relationship” with the US?
This guy needs to look up Mers el Kibir.
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Wasn’t it De Gaulle who rather begrudgingly described us (UK) as
“an island of coal surrounded by a sea of oil”?
De Gaulle had a very dry sense of humour, in fact almost English.
Paul Booth
3 years ago
Charles de Gaulle did, however, refer to the English as ‘the ancient enemy’.
nick harman
3 years ago
I think it was the removal of Duty Free fags and booze, by an upper middle class English PM that changed things for the English working classes.
Personally I cannot wait to get back to France.
Barry Brother
3 years ago
I’ve nothing against the French people; it’s their politicians I detest.
And according to my French friends, they feel the same about us and our Politicians.
“English people with Norman-French names are still richer than the rest of the population, even after 950 years” That’s because they stole our land by force and turned the English into serfs. I’m still hopeful for an English revolution against the still hated Norman-French usurpers. Yes, Hugh Grosvenor, we’ll be coming for you.
The Eurostar was a great help in the Entente Cordiale and I hope it can somehow survive. During the 1990s I was married to a French lecturer in historical monuments and during that period , she came up with the idea of leading several tours to England and Scotland which were facilatated by the Eurostar. At the time, many of France were ignorant that Britain had architectural monuments as interesting as to be found anywhere in Europe. For many in my ex-wife’s flock, the beauties of Bath, York, etc. proved a real revelation. They were also surprised that the food was more palatable than they had expected.
Thanks to all their magnificent Cathedrals being Secular rather than Monastic, they lack the impact of many of ours.
Even in the Secular sphere they have nothing to compare with the likes of Salisbury, Lincoln or Wells.
Jake C
3 years ago
I’m so tired of this French bashing,especially as they are one of the most receptive to us.
Their country is great and I feel far more receptive to them over “CRT – woke” USA.
They aren’t interested in brit bashing,it’s only in other countries you get the insane anglophobia(including other European countries)
Ultimately the French are one of our few friends in the World.
Because I can assure you the English are the most hated in the world.
We should be more grateful. Because we unjustly look at them with suspicion despite being the only friends we have.
Africa,Asia,Latin America and even North America, Middle East, loathe England.
This needs to be understood.
Who cares? The loathing for ‘the English’ is due to the fact that, over most of the globe’ the free individual is seen as a threat. The one thing about the UK, until foreigners of alien cultures decided to move here, is that it was not really class-driven, tribal, or caste-driven, despite the claims. This is not true of most other places in the world where who you are and your heredity determines your entire life, from birth to death. There is only one remaining example of a caste-based institution in the UK: the Royal Family/Monarchy. And that is the one insttitutional feature of the UK that makes no practical difference at all to anyone’s life. That’s why the British are so clever, and why the UK was, until recently again, so peaceful to live in..
That’s absurd whiggish nonsense.England is entirely class based.hingeing on the uneven distribution of land that’s existed since the very French Norman invasion 1066.
I’ve never felt hated by anyone on my travels in India (and the rest of Asia), Europe or my current abode in South America. Even in India, a veteran of Bose’s army told me what life was life during late British rule, but he felt no animosity towards a 19-year-old me. Maybe they just hate you Jake.
My experience around the world has been mostly cordial even positive.
Nonetheless if you go outside your online bubble or english speaking online bubble and outside your online racial bubble you’ll see the english are the most hated.
James Clander
3 years ago
I’m a fact seeker & with good reason I don’t trust offhand what is being parroted in the MSM. The Vaccinations are untried & potentially dangerous. How is it that a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which under normal conditions would take years to develop, was promptly launched in early November 2020? The mRNA vaccine announced by Pfizer is based on an experimental gene editing mRNA technology which has a bearing on the human genome. Were the standard animal lab tests using mice or ferrets conducted? Or did Pfizer “go straight to human “guinea pigs.”? Human tests began in late July and early August. “Three months is unheard of for testing a new vaccine. Several years is the norm. So to be advocating that all is SAFE is a very dangerous statement. There is an obvious aggenda World Wide for this so called “Great Reset” and all the leaders are singing from the same script. Time to Question BUT they’re censoring everthing & if it doesn’t agree with Official diktat it’s removed ! This is serious folks -better start questioning everything before it’s too late. See these World leaders in this short 3.5 min Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQgF-5hqaSE
How come so quick? Huge resources, ultra-high priority.
How can they test in three months? Because they tested in the middle of a pandemic. You need to test until you have enough cases of disease to notice the difference, and outside of a pandemic that takes longer.
Were the standard animal tests etc. done? They must have been. They followed existing procedures for ’emergency authorization’, they did not just wing it.
Were some corners cut? By China and Russia, sure. By Britain when they decided to begin by vaccinating once, when the protocol said twice.
Are there serious ill effects? No. Millions of people have been vaccinated now, if there were serious ill effects we would have seen it by now.
Were the vaccines ‘ untried & potentially dangerous’ at the start? Yes. Every medical treatment starts out that way. There could still be unexpected long-term effects from the vaccine, even if it is unlikely. Not short-term effects,we would have seen that. But COVID was tried, and known to be very dangerous. Even quite a few side effects would still be better than letting everybody get COVID.
If you have been bitten by a snake, do you take an ‘untried and potentially dangerous’ antivenom, or do you prefer to let nature take its course?
I’ve given up even thinking about responding to these anti-vax propagandists. Odd that the same people seem to be the ones who still push Chloroquine and other ineffective drugs.
The study that was published in The Lancet saying chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are ineffective against C19 has been retracted. Look it up. In the eighties there were simple drugs that repressed AIDS, which where forbidden by authorities like the FDA in the US. Patients were told to use an expensive drug called AZT, which was 10.000 dollar a year at the time. But AZT made patient conditions worse instead of better. See the movie made about the scandal, The Texas Buyers Club.
and while you are at it, maybe google for the ‘Thalidomide scandal’. Is the C19 vaccine save for pregnant women?
Furthermore, it is still unknown if you can be infected after being vaccinated. What could go wrong. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rush-to-create-magic-bullet-covid-vaccines/
Over the last 20 years, 2020 is ranked 12 place in Sweden in mortality, deaths per capita. In other words, it was not an exceptional year. here an article with all the numbers from the Swedish statistics agency. Nobody would notice there was a pandemic in 2020 going on in Sweden
See, https://softwaredevelopmentperestroika.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/final-report-on-swedish-mortality-2020-anno-covid/
@CL van Beek
About rush-to-create-magic-bullet-covid-vaccines/
1) All speculation,. might’, … ‘might’.. No evidence.
2) Their ‘natural’ weakening of viruses relies on people with virulent strains dying fast, so that their viruses die with them. Is that the kind of health policy you want?
About final-report-on-swedish-mortality-2020-anno-covid/
His final conclusion is ‘COVID is real, more people died than normal, but not as many as the most alarmist predictions had expected’. And so? The WHO estimate is over two-and-a-half milllion covid deaths worldwide, so far. Picking nits in the statistics of a single small country proves what, exactly?
I know one thing.. I have taken care of my health, body and I have never been hiding my face.. . I have succeeded tremendously, as billions of humans for thousands of years, and that is only natural. Not that we are here because our ancestor were under medication, to the contrary, that is only recent.. and it is not an upgrade, but a downgrade. Good health is a lifelong commitment.. and without robust mental and psychological health there is.. no health… And there is no compromise to that choice. Though.. others easily comply to the propaganda that shots of dirt and poison will save them.. or protect them.. or improve their immune system or will help them to live longer.. . Have you ever wonder of the 24/7 audio-visual violence from the media, have you ever wonder of the mass tortures as safety? even the bribery of £500 to isolate.. I do not insist and I do not give names to anyone who takes drugs, alcohol, smokes, feels safe with vaccines and if they wish they could inject themselves everyday.. enjoy! But to expect that everyone in the world feels like you, behaves like you etc, because you have your own reasons.. belief system, world view, course of life etc.. Are we babies here? Freedom, free will, tolerance, diversity and most of all Respect to each other are fundamental principles for adults’ health. Is corona a blatant attempt to disrespect everyone human? There is in fact Anti-anti-vaxxers propaganda.. not the other way around. For example it is really sad that I have not seen any writing on Unherd of the other side.. UNHERD.. listen, some of us we do expect a good balance of essays and articles of the other side..
Well said.
Whilst nobody can deny that the pharmaceutical industry makes billions – they seem to forget the other side of the coin. That an overwhelmingly large number of scientists and health professionals do their job because they love it and enjoy making people better.
They are people like us with families and friends who want the pandemic to be over. They have also been affected by this pandemic, no doubt far more due to exposure. So they have grafted to help try and sort out the mess.
To which too many people respond with inaccurate criticisms and even lies. Yes it’s fine to be sceptical, and questions should be asked but let’s try to keep one foot in the land of the rational.
The speed it was all done with, the new technology behind some the vaccines, yes, it does increase the risk, compared to existing vaccines. If there was a long-established alternative vaccine I would prefer that one, till there were more data.
For comparison, the Pandemrix swine-flu vaccine is said to have caused maybe 300 cases of narcolepsy, world-wide, for maybe 60 million people vaccinated (i.e. 1 in 200 000). That is 300 tragedies, but what makes it so stark is that in the end there was no swine flu epidemic. As things turned out, the vaccination saved no one (it could have gone diffferently, of course). With COVID we already have over 100000 people dead in Britain alone, plus all the aftereffects of ‘long COVID’. Even if there turns out to be quite a few problems with the vaccine, getting vaccinated is still a much better bet than the alternative.
How about some facts for this “fact seeker”:
Research had already been ongoing into SARS & corona viruses in general for decades. Work on SARS vaccines was accelerated after the SARS outbreak in 2002 (including animal trials)
Human vaccine trials in 2020 were conducted in parallel, rather than the usual sequential process, thereby reducing the time frame. This method will most likely become the norm now.
mRNA has absolutely no “bearing on the human genome” whatsoever. It is part of the one-directional transcription sequence from DNA to protein (DNA>mRNA>tRNA>amino acid). mRNA is by its very nature unstable, hence the requirement of having to store the Pfizer vaccine at minus 60 Celsius.
Its a SARS vaccine. Development started in 2004. It just had to be ‘tweaked’ for SARS 2. Plus, its a ‘plandemic’; They’d never have started all the lockdown nonsense, globally, in harmony, without knowing they could vaccinate their way out of it in due course. This explains, for example, why the EU is SO furious that the UK has ‘cheated’ by failing to execute the lockdown escape ‘in harmony’ with everyone else.
Peter H
3 years ago
But 1815 was not the last time we fought. The Royal Navy opened fire on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, killing hundreds. There was also Dakar, and some pretty savage encounters with Vichy forces in Syria.
Loved this: A middle-class volunteer militia would have revelled in playing the French… and emphasising all the correct pronunciations like they were reporting for Radio 4.
Ditto the inshore Shipping Forecast, where English narrators have, clearly, been told to twist their tongues around Scottish locations as they move up the west coast. It’s excruciating listening, and only something the middle-class would think worth the effort, lest they offend.
John Huddart
3 years ago
WE don’t hate the French, no matter how beastly they behave at times.
Last edited 3 years ago by John Huddart
Matt Whitby
3 years ago
The main divide is whether you refer to that thing you cooked as a stew or a bourguignon.
Victor Newman
3 years ago
This is based on a false premise. We don’t hate the French. We don’t think about them at all. They are always thinking about us.
There are more books written by British authors about France than French authors about UK.
The day that you will hear a Frenchmen say ” I bought a retirement cottage in Lake District” you know you (UK) made it as a country.
Last edited 3 years ago by Jeremy Smith
Steve Byrd
3 years ago
Merci, Ed! That cheered me up. The (few) French people I know are rather fascinated by Britain. I mean, we can’t even be sure of the name of our own country . . .
Hilary Arundale
3 years ago
Parisians can be a pain in the backside, but apart from some of them (waiters, principally) I’ve always found the French charming and they respond well to being addressed in … French! They love it when English people try to speak, even when we mispronounce, their beautiful language.
Also – where do the royals fit into all this? They are famously witheringly anti the French. This aligns them to the working class. In fact, what about the aristos generally? They like hanging out in the posh bits of France but they are pretty snooty about French culture and language, aren’t they? Maybe it’s the early influence of their working class nannies.
Hilary Arundale
3 years ago
Parisians can be a pain in the backside, but apart from some of them (waiters, principally) I’ve always found the French charming and they respond well to being addressed in … French! They love it when English people try to speak, even when we mispronounce, their beautiful language.
Also – where do the royals fit into all this? They are famously witheringly anti the French. This aligns them to the working class. In fact, what about the aristos generally? They like hanging out in the posh bits of France but they are pretty snooty about French culture and language, aren’t they? Maybe it’s the early influence of their working class nannies.
Jean-Michel Doublet
3 years ago
I hate to be pompously French about it but the proper spelling is definitely minuscule.
Jean-Michel Doublet
3 years ago
I hate to be pompously French about it but the proper spelling is definitely minuscule.
wills home
3 years ago
What a pile of shite. Working class people do not hate the French – bar a little football rivalry. What Murdoch tells working people to believe is not wat they do believe. You are just trying to get away with a whole slew of Sun-style bigotry but hiding behind the idea that this is how “they” think.
As for the wars against Napoleon: Y”ou say that Bonyparty he’s been the spoil of all, And that we have got reason to pray for his downfall. Well, Bonyparty’s dead and gone, and it is plainly shown That we have bigger tyrants in Boneys of our own.”
wills home
3 years ago
What a pile of shite. Working class people do not hate the French – bar a little football rivalry. What Murdoch tells working people to believe is not wat they do believe. You are just trying to get away with a whole slew of Sun-style bigotry but hiding behind the idea that this is how “they” think.
As for the wars against Napoleon: Y”ou say that Bonyparty he’s been the spoil of all, And that we have got reason to pray for his downfall. Well, Bonyparty’s dead and gone, and it is plainly shown That we have bigger tyrants in Boneys of our own.”
Alex Aldemar
3 years ago
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified and monstrous war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if our country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year if not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our history, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values.
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
Alex Aldemar
3 years ago
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified and monstrous war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if our country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year if not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our history, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values.
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
LOL!
Normans! That is the real issue.
In Banking, the “hostility” toward the French came from the Essex crowd (equity traders, sales desk, etc.) since the French dominated structured products, equity/credit derivatives and so on…
Your second paragraph is interesting. Is that an education thing you are talking about then? The French being people with a proper grounding in maths, logic and clear use of language, the English being just “buy cheap and sell high” football fan types?
Yes, French dominate the quant desks at any serious (Tier 1) investment bank. France has a selective education system (grand ecoles) but it is purely based on testing. You can not buy yourself (unlike Ivy League in USA) a spot.
Plenty of History/English majors from Oxbrige in the City. the French come from a business/finance/math background. I have yet to meet a French banker that studied French Lit working in the City.
What was the name of the French (Tier 1) Counting House that set fire to its Paris HQ, and then tried to do the same to its Record Office, in I think St Omer, a few years ago?
Last edited 3 years ago by Charles Stanhope
Peter de Barra
3 years ago
… just don’t mention The Fall of France … or 1870/71 … or 1914/18 … or indeed 1812 … [ ! ] .
Last edited 3 years ago by Peter de Barra
Vasiliki Farmaki
3 years ago
When patriotism fits for purpose .. some.. will exploit the patriots’ sentiments with similar articles and fanfares. How else they could bend resistance and iron out logic, freedoms, and free will? and also dreams, hope and diversity? The article is only an example of the many ( Chivers’ with the statistics and how safe is AZ vaccine, is another one..) they interweave irrelevant issues, and yes is done smartly, but what are the purposes of doing so? How come politics, war, history, holidays, diplomacy, cooking and wine have anything to do with the UK vaccination program..? if not only for the author to justify blindfold vaccination with the most unscientific vaccines ever? Shots to boost national pride hoping to push to the vaccination center as many as possible…. ‘while it’s of course important that our vaccine programme has saved thousands of lives so far,..’.. yep.. so far.. .. it is too early. What will happen in a year or three-year time? And I am afraid those vaccines’ design, whatever damage is done to the human genome will be passed down from generation to generation .. They always plan a long way ahead and they will never tell you… This is the Anti-anti-Vaxxers anxiety to winning all arguments from all sides and every single angel.. No space, no voice, no credits, no breath for other world views.. all must be the same, do the same, think the same.. What do they fear? To say that their aim is to silence.. that is only the pick of the iceberg. And some.. made sure that every country/nation have their own set of Anti-anti-vaxxers to manipulate those sentiments from within..
Last edited 3 years ago by Vasiliki Farmaki
Fred Atkinstalk
3 years ago
French cuisine is grossly over-rated. It seems to consist mainly of cheap cuts of gristly meat soaked in watery gravy.
There is a series of (excellent) novels by Jean-Francois Parot set in the 18th century, the central character of which is Nicolas le Floch, a commissaire de police in Paris. Food plays a very major part in the novels and there are many detailed descriptions of the dishes the characters indulge in.
The recipes are even more shocking and disgusting than the brutal crimes which take place in the books.
Indeed, French food is vastly overrated. English food was far superior and today you eat better in England than France. What ruined British cooking was Mrs Beaton – take four dozen eggs !
The Italians really get what food is all about! The French over think and over refine food, but it’s still delicious. The English (and all the UK) … Yikes! Is it the soil? But you do grow such pretty flowers, so that can’t be it.
English food is good,its much better than what I had in the States and the selection and variety is better than what I’ve had on the continent.even the quality can be better in england than the continent.
English traditional food is also great.
London was literally voted the world best food city by national geographic
LOL
Yes the great global conspiracy to over-rate French cuisine. Thank god for people like you that know the truth
Martin Goodwin
3 years ago
“that English Valhalla beyond the Loire”…… probably the Dordogne, where it is even wetter than Bognor!
Paul Goodman
3 years ago
Half of all things French are to be hated and the other half to be loved. Maximum gratification is realised by engaging only with the latter and speaking only of the former. Bliss.
Ken Barrett
3 years ago
Everyone hates the French. That is what they are there for.
Everyone hates the English, least liked ppl on the continental,North America, South America, middle east,Africa,east Asia.
English are hated much more than the french
Spot on. There is a sort of boasting among some English about how awful they are and how much they really suck. No other people put themselves down as much.
Sorry, not a deliberate omission : I just always felt that Wales was hostile to the English, but any hatred was less visceral than with the Irish, and to a marginally lesser extent, the Scots.
I had forgotten the slogan going round some years ago (70s ? 80s ?) “Come home to a real fire – buy a cottage in Wales.”
Not true,look around and read the room,there’s a lot of hate from the Irish,Argentina, other Americans,continental Europe ,East Asians, South Asians,ArabsAfrican,
A lot of people still hold grudges for imperialism-which seems absurd to me.
A lot of people aren’t reasonable
Also a lot of people think they are cultural or gastronomical superior or that we are too arrogant
Niels Georg Bach
3 years ago
The funny thing about Delors was that he was french elite but a protestant.. Could be that’s why he was much liked in Northern Europe.
R S
3 years ago
Economist’s view that France is flawed democracy along with India is the typical left wing media view of what is democracy. India being the world’s largest democracy, has held elections successfully in a country of 1.3 billion people. Still, it is branded flawed democracy-because it does not agree with Economist’s definition of democracy!
In India you have nationally elected politicians that incite deadly violence against their fellow citizens. Local officials, judges, police that simply make close their eyes. Elections do not make a democracy.
Terence Fitch
3 years ago
I know this is an enjoyable series of rhetorical tropes- good fun in a way, but this is the UK not England. You’ll be referencing the Auld Alliance next…
Noman L
3 years ago
We’ve owned a little house in the Périgord for 46 years. Locals hate the Parisians. Nuff said.
David Barnett
3 years ago
I winced when I saw “miniscule”.
Derek M
3 years ago
“….in 1804 the authorities organised a mock training battle in Wood Green, Middlesex, they got the Islington Volunteers to be the British and the Hackney and Stoke Newington Volunteers to play the French.” Of course in those days there were actual British people in Islington, Hackney and Stoke Newington, nowadays not so much
Johann Strauss
3 years ago
Interesting to see that the author states that “Now the country has, inexplicably, halted AZ vaccinations because of a miniscule number of blood clots, fewer than you would get with the contraceptive pill.”
The author ought to be accurate here. The clots in question are not just any regular old blood clot, DVT, etc.., but a very unusual and rare type associated with a low platelet count (thrombocytopenia). Normally, of course, an increase in platelets (or platelet stickiness to vessel walls) increases the probability of clots not the reverse. In other words, the type of blood clots in question that have been observed in various European countries following the AZ vaccine (or perhaps a specific batch of the vaccine) are actually very rare indeed under normal circumstances and have occurred far more frequently following AZ vaccine administration than would be expected on the basis of pure chance.
On another note as an Englishman (now ex-pat living in the US) who grew up in London and went to the French Lycee in Kensington from K through 12 (although perhaps one should use the French nomenclature of K through 1 since they count the classes backwards starting from 12!) I can totally empathize with hating the French. At the time we used to have French Math and English Math, French History and English History, and I would always root for the English side. And of course we would always refer to the French as chicken littles as they were always defeated by the Brits.
And yes, the French are inordinately rude to anybody who doesn’t speak French or if they do don’t speak it with the correct accent.
Simon H
3 years ago
I’ve lived in France for close to 20 years. Casual racism and excessive pride rule, insular, clever, vain and overly emotional, irrationally dramatic in times of crisis, they’ve perfected a miserable demeanour. All in all they have good values albeit prone to corruption at the first opportunity, although this is probably viewed as a virtue. Honesty – depending on circumstances – may be seen as weakness. The biggest upside to living in France is they detest the PC hand wringing that has so much affected the UK. The cheese is exceptional. Wine, a mixed bag but once you know your way around, again, excellent.
Simon H
3 years ago
I’ve lived in France for close to 20 years. Casual racism and excessive pride rule, insular, clever, vain and overly emotional, irrationally dramatic in times of crisis, they’ve perfected a miserable demeanour. All in all they have good values albeit prone to corruption at the first opportunity, although this is probably viewed as a virtue. Honesty – depending on circumstances – may be seen as weakness. The biggest upside to living in France is they detest the PC hand wringing that has so much affected the UK. The cheese is exceptional. Wine, a mixed bag but once you know your way around, again, excellent.
Jack Cole
3 years ago
This reminds me of being on a train and overhearing a fascinating conversation between the men in the seat opposite.
One worked for Airbus at in the UK, and was describing how his French colleagues had a resentful attitude toward the UK operation (they produce the wings).
He was describing how the French would constantly act in a superior manner, and undermine the UK operation, and also to put it bluntly, be as bloody awkward as possible.
To be honest, I can picture it.
Jack Cole
3 years ago
This reminds me of being on a train and overhearing a fascinating conversation between the men in the seat opposite.
One worked for Airbus at in the UK, and was describing how his French colleagues had a resentful attitude toward the UK operation (they produce the wings).
He was describing how the French would constantly act in a superior manner, and undermine the UK operation, and also to put it bluntly, be as bloody awkward as possible.
To be honest, I can picture it.
Karen Vowles
3 years ago
Super article!
Karen Vowles
3 years ago
Super article!
Anthony Roe
3 years ago
French art ended in 1963. They have awful taste and wish to live in grimy modern bungalows or flats with flat pack furniture. Family restaurants are near extinct and the French coo pathetically over the micro-waved Brake Brothers mush that is served up to them. Like the Italians and Spanish the French are bemused by the way the elderly English fawn over the run-down farm houses masquerading as ‘Chateau’, the dingy country cafes. Outside every hamlet is the local dump just follow your nose. ‘La belle France’ time to let it go and fade into memory, don’t risk an encounter with the modern reality.
David Radford
3 years ago
2 incidents in my life explain how I feel about the French. 1 De Gaulle’s arrogant disdain for a country that gave him sustenance exemplified by his haughty standabove all others march to JFK’s memorial on Runnymede 2 4 Frenchmen I saw pissing on the 4 corners of my Dad’s car when we stopped for a meal on the way to Nice thinking they hadn’t been seen by anyone . One was the cafe owner. These may be considered as small but they exemplify why I can’t abide the French psyche
“English and public drunken pissing” is everywhere in the Med during summer!
Carl Goulding
3 years ago
Wishful thinking by the author that French politics is worse than the British. If that was the case the guillotines would be out of storage by now. I suspect deep down the author is a tad fearful that the caution of the French (and other European countries) may take the wind out of his vaccine trumpet.
Sorry, this is all wrong.
The working class don’t hate the French. I have never heard a working class person express hatred of the French.
What they do understand – and what educated middle class progressive types are too stupid to understand – is that France is different: France and England have irreconcilable cultural differences and any attempt to politically unify the countries as the EU did is bound to result in catastrophe.
I Love France. I studied there, worked there, I would spend every holiday there if I could. I love the culture, the food, the people. But I do not in a million years want to share a government with them. (Which pretty much goes for Germany and Italy too.)
Love the culture – OK; love the food – OK; but love the people? Love the people!!! How weird is that!
You just have to go outside Paris and people are different, much more welcoming. We notice this especially in the South.
True. I’ve vacationed in France twice. Both times I thought Paris was unfriendly and overrated. In the countryside people were much more relaxed and tolerant of my attempts to speak their language.
Quite. Parisians look down on the rest of the country, and the rest of the country loathe Parisians in return.
French are great always friendly
BTW the whole world hates the English s
French are great always friendly
That is a parallel universe too far
I suspect ‘Jake’ is really Jaques.
No I’m English, not a self-deprecating one either.but it is entirely true that most of the planet hates the English and England.
The French are either neutral and somewhat positive about us.
So we should probably appreciate our French neighbours
Idiot!
Of course they don’t.
It might have escaped your notice that large numbers are trying cross the Channel in canoes and rubber boats to escape the horrors of France and beg for asylum here.
Of course it isn’t horrible in France; I know that well, but the fact that thousands are camped around the Channel ports looking for a way to sneak across, says something about your stupid assertion.
Maybe it’s just you they hate, Jake.
Argentinians, indians,Irish,Spanish,Indian, africans,Irish Americans , a lot of other americans,South Americans(which surprised me) , a lot of russians,Hungarians,East Asians (go to aznidentity on reddit),Israelis and also Palestinians ,Pakistanis, some Portuguese and even some italians unfortunately (who I’m fond of,lot of Russians ,Arabs all of them,
So in conclusion the French who don’t really “brit bash” like the english French bash are really one of our few friends
People forget ,that outside Europe people still hold ancient animosities
Still think about history alnld leven in Leurope people still hate and look down at the english or find some other reason to hate the english
Yet again, arrant nonsense!
But somebody obviously hates or hated you. Poor chap!
Look its just true – large swathes of the global population hate the english, from Ireland, the americas (Argentina but also other South american countries and even US)
Africa,India,the Muslim world ,even east Asians ,Isrealis,
Also go outside english speaking Internet
And even inside the english speaking Internet a lot of people don’t really understand us they way we understand ourselves
Or not…
Which is just ridiculous signaling. The world picks up on our self-loathing, and it becomes the thing to reference. As an American, I find it pretty loathesome that every American is trying to stay far from every other American and to signal that they are not like the other Americans. Ha! While carelessly bringing over our ridiculous political provincialism, I will add.
I have experienced among the British, but to a far lesser degree.
It must be an english speaking thing.
I see it a lot amongst the English.
The English are excessively self depreciating I agree and I have seen a lot of that type of anti compatriot signalling from the english too.its tiresome
Untrue.. Ireland Wales and Scotland don’t like England and it was really obvious through this crisis because none of them could work together as a team to provide a clear message to the Brits! They were all a joke. I am
Welsh, lived in England , love Scotland but now live in NZ . It’s amazing what you see when you are outside.
Charles de Gaulle understood that too. He knew that Britain would never fit in what was then the Common Market which was conceived mainly to seal France and Germany together and thus avoid further battles.
De Gaulle’s calculation was more pragmatic – ‘managing’ Germany was the most important thing for French foreign policy – that would simply be more difficult if the UK was in the club. Two’s company, three’s a crowd.
De Gaulle was always scared of Germany and had a chip on his shoulder about Britain because without a Britain there wouldn’t have been a France for him to lord over.
I would dress that up in Grayling-Houellebecq-Fukuyama-ese with a few big words, spin it out a bit and write a book about it…but I’m a bit busy just now, y’know..no people to see, no places to go…
I’m working class and I only voted for Brexit on the vague promise of a possible war with France. We should’ve made them write it on the side of a bus, to make it a proper commitment. Quite frankly, I feel cheated. Oh well, c’est la vie… as they say in Wolverhampton.
Give it time, my friend, even as we speak plans are afoot to reclaim the Angevin Empire and anything else we can grab.
Yes its interesting that the French Normans came here and then had an almost continuous war against the French Normans. It hasn’t been the same since the entente cordial that broke out after Napolean.
Agreed …..lions led by donkeys
Hamsters more like! Donkeys are great little beasts.
The food was great, but even a Francophile like me has to admit it’s gone downhill.
Yes, it really has which is sad. The reason for this as I discovered the other day, is that around 70% of the food and sauces that used to be prepared and cooked in local cafes, bistros and restaurants now comes frozen and preprepared from vast centralised catering suppliers. This is because with sky high taxes, a high minimum wage, short working weeks and a retirement age at 62 most restauranteurs simply can’t afford to employ the staff to make food in situ all they have staff for is to reheat it.
It’s true. And as french people notice to their surprise food in England has really improved.
Hear! Hear!
Yes, been here for 30 years. Only snag is the bureaucracy, but although I like the French people I wouldn’t trust their government as far as I could throw them…
Neither would they (the French) trust their own government: they are completely ruled by a self-serving oligarchy: which was almost our fate.
And yet France is a very rich country.
Back in the 90s, I ran the UK computers for a French multinational. They kindly offered us a training course “Dealing with your French colleagues” led by an academic, who was a follower of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and showed us analyses of cultural attitudes across various nationalities.
As you might expect, British, US, Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians all looked quite similar, while Japanese and Koreans were very different. But, on nearly every measure, the French came out as very different indeed.
As our lecturer told us, when dealing with the French “think of them as Japanese – then you won’t be as surprised by anything they might do”.
Brilliant! I’m going to use that next time I’m in France
Well why not? Decent infrastructure, better pensions,a more diversified economy as opposed to just a financial sector and a housing ponzi scheme,
In fact,I’d say they get a lot of things right.
Not that the EU helped any of those things
A tad angry there Tom?
This was a wonderful read, I laughed solidly at so many great lines. We all need a laugh in this our time of sorrow.
The middle classes also consider the French sophisticated-so it is Hyacinth Bouquet ( not Bucket) and Quiche Lorraine ( not ham and egg pie). It was a way of seperating from the ‘lower orders’-nineteenth century novels are full of conversations in French and is still used to sell perfume and make-up-parfum and creme for example.
‘Menu French’ as we used to call it.
Plus not a few Englishman used to call themselves ‘de’ something or other, to give themselves a certain sense of ‘’cachet’, whilst their wives strove to be so ‘chic’.
Fortunately this ridiculous affectation is now almost dead, even if not quite buried.
However even today it lingers on with the ‘bien pensants’ of inner Quislington, and other such outposts of absurdity.
I recollect a Labour MP born plain old Gerry Birmingham who became Gerry de Birmingham
Classic!
Why does Unherd keep forcing my utterly correct and true posts to moderation? Nothing offencive, do you all have this? Is it because I am not mainstream, Right really, and this is a kind of gentler canceling than the Dorsey Zukerberg practices? I never return to re-read my old posts but will to see if any have this issue (My post sent to moderation above was to give French history with USA and UK since WWI), Up vote if you get moderated.
*separating
Thank-I was too lazy to check the spelling and so get words with a or e wrong.Though perhaps seperate is ‘my truth’?
Yes – It was good wasn’t it?
‘Then, thanks to his lockdown policies, the Economist downgraded France to a “flawed democracy”, along with all the Visegrad bad boys and Modi’s India.’
In 2017 an Economist cover showed Macron walking on water. Just another example of the imbecility and appalling predictive powers of the MSM.
You complain about MSM and then demand (yes you did!) to investigate Joe Biden. Reek of desperation.
Well we have now learned that the MSM lied completely about the claim that Trump asked someone in Georgia to find X thousand votes. The Washington Post has even issued a retraction. This was a blatant lie that was repeated by the media across the world, None of them checked it, and the whole story came from one source who claimed to have overheard the conversation.
And even the MSM (in the form of Newsweek) admitted some weeks ago that the election was ‘fortified’ via the use of ballot harvesting etc, and this suppression of new stories that damaged the Democrats, such as Cuomo killing 13,000 people in care homes. Newsweek even used the word ‘conspiracy’.
The fact is that the MSM not only peddles fake news, it is proud of the fact that it peddles fake news.
Some people talk in riddles called acronyms. MSM is what?
Mainstream Media
Which having written it out for the first time – makes me question why the heck is it MSM not MM?
I blame our transatlantic cousins who too often display flagrant recklessness with their acronym discipline!
I very much dislike acronyms too and I had to be informed what MSM meant. With regard to current American parlance, I find annoying POTUS and its variations. At first I thought it was something out of the Roman Empire which it may be.
Love acronyms, must dash to work, but a quick few any literate person must know, MENA, REMF, WWG1WGA, KSA, CCP, SCOTUS, FUBAR – have to run, please add to the must know or you are completely ignorant of the world, list.
Don’t forget SNAFU and WOMBAT
You’re too easily annoyed.
Everyone knows to carry heft an acronym is best a TLA -Three Letter Acronym. Two letters lacks gravitas, in English at least.
Gee thanks, I thought it was Microsoft Media!
What about OBLI?
Hence the Obbly Gobblies- The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infsntry.
Or KSLI – Kings Somerset Light Infantry, also known as King Solomon’s Last Issue?
Shorthand for any media not into Trump or conspiracy theories
Shorthand for what purports to be news from our UK 24 hour television news.
Mainly Sado Masochism.
Excellent choice!
They got the story right and haven’t apologised for it. They got the quotes wrong. “Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now,’”reads the correction, in part.”
The quotes are the story. And it was wrong.
Nope, you are conflating two things. One is the call to the Governor, which was recorded and shows Trump wanted Georgia to “find” 11,000+ votes. This is unaffected: see https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/05/fact-check-trump-pressured-georgia-recalculate-vote-tally/4135556001/
The other is an account of an earlier call, which has turned out to be inaccurate after a recording emerged. The piece has been *corrected*, not retracted. The paper says this is because while the quotes attributed were inaccurate, the thrust of the article — Trump seeking to “find” non-existent votes — was accurate. Please see: https://triblive.com/news/politics-election/the-washington-post-publishes-correction-on-trump-call-with-georgia-investigator/
The fact is that the MSM *corrects* fake news when it publishes it and is proud of that.
yes, your first quote is the most damning…unless you read or listen to what he said and find in fact it is absolutely nothing. Not a story…nothing, in fact.
For the first time EVER the president of USA called a state election official demanding a recount. On a phone call. – that is the best case scenario. But as you say not a story!
And of course the BBC is VERY proud!
“Well we have now learned that the MSM lied completely about the claim that Trump asked someone in Georgia to find X thousand votes.” Uhm, no. They retracted part of the claim, a single misquote. But the call to Raffensperger is there for all the world to hear. It is real. And even without the misquote it is damning. It is not “completely” a lie. It is still quite obvious what Trump was up to. I remember listening to the call before I had read any quotes or transcript and found it hideous – and I say that as someone generally on the “right,” certainly not a Dem.
And will anything happen to the woman who made up “quotes” from Trump. Nope, not a thing.
Nor here (UK) to the women who claimed they were raped by Alex Salmond , former leader of the Scottish National Party.
At the very least they should be charged with Perjury.
Absolutely, there should be consequences for making things up.
They are not for the people’s enlightenment, the press and the politicians. They are an elite clique and we continue to give them power to run our lives for their benefit.
you weren’t listening to the same call then. It wasn’t even comment-worthy, where you get ‘hideous’ from is most odd.
Again, you demanded that MSM investigate Biden.
Lets be real, the MSM did nothing but investigate every utterance Trump made, using the most spurious of ‘Fact Checkers’ and then used that to attack him every time, and when he did good things totally refused to cover that. MSM are the enemy within the gates. They will not investigate Biden and his crime family, not fact check his endless lies, or report on the utter destruction Biden and his handlers are causing in America.
That was a really weak point
I always use the Economist as a contrary indicator for macro calls.
It’s infallible.
I would go further and describe the Economist as the most over-rated collection of paper that has ever been stapled together. Where do these people come from (I mean the writers?) Cliche after cliche, in their heads: no real insight into anything, and reliably behind the curve on everything of significance. Take their China reporting for example, which I have been reading, intermittently, since the mid-1980’s. Here you find every fashion in the liberal elite’s view of China faithfully mirrored, from global bad boy 1989-95, to stunned disbelief 2003-2010, to imminent collapse 2010-2019. It’s as if someone from their US office interviews a few people in Wall Street and San Francisco once a month, sends the results back to Economist HQ in London, and then they work beaver-like to form the results into something that they believe will tell people in America what they already think – giving therefore, a guaranteed sale and a satisfied customer, at least on Main Street, which is their main market. I’ve stopped reading it, except for comedy value.
As a student I got a cheap subscription for the Economist and I don’t remember a single article that interested me or even vaguely entertained me. Full of self-important metrolibs with nothing of interest to say, obsessed only over their ability to write smug platitudes that only interests people with similar tendencies who want to appear intelligent by reading it in public
Yes, The Economist is crap, isn’t it.
About 20 years ago it was alright
The accountants got hold of it, and it went downhill. It always happens when cashflow dominates creativity.
My visits to France have been mixed. I’ve found that the really rural French love the British and are very friendly, especially if you at least try to speak some French. The reaction in metropolitan and main holiday areas seems different, where the French seem to tolerate the British to get us to spend money. On our last trip, the restaurant staff could speak no English (not that we have any right to expect them to) – until we left them a tip.
The impression given by the French political class is one of outright hostility to Britain. Is it true that they can’t forgive Britain for their apparent humiliation during WW2?
I have been in all over France (and I mean all over) and I have yet to find a waiter that doesn’t speak some English. May be I am lucky?!
That has also been my experience, a massive improvement over the past thirty years.
It’s a shame our ability to speak French hasn’t seen a similar improvement.
I find speaking no problem, but it is the ‘machine gun speed’ of the response that throws me.
Parlez vous lentement s’il vous plait tends to help with that predicament. I suffer the same.
After a fewmonths, understanding the language comes easily and naturally. Pronounciation is much more difficult.
“Parlez doucement, s’il vous plait” is better, I think
The Spanish are the same a plea of Por favor, Lento! Is met with the same rapidity of speech, but at twice the volume.
I usually speak to them in Greek. It is amazing how quickly they discover they can speak some English !
That’s a good idea ! I can use German, or even Chinese (a bit).
I wouldn’t advise German.
Chinese, then
Yes.
I thought Chinese was what one used in Italy
Yes, but I think it should also work in France. (I do actually speak Chinese, but not well).
The problem seems to be to getting to the point of speaking English. In fairness to French service staff, they probably have had some brushes with arrogant Brits or USians who think that anyone can understand English if it is spoken sufficiently loudly and slowly.
An old friend of our family advised that the best way to defuse the situation is to start off in a 3rd language, e.g. Zulu, after which there is no shame in using English as a common language.
“…arrogant Brits or USians who think that anyone can understand English if it is spoken sufficiently loudly and slowly.” It’s not just native-English people who think that. Afghanis, Belgians, Chinese, Dutch, Egyptians, Finnish (see where I am going with this?) EVERYONE when travelling abroad assumes other people speak English.
It’s only once you have travelled do you realise that people of just about every nationality expect people to speak English.
Agree!
I agree. I once learnt some Mandarin and wante to try it out. My teacher suggested a restaurant in Cambridge where the spoke Mandarin in addition to Contonese. I asked for a bottle of beer in Mandarin. The waiter paused for a few seconds and I could see him trying to understand what I said in the languages he knew. He eventually switched to Mandarin! He obviously did no expect me to speak in any lanuage other than English!
I have found that speaking Welsh works wonders, especially the name of the famous railway station.
The one in Anglesey?
It would be easier to learn French than Zulu.
Actually, to learn perfect French is extremely hard for Brits. I have heard almost no British speakers who do not have a French father or mother who are in this category.
It is also true that the French are very poor English speakers. I expect it is equally hard for them. I have never come across one who is fluent
London is full of them
…but always with some kind of French accent. It’s their badge of honour.
I’m told it is because vowel pronunciations are very different between French and English, and so anyone bought up deep learning one language will struggle to master pronunciation of the other (and disguise their accent). Not so Scandinavians, which is why they not only can achieve accent less English, but also master our regional accents – like the Danish footballers who speak English with a perfect Scouse accent!
Very interesting, because I’ve noticed several times the Scandi chameleon-like quality – ie. accommodating to, and blending in with…whatever. I wonder what the reason is ?
There’s no word for mercy in Zulu, so I’m told.
Bravo !
The last time I was in Paris about two years ago, the city was heaving with Chinese tourists. The waiters had started to speak English. Not because of the Brits.
The trouble for the French is if you want to know who has the Empire follow the language and Latin ( from both Roman and Holy Roman ) then morphed into English because the Americans chose English not French after 1776 ( even though the French paid for their revolution) and German was the language most Americans spoke.
I speak fluent French but in Paris not a single waiter will admit it, and instead talks to me in appalling English. Makes ordering a lot slower than it needs to be.
I have lived/worked in Paris and I often visit rural France to visit wine makers etc. Most normal people like the British and one of them even thanked me for getting rid of Napoleon.
As you say, the French political class has never forgiven the Allies for winning the war, although they have forgiven themselves for their collaboration with the Germans. I read a book about this collaboration a couple of years ago and it was far worse than I had realised.
The collaboration was on such a massive scale that it makes the period 1940-44 the most humiliating in French history, even exceeding ,if that is possible, the events of 1870.
Even worse, some of it is recorded on film/video, thus the infamy will last forever.
There is also the Revolution and the horrendous War of Terror that followed in 1792-1793.
Plus Indo -China and Algeria.
The killing was far worse in the Vendee than during the so-called Terreur, where the wonderful Republique demonstrated genocide to great effect. All nicely overlooked and forgotten now, of course. Except in the Vendee.
I live in the Vendee, and I can assure everyone that “les colonnes infernales” and General Hoche have not been forgotten.
What Britanny. a Breton told me it was bad because they defended the Church which had a Celtic influence ?
It’s easy to spurn the French for collaborating avec les Boches, but please ask yourself if the Brits would have been any different (see SS by Len Deighton).
No, they hate the UK because we liberated them and because they (it was their Generals who were in command) lost in the first place.
French are ambivalent or fond.
Its the English with a weird chip on their shoulder about the French.
What you don’t realise is how apart from France-the English are one of the most loathed people on the planet.
I think you mean that you loath the English
Nonsense! Also your syntax is so incoherent.
Wherever you went to school, presumably the USA or Ireland, you should ask for your money back. They have patently failed.
Why do you hate England and the English so much ????
I don’t,
But just look at comments from India,Ireland,USA,Argentina, Spain,
They all seem to hate us because we’re culturally
/gastronomical inferior.or somehow responsible for our imperial history and “arrogant “
So loathed that in WW1 and 2 that vast numbers of people from Asia and Africa volunteered to fight in the Armed Forces and Merchant Navy with people being commissioned, fighting with great courage and some winning the VC and GCs. People from the Commonwealth still volunteer fro the British Armed Forces.
In N Africa were there more men from India fighting than from occupied Europe?
Throughout the Commonwealth , countries still follow traditions aquired from the British where they are of use.
Those who are leaders often are loathed as they show up others inadequacies.
Yes,
Many people describe the British empire and predatory and racist and unreedemable,
From Ireland to south America, to North America,from India to Pakistan,black Africa,North Africa ,Middleast, East asia,
Just step outside your online bubble
I have a wonderful, part memory, of an evening on holiday at a very rural French farm. The French family spoke no English, we had very rudimentary French. They invited us to join them for a barbecue. When we arrived it was clear that this was a gentlemens evening, which my sister ignored. There followed an evening of great food, wine and conversation as best we could,with lots of hand gestures. As the evening progressed they produced bottles of the spirits they made on the farm, hence the part memory. They were unbelievably friendly and hospitable.
They have been very hard on themselves over the Occupation. Lockdown has made me question whether the British or the Americans would have behaved so better in that situation. France is very much divided on Napoleon, some people loving his memory, others deploring it. I have heard more nostalgia over Napoleon from Britons than in France. I remember telling a French princess of an Englishwoman in Paris who told me of her admiration for Napoleon. The Frenchwoman was appalled by this frivolity, saying that Napoleon was the start of the mass murders that were to mark the twentieth century.
I should like to read such a book; do you by chance remember the name or author? For clarity, not to reinforce any judgement on my part 🙂 but a genuine interest in WWII. Thank you!
A good starting point for me was The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la Pitié) comprising interviews and reminiscences of those affected by the occupation. It is a two part film not a book, but offers an extraordinary intimacy impossible to capture in the written word alone. Seeing it changed my perspective of the French, exposing the myriad hidden tensions buried below the surface of family and community. Even now, only the J***** community is fully conversant with their government’s collaboration. The extent of governmental collaboration has been hidden from the wider population ever since.
(Edited to remove the trigger words N**i geno***e and J****h that apparently flagged this post)
Marianne in Chains is well worth reading
My many visits to France show that it’s also the rural French that dislike the metropolitan French. A particular hatred is loathing for Parisiennes to teh extent that many vehicles with a Paris number plate (19), often get vandalised outside of Paris.
While growing up I oftern heard it said that while the British hated the French, even the French hated the Parisiennes.
91 surely. Or 75. 19 is Corrèze.
While staying with friends in the country, I went for a walk with my hostess. She greeted a local in his car. She and her family had a retreat there for decades and she knew the local and how much he made a point of hating Parisians. We were enjoying our walk but to tease him, she asked him if he would give us a lift. “No Parisians allowed in my car,” he sputtered and drove away. “He would have let Anne-Marie in his car,” my hostess said to me, Anne-Marie being her sister and a great beauty and femme fatale.
I think the Paris number plate is 75. It certainly was when I lived there for seven years.
Yes it is 75 which are the first two numbers in all Parisian post codes.
Indeed my postman in France, who came to live from Paris, complains that the locals prefer us to him!
“Parisgot tete de veau”
My old dad used to say the French never forgave us for saving them from the Germans twice in the last century
… and, of course, the 1870/71 occupation of Paris (sic) by Prussia/Germany … the shame, the stain, the Continental angst followed by—
That is exactly what my father said.
An old soldier I knew hated the French. In WW2 his tank was driving through a French village when it was hit by a shell from a disabled German tank. He was blown out of the turret but his crew were all killed. He was left for dead in a ditch after the French liberated him of his watch and wallet. A US soldier found him and saved his life hours later when he heard groans coming from the ditch.
… exactly — no good turn goes unpunished – especially the deep, deep humiliation of The Fall of France and ingrate de Gaulle’s scuttle trans Channel to, of course, England .
Richard, your experience exactly matches ours! When working we used to visit France regularly and, with the exception of Paris, generally found the populace welcoming and polite. We even entertained the dream of retiring in France, but to the south where the weather would be better. Accordingly we rented an apartment for 12 months in Mandeliu, near Cannes, with a view to sussing out the south for somewhere to buy. Au secours, quelle surprise! One of our tasks was to renew some insurance that the owners needed, so we trotted off to the local office where my wife asked, very politely, in French, did they speak English, because she was not confident about doing an insurance transaction. “Non.” came the stern reply. “Espanol?” from wife; “Si” from la grenouille. So in Spanish it went. After the transaction finished la grenouille, in perfect English, said, “Here are your papers, your Spanish is excellent”. Similar experiences led to my wife saying that no way would we live here; visit, yes, but live, no. So now rent on and off in Spain and their various islands and ‘todo esta bien!’.
That is absurd,they are not hostile,
The general public in most parts of the world are hostile to the English.
Nonsense!
I loved France until I discovered Spain; the old Spain, away from the Med. What a country, what a people, what style, what class. And even, what food and drink.
And those magnificent Paradores, not to mention the Arena, and the “connexion ultimate con la tradition gladiatores de Roma Antigua’.
I agree, and the people are so much more spontaneous and individual. I can’t stand the conformity and uniformity in France. When you’re in a restaurant there is a whole stilted ritual about how it is served. The server has to recite the composition of the dish and then wish you ‘bonne continuation’. Some may like it but I prefer a bit of friendly banter.
The spanish -spontaneous and individual??
Nope they are very much Conservative Catholic culturally rigid people (for western Europe )
Who care what religion they are? What a bizarre comment.
Fine,but the spanish are not spontaneous or individualistic.
They are incredibly conformist and somewhat insular even.
I’d really only describe the english as spontaneous and individualistic
The Spanish expression:
“Todo buen español debería mear siempre mirando a Inglaterra”
The French really are the good friends we never knew we had.
Me too! I’ve spent time nearly every year in France, St Malo to be precise. But Spain is so so much better. I love the informality and free spiritedness in Spain. France is too uptight.
How is Spain ” informal” or ” free spiritedness”
They are bourgeois, conformist, insular,classist,
This country has always had a love it or hate it relationship with France (i.e. Churchill well known Francophile) but maybe we should say love the difference, there are things to admire and things that make you cringe badly, it was also this type of difference which made me believe that European super state aspersions can never be realistic because the very difference in people in every individual country and culture does keep us separate, culture of ones own country should be celebrated not watered down, that also does not stop country’s admiring each other and working together for harmony that’s freedom of will, there is always a need to work together on many things but it doesn’t need to be homogenised into a super state conglomeration, I’m happy to Visit France and enjoy the country and people but always happy we have the Channel between the Continent and Great Britain
What is astonishing is how France has pulled itself together in the past seventy years, particularly after the humiliation of 1940.
When I first visited France in the 50’s it was staggeringly primitive compared to the UK.
Most of the population appeared to be dressed in identical dark blue overalls and black berets, there were few cars and then mainly little wobbly Citroens or tiny Renault vans, but thousands of bicycles and onions everywhere.
Men were regularly seen urinating at the side of the road, the water, even in ‘smart’ hotels undrinkable, and the lavatories and general plumbing, simply medieval.
Personal hygiene was of a very low order, and it was particularly noticeable that even young women didn’t shave their armpits. We used to joke that the French had ‘invented’ perfume to mask the stench from not washing. What we used to say about that pinnacle of Gallic civilisation, the
Bidet, is unprintable.
There were only two types of cigarettes available, both state produced, and reputed to be made of Camel dung and sold in rather cheap packets.
The omnipotence of the State was everywhere, and particularly infuriating when booking into Hotels etc. Everywhere you looked there were heavily armed Gendarmes of one type or another. Driving, particularly at night was a terrifying experience, but slightly better than Italy.
However the food and wine were magnificent and off course, everything was “as cheap as chips”. Consequently as a confirmed masochist I have returned nearly every year since!
And what an astonishing contrast! The TGV, superb, empty motorways, 40 or is it 80 Nuclear Power Stations, plumbing that works, drinkable water,
an a general feeling of wealth that was so absent in the past. However despite this wonderful Renaissance, one bugbear remains …..the Bidet!
And in the USA…the Biden
the memory of another bugbear remains…Vichy
It doesn’t. People (unlike the Brits commenting here – the baby boomers that grew up reading WW2 comics) have moved on.
Several of the things you mentioned reminded me too of France in 1954.
Nah, us plebs hate the French because we fought them on and off for over a 1000 years.
They hate us because they hate everything that’s not French. They are, without any shadow of a doubt, the most arrogant and racist peoples in Europe.
I think someone once described them as cheese eating surrender monkeys, very apt I thought.
That was the Americans.
GW Bush
Aha! The notorious “Village idiot from Texas “ or his illustrious father?
Obama is not from Texas
I was referring to GW Bush!
No mention of the Obama beast!
Sorry, I just focused the words village and idiot
The Simpsons, wasn’t it?
It was Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons, the Scottish guy, he has to fill in as French teacher and thats how he says hello to the class.
No, it was actually coined by a writer of the television show The Simpsons. True fact. Which makes it ever funnier.
They are ambivalent about the English or at best warm.they are also curious about the world
The English are actually the most loathed and perceived to be the most racist.
GWB was an idiot for going into Iraq and france was intelligent for staying out
Sounds like you had a bad experience or twenty. Maybe it was you?
That might have something to do with the Rainbow Warrior
“a military alliance far stronger than the supposed “special relationship” with the US? “
Not in our lifetimes. It’s time to stop living in the past.
“How many of those fighting at Waterloo could have foreseen that, when the guns fell silent, it would be the last time the two countries ever fought”
Nonsense! What about the French Fleet slaughtered at Mers-el-Kebir by HMS Hood & friends in 1940, or the conquest of French Syria the next year?
And French forces fighting against the Allied Torch landings in 1942
Are you not being a little harsh saying “nonsense”? I was aware of the Mers-el-Kebir incident but if asked “were France and Britain fighting each other in 1940?” I must confess I would have said no.
Sorry, no. As I said Syria and as Rob Mein has so appositely mentioned above, the North African ‘Torch’ landings of 1942.
Remember, after the Brits defeated the Vichy French in Syria/Iraq, WWII, with lots of deaths in the fight, they gave the captured French the choice to return to France or fight as Free French with DeGual – almost all of them went Home! CESM!
Yes indeed 30,000 returned to Vichy France and about 1000 opted for the Free French.
A national disgrace if ever there was one!
The tragedy of Mens-el-Kebir was that far more of the French fleet wasn’t sent to the bottom. It could not have been allowed to fall into the hands of the Germans.
Agreed. The Navy’s shooting was rather poor considering many of the French targets were stationary at the time. I have heard that the ‘Mighty Hood’ in particular could have shot better. Perhaps this was one the causes of her subsequent demise some months later?
Actually it was apparently a direct hit on her unarmoured ammunition magazine by the Bismarck. But don’t let that curb your Anglophobia will you?
Did you not do comprehension at school?
My critique of the Hood’s gunnery is perfectly valid, particularly in relation to her action against the Bismarck.
Incidentally she was not “unarmoured” as you state, but rather inadequately armoured by the standards of 1941.
Quite so. And let’s not forget that the French were told of the consequences of their decision should they not hand over their fleet. Unfortunately they dithered… et voila!
Slaughtered? They were given 4 opportunities to surrender but refused, leaving the RN no choice but to sink the fleet to prevent it getting into German hands.
That’s just semantics! I happen to prefer slaughter to kill.
Otherwise we are in total agreement about Mers-el- Kebir.
It was primarily the French admiral’s stubbornness against surrender that resulted in the slaughter.
ACTUALLY – there was a second reason UK sank the French Fleet – USA was dithering waiting to see if UK really was in for the fight 100%, and if the French Fleet was handed to the Germans USA could not keep the Atlantic open, so they had to sink the fleet to show USA that Britain was really in the fight to the death. FDR understood this.
Correct, WSC had to show ‘total commitment’, which he did, superbly.
Vichy France, and I do not think any Frenchman would acknowledge that as France any more than we would the British Free Corp as British
In 1940 Vichy was the legitimate government, which together with German occupation zone which accounted for 99% of the French population. There is no getting away from that very unpleasant fact.
Still not a fair point. The Nazis and the Soviets following them installed quisling regimes in many countries and you would not call any of them legitimate governments in terms of the point at issue
Probably not – weren’t 140% of Frenchmen in the Resistance?
…and weren’t the British criticised for not coming to France’s aid more quickly – by de Gaulle, who apparently beat the Germans single-handedly…
What ???? So few ????
Me too
Or is that something else
Ah. Martians were they?
One of the great ironies of the world. We love France and we love the French. Can you imagine how our lives would be impoverished if France and the French did not exist.
At the same time they infuriate us and we infuriate them. It will never change and we probably dont want it to change. Life would be so boring
A bit like men and women. France is a nice place for a man since women there like men and make no bones about it.
So true
I think there is an ideological component this misses out – the French usually take a top-down approach, the British a bottom up one, like Plato and Aristotle made into nations. The French state during the scientific revolution would only allow articles to be published after they had been checked by a committee of experts. In Britain, anyone who had access to a printing press could churn out whatever they wanted. British philosophy, pre the 20th century, is basically empiricism, while the French have never met anything they didn’t want to systematise. While classical liberalism may have had its isolated French admirers, it is hard to see that it could have taken off there in the way it did here. It’s not that we dislike the French, it’s that we do not understand them, nor they us.
Their favourite phrase – « c’est compliqué » – and if it isn’t , they’ll do their utmost to make it so. But they are lovely really
“French politics are worse than the British” was the funniest part of a very funny read.
At least Macron has the guts to defend statues in France and announce that not single one will be taken down or mutilated. I don’t think Boris’s cabinet or Biden for that matter, are anything to gloat over.
You’ve hit it in on the head. The French, whether they be Communists or Fascists are inordinately proud of France, whilst the UK is stuffed with ‘Oiks’ who hate their own country with a vengeance.
Well said,
Left wing middle class oiks at that!
It’s also about soap. The Froggies are lovely but they whiff, as even my good friend, a French lady who has lived in the UK for 30 years frequently remarks.
‘My sister smells!’ she exclaimed after her last visit to Rennes.
The French enjoy their natural aroma and shun soap and deodorants. They find the smell of sweat arousing in the same way they like ripe cheese that would never pass delicate English lips.
For further proof, look no further than the French cop show, Spiral – 8 seasons and no sight of the shower or the funny little slippery thing that is sometimes found in there. The two main protagonists were forever having a romp then getting dressed again sans douche or even laver les mains. I just finished watching another French cracker, Call My Agent, on Netflix. Again, four seasons of stylish clothes, parfum et vin, but never a single trip to the salle de bains. You could smell the cologne mingled with eau d’armpit throughout.
Granted, to them, we probably all stink like the perfume counter at John Lewis.
Henri IV , the most popular of French kings, used to tell his mistresses when he was coming to stay the night since he relished their natural feminine scent.
Didn’t he also hope everyone could have Coc au Vin once a week or some such?
Yes, it was he that invented the idea of a chicken in every household pot.
Many (50?) years ago I went on a two-week school exchange visit to St-Etienne. We were each paired with a French family. When we met up at the end to go home, one of the girls in the Brit party could not get over the fact that her host opposite number did not change her underwear for the entire fortnight!
Hello from (near) Paris.
We love you, too
We take a shower at least once a year, even when it’s not necessary. Since Louis XIV we the french are as clean as one can get. Feet smell ripe cheese, etc.
France and Britain are very similar – we have a monarchy – the Fifth republic has a monarchical president; we both have areas formerly characterised by heavy industry and left wing voting, now industrial wastelands where people vote for Brexit or Marine Le Pen; neither of us like immigration very much; we both face the future with anxiety…
Except we have a natural border-the ‘English’ Channel wheras Europeans were always losing or gaining parts of their country.
Northern Ireland?
I chuckled throughout this piece and the comments – such a mix of half-truths and nonsense. It is simply not the case that the French hate the British, whereas, as this list demonstrates, there is a lot of anti-French feeling among Brits. I have been married for over thirty years to a French man and have never ever met with the slightest hostility from locals. On the contrary, my ‘charming’ accent seems to add to whatever appeal I might have. Of course there are maddening aspects to living here – the way the fuit and veg are categorised in the local supermarket, for instance, and the chaotic administration, illustrated by the fiasco of the vaccine programme. To use a polite version of the idiom the French couldn’t organise a bun fight in a boulangerie….But it’s so enriching to discover where the personal ends and where the cultural begins, to engage with differences – as expressed in literature, art, music as well as in every day life. Plus – to add one more generalisation – men and women like each other here, desire circulates easily and freely, which is one of the reasons French women took a stand against the Me Too movement. They don’t want to lose the pleasures of seduction and flirtation….
The French don’t hate the British. Anymore than they hate everyone else. Who do the French actually get along with?
The French don’t hate the British – they hate the English. If you explain to a frenchman that you are not ‘anglais’ but are ‘ecossais’ – and are insulted by the confusion (just as the French would be if you called them Belgian) they are first apologetic, and then the embodiment of charm. They like the Scots (but then, so does everyone.)
What an odd article, and the comments even more so.
It is odd,personally I’m very fond of France and the French, and understand them to be actually amongst the most receptive to Britain.
I also prefer them to the insane cultural developments in USA.
You’re probably taking it a bit too seriously.
If any Brits hate the French and most do not, it is only because the French have so much more class and style, not forgetting wonderful food and great wine.
J’adore la France with a passion. Four happy years in Normandy until circumstances dictated a move, went to Ireland – rather than back to the UK – where it’s the closest thing you will get to living in the French countryside. And the people are great too.
Vive la France! Vive Irelande!
Not complicated. In the sixties, Brigitte Bardot, Francoise Hardy, Anouk Aimee and their chums packed far more of a punch for the lads than any of our homegrown talent, (Marianne Faithful excepted….but she had a certain je ne sais quoi) For the ladies, Alain Delon, Jean Paul Belmondo and Sacha Distel. Our culture, despite the better music, seemed a bit strait laced by comparison. It’s so different now!
As to the last conflict being Waterloo, we have almost come to blows many times since 1815. Most of the Victorian Forts on the South Coast were built in anticipation of a French invasion during Victoria’s reign and what about the Fashoda incident in 1898 which could easily have led to war? In WW2 British and Imperial troops fought the French in Vichy territories in North Africa and famously sank the French Fleet at Mers el Kebir which some French are still very bitter about today. Then there are the dark rumours about weapons supply to the Argentinians during the Falklands War!
The Exocet missile used to devastating effect by the Argentinians was French I believe. I remember a news report from the time of the Falklands War that British and French sailors came to blows in a French port because of this apparent treachery of our near neighbours.
“dark rumors..” from the daily mail?
I chose to live in France. I hope to become a French Citizen in a couple of years. For all its idiosyncrasies, bureaucracy and love of paperwork it’s still a great place to live. Best of all is the love of good food and wine – where lunches can go on for hours and the conversation never stops. Not forgetting of course, the local west coast beaches – which are stunning.
Sounds great.
It is!
Brits hate the French because they’re you’re next door neighbor. Americans hate the French because they’re too much like us. French hate Americans because I just said that.
My husband worked for a French multinational for 15 years. At one stage, a senior French executive commented on one of the UK’s sales tactics. He said, seriously and without a scintilla of sarcasm, that “it might work in practice but it won’t work in theory”.
Philosophical debate took precedence over robust analysis.
And yet France is a very rich country with more global 500 companies than UK. Did they do that by “philosophical debate”?
A hilariously stupid article, trying to maintain a vague semblance of balance but constantly tipping over into xenophobic rants. The french ruling class may we’ll be a meritocratic elite but most french people I’ve met are warm welcoming and hospitable.
Naturellement Scots like myself love the French and we had a long-standing alliance with them . I wonder why.
Of course but differentiation between france and Frech Politics is fundamental. Personally I have always found Italy much more fun than France and the people in general much more friendly.
It is not true, I love the French and believe that we should share our vaccines with them, even if they have been so dirty towards our Oxford vaccine, once the last British hampster has had its second dose we should send all the rest of our stock to France!
I would question when the French have been our allies . They were there when we had to fight Germany but allies is a bit strong. The last conflict they were involved in with us was selling and supporting Exocet missiles for Argentina.
Their Naval Air Service did makes amends for that idiotic blunder.
Surely the French only wanted to be ‘our allies’ to protect them from the Germans. One of the ironies of Brexit is that by helping to drive the British out of the EU they are now at the mercy of the Germans and their Fourth Reich (aka the EU).
Serves them right does it not?
They were always at the mercy of the Germans. Everyone in the EU is. If the French don’t know this, they are dimmer than I thought because it’s patently obvious. The Germans run the EU.
What the British dislike about French (if that is the case), is that they have France, and we have this country. Or more precisely they have all that land. Anyone who has travelled on the other side of the channel knows that the British would make a far better job of looking after the French countryside than our Gallic neighbours. Consider what relocating Brits have done to revive rural France, which the French have rejected in favour of sitting at pavement cafes drinking heavily and sucking in exhaust fumes or lounging about in apartments discussing Marxism. Every year hundreds of thousands of our countrymen and women shell out eye watering sums, in order to spend their annual holiday in accommodation which possibly only a few months previously will have housed three hundred geese and a family of ten. As most of our urban areas demonstrate the British are hopeless at towns and roads, but brilliant when it comes to the countryside. If we could do a swap, I think it would put an end to years of sniping and set Anglo-French relations on the sort of footing that would make us the Torville and Dean of international affairs.
What a load of BS.
I have driven around France! Have i seen all of it? No! Who has?
But the parts of rural France I have seen are pretty, clean with excellent roads. I did witness a tire burning show by farmers in Lorraine. Other than that the countryside was beautifully kept.
And France is one of the richest countries in the world – that wasn’t achieved by discussing Marxism or Tolstoy. They are (brace yourself) more productive than the British.
I live in Brittany (much of france considers them to be English anyway). Recently I realised when at lunch with some Friends….the English and French are like an old married couple.
We love each other…but also hate each other.
Permettez moi de ramener le debat a La france actuelle. Coiffee par un macro , echec lamentable a la recherche du vaccin covid, des millions d’ euros allemands perdus , fin d’empire culturelle et linguistique .(en EU on parle anglais) .Cuisine = macdo. Vin= piquette trop cher .
Il ne reste qu’une fantasme qui sert de chiffon d’ identite d’une bougeoisie de cons
Quelle dommage!
I am sorry to have to say this, but it’s quel, not quelle.
Sour grapes??
Dommage que vous n’avez mangé que chez MacDo !
This is the thing, we do not hate ‘the French’. We hate their metropolitan elite. Your average Frenchman is un ein gutes Ei (a good egg), and they are just as down-trodden by Les Parisienne as we are by London’s elite, except they do it with knobs on.
American w/Norman ancestry here. I recall my first trip to Paris w/my husband who observed, when I exclaimed that I couldn’t understand why our American friends hated the French so much because I was so enjoying them, “that’s because you hate all the same things they hate”.
I’m wondering if the most simple explanation of the English contempt for the French isn’t their Catholicism? Catholicism, from a Jungian perspective, is chthonic and so, deeply Feminine in nature. Protastantism, is more Apollonian, more stringently Masculine. Vive la dif·fé·rence does seem to come more naturally to the French than it does the English.
Yes, as long as you’re doing it their way, the French are indeed all for Vive la difference! But if it’s the Catholicism, then where does that leave British Catholics? Not to mention the Irish, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese? Do you find the English to hold all of them in contempt?
Who do the French get along with? They have anxieties and insecurities regardless of who they are dealing with. the US, the UK, Germany, there’s always the frantic effort to be seen as relevant.
“But if it’s the Catholicism, then where does that leave British Catholics? Not to mention the Irish, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese? Do you find the English to hold all of them in contempt?”
Well, now that you asked .. 😉
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if my country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year? If not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our great History, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values..
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
This guy needs to look up Mers el Kibir.
Wasn’t it De Gaulle who rather begrudgingly described us (UK) as
“an island of coal surrounded by a sea of oil”?
My other favourite (possible) De Gaulle quote is “Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French”
I think it was De Gaulle as you say.
De Gaulle also said how can you run a country that makes 300 cheeses
De Gaulle had a very dry sense of humour, in fact almost English.
Charles de Gaulle did, however, refer to the English as ‘the ancient enemy’.
I think it was the removal of Duty Free fags and booze, by an upper middle class English PM that changed things for the English working classes.
Personally I cannot wait to get back to France.
I’ve nothing against the French people; it’s their politicians I detest.
And according to my French friends, they feel the same about us and our Politicians.
Their politicians are better than our or USA politicians
THEIR!
“English people with Norman-French names are still richer than the rest of the population, even after 950 years” That’s because they stole our land by force and turned the English into serfs. I’m still hopeful for an English revolution against the still hated Norman-French usurpers. Yes, Hugh Grosvenor, we’ll be coming for you.
I think that was Brexit
Haha! Now you know how the Irish feel about you.
The Eurostar was a great help in the Entente Cordiale and I hope it can somehow survive. During the 1990s I was married to a French lecturer in historical monuments and during that period , she came up with the idea of leading several tours to England and Scotland which were facilatated by the Eurostar. At the time, many of France were ignorant that Britain had architectural monuments as interesting as to be found anywhere in Europe. For many in my ex-wife’s flock, the beauties of Bath, York, etc. proved a real revelation. They were also surprised that the food was more palatable than they had expected.
Thanks to all their magnificent Cathedrals being Secular rather than Monastic, they lack the impact of many of ours.
Even in the Secular sphere they have nothing to compare with the likes of Salisbury, Lincoln or Wells.
I’m so tired of this French bashing,especially as they are one of the most receptive to us.
Their country is great and I feel far more receptive to them over “CRT – woke” USA.
They aren’t interested in brit bashing,it’s only in other countries you get the insane anglophobia(including other European countries)
Ultimately the French are one of our few friends in the World.
Because I can assure you the English are the most hated in the world.
We should be more grateful. Because we unjustly look at them with suspicion despite being the only friends we have.
Africa,Asia,Latin America and even North America, Middle East, loathe England.
This needs to be understood.
Who cares? The loathing for ‘the English’ is due to the fact that, over most of the globe’ the free individual is seen as a threat. The one thing about the UK, until foreigners of alien cultures decided to move here, is that it was not really class-driven, tribal, or caste-driven, despite the claims. This is not true of most other places in the world where who you are and your heredity determines your entire life, from birth to death. There is only one remaining example of a caste-based institution in the UK: the Royal Family/Monarchy. And that is the one insttitutional feature of the UK that makes no practical difference at all to anyone’s life. That’s why the British are so clever, and why the UK was, until recently again, so peaceful to live in..
That’s absurd whiggish nonsense.England is entirely class based.hingeing on the uneven distribution of land that’s existed since the very French Norman invasion 1066.
Also we are hated due to Imperial history.
I’ve never felt hated by anyone on my travels in India (and the rest of Asia), Europe or my current abode in South America. Even in India, a veteran of Bose’s army told me what life was life during late British rule, but he felt no animosity towards a 19-year-old me. Maybe they just hate you Jake.
Same,I’ve travelled through India and lived abroad even*.
Most of this has come from picking up on it online.
*but even when I was abroad there last a lot of ” oh but you are not like the other”
Where the hell did you learn English? That was simply appalling!
State educated? Bad luck!
A bit snobbish,as it happens my education was mostly private
Jake, maybe it’s just you they hate. You do seem to have had a lot of experience being hated around the world. Perhaps examine your own behavior?
Don’t waste your time Annette, he’s a nut job.
My experience around the world has been mostly cordial even positive.
Nonetheless if you go outside your online bubble or english speaking online bubble and outside your online racial bubble you’ll see the english are the most hated.
I’m a fact seeker & with good reason I don’t trust offhand what is being parroted in the MSM. The Vaccinations are untried & potentially dangerous. How is it that a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which under normal conditions would take years to develop, was promptly launched in early November 2020? The mRNA vaccine announced by Pfizer is based on an experimental gene editing mRNA technology which has a bearing on the human genome.
Were the standard animal lab tests using mice or ferrets conducted?
Or did Pfizer “go straight to human “guinea pigs.”? Human tests began in late July and early August. “Three months is unheard of for testing a new vaccine. Several years is the norm.
So to be advocating that all is SAFE is a very dangerous statement. There is an obvious aggenda World Wide for this so called “Great Reset” and all the leaders are singing from the same script. Time to Question BUT they’re censoring everthing & if it doesn’t agree with Official diktat it’s removed ! This is serious folks -better start questioning everything before it’s too late. See these World leaders in this short 3.5 min Video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQgF-5hqaSE
A bit off topic, are you?
A few simple answers:
Were the vaccines ‘ untried & potentially dangerous’ at the start? Yes. Every medical treatment starts out that way. There could still be unexpected long-term effects from the vaccine, even if it is unlikely. Not short-term effects,we would have seen that. But COVID was tried, and known to be very dangerous. Even quite a few side effects would still be better than letting everybody get COVID.
If you have been bitten by a snake, do you take an ‘untried and potentially dangerous’ antivenom, or do you prefer to let nature take its course?
I’ve given up even thinking about responding to these anti-vax propagandists. Odd that the same people seem to be the ones who still push Chloroquine and other ineffective drugs.
The study that was published in The Lancet saying chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are ineffective against C19 has been retracted. Look it up. In the eighties there were simple drugs that repressed AIDS, which where forbidden by authorities like the FDA in the US. Patients were told to use an expensive drug called AZT, which was 10.000 dollar a year at the time. But AZT made patient conditions worse instead of better. See the movie made about the scandal, The Texas Buyers Club.
and while you are at it, maybe google for the ‘Thalidomide scandal’. Is the C19 vaccine save for pregnant women?
Furthermore, it is still unknown if you can be infected after being vaccinated. What could go wrong. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rush-to-create-magic-bullet-covid-vaccines/
Over the last 20 years, 2020 is ranked 12 place in Sweden in mortality, deaths per capita. In other words, it was not an exceptional year. here an article with all the numbers from the Swedish statistics agency. Nobody would notice there was a pandemic in 2020 going on in Sweden
See, https://softwaredevelopmentperestroika.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/final-report-on-swedish-mortality-2020-anno-covid/
@CL van Beek
About rush-to-create-magic-bullet-covid-vaccines/
1) All speculation,. might’, … ‘might’.. No evidence.
2) Their ‘natural’ weakening of viruses relies on people with virulent strains dying fast, so that their viruses die with them. Is that the kind of health policy you want?
About final-report-on-swedish-mortality-2020-anno-covid/
His final conclusion is ‘COVID is real, more people died than normal, but not as many as the most alarmist predictions had expected’. And so? The WHO estimate is over two-and-a-half milllion covid deaths worldwide, so far. Picking nits in the statistics of a single small country proves what, exactly?
Not all Swedes would agree with you, starting with the King.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/17/king-sweden-failed-covid-strategy-rare-royal-rebuke-lockdown-hospitals-cases
I know one thing.. I have taken care of my health, body and I have never been hiding my face.. . I have succeeded tremendously, as billions of humans for thousands of years, and that is only natural. Not that we are here because our ancestor were under medication, to the contrary, that is only recent.. and it is not an upgrade, but a downgrade. Good health is a lifelong commitment.. and without robust mental and psychological health there is.. no health… And there is no compromise to that choice. Though.. others easily comply to the propaganda that shots of dirt and poison will save them.. or protect them.. or improve their immune system or will help them to live longer.. . Have you ever wonder of the 24/7 audio-visual violence from the media, have you ever wonder of the mass tortures as safety? even the bribery of £500 to isolate.. I do not insist and I do not give names to anyone who takes drugs, alcohol, smokes, feels safe with vaccines and if they wish they could inject themselves everyday.. enjoy! But to expect that everyone in the world feels like you, behaves like you etc, because you have your own reasons.. belief system, world view, course of life etc.. Are we babies here? Freedom, free will, tolerance, diversity and most of all Respect to each other are fundamental principles for adults’ health. Is corona a blatant attempt to disrespect everyone human? There is in fact Anti-anti-vaxxers propaganda.. not the other way around. For example it is really sad that I have not seen any writing on Unherd of the other side.. UNHERD.. listen, some of us we do expect a good balance of essays and articles of the other side..
Well said.
Whilst nobody can deny that the pharmaceutical industry makes billions – they seem to forget the other side of the coin. That an overwhelmingly large number of scientists and health professionals do their job because they love it and enjoy making people better.
They are people like us with families and friends who want the pandemic to be over. They have also been affected by this pandemic, no doubt far more due to exposure. So they have grafted to help try and sort out the mess.
To which too many people respond with inaccurate criticisms and even lies. Yes it’s fine to be sceptical, and questions should be asked but let’s try to keep one foot in the land of the rational.
@James Clander
There is one that I forgot to add:
The speed it was all done with, the new technology behind some the vaccines, yes, it does increase the risk, compared to existing vaccines. If there was a long-established alternative vaccine I would prefer that one, till there were more data.
For comparison, the Pandemrix swine-flu vaccine is said to have caused maybe 300 cases of narcolepsy, world-wide, for maybe 60 million people vaccinated (i.e. 1 in 200 000). That is 300 tragedies, but what makes it so stark is that in the end there was no swine flu epidemic. As things turned out, the vaccination saved no one (it could have gone diffferently, of course). With COVID we already have over 100000 people dead in Britain alone, plus all the aftereffects of ‘long COVID’. Even if there turns out to be quite a few problems with the vaccine, getting vaccinated is still a much better bet than the alternative.
How about some facts for this “fact seeker”:
Research had already been ongoing into SARS & corona viruses in general for decades. Work on SARS vaccines was accelerated after the SARS outbreak in 2002 (including animal trials)
Human vaccine trials in 2020 were conducted in parallel, rather than the usual sequential process, thereby reducing the time frame. This method will most likely become the norm now.
mRNA has absolutely no “bearing on the human genome” whatsoever. It is part of the one-directional transcription sequence from DNA to protein (DNA>mRNA>tRNA>amino acid). mRNA is by its very nature unstable, hence the requirement of having to store the Pfizer vaccine at minus 60 Celsius.
I liked it more when we were talking abut the French.
Its a SARS vaccine. Development started in 2004. It just had to be ‘tweaked’ for SARS 2. Plus, its a ‘plandemic’; They’d never have started all the lockdown nonsense, globally, in harmony, without knowing they could vaccinate their way out of it in due course. This explains, for example, why the EU is SO furious that the UK has ‘cheated’ by failing to execute the lockdown escape ‘in harmony’ with everyone else.
But 1815 was not the last time we fought. The Royal Navy opened fire on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, killing hundreds. There was also Dakar, and some pretty savage encounters with Vichy forces in Syria.
… the slaughter was avoidable but the treachery of France and its dubious honour, so called, condemned hundreds to inevitable death.
BuggerBognor
George v?
Great article, thank you!
Loved this: A middle-class volunteer militia would have revelled in playing the French… and emphasising all the correct pronunciations like they were reporting for Radio 4.
Ditto the inshore Shipping Forecast, where English narrators have, clearly, been told to twist their tongues around Scottish locations as they move up the west coast. It’s excruciating listening, and only something the middle-class would think worth the effort, lest they offend.
WE don’t hate the French, no matter how beastly they behave at times.
The main divide is whether you refer to that thing you cooked as a stew or a bourguignon.
This is based on a false premise. We don’t hate the French. We don’t think about them at all. They are always thinking about us.
There are more books written by British authors about France than French authors about UK.
The day that you will hear a Frenchmen say ” I bought a retirement cottage in Lake District” you know you (UK) made it as a country.
Merci, Ed! That cheered me up. The (few) French people I know are rather fascinated by Britain. I mean, we can’t even be sure of the name of our own country . . .
Parisians can be a pain in the backside, but apart from some of them (waiters, principally) I’ve always found the French charming and they respond well to being addressed in … French! They love it when English people try to speak, even when we mispronounce, their beautiful language.
Also – where do the royals fit into all this? They are famously witheringly anti the French. This aligns them to the working class. In fact, what about the aristos generally? They like hanging out in the posh bits of France but they are pretty snooty about French culture and language, aren’t they? Maybe it’s the early influence of their working class nannies.
Parisians can be a pain in the backside, but apart from some of them (waiters, principally) I’ve always found the French charming and they respond well to being addressed in … French! They love it when English people try to speak, even when we mispronounce, their beautiful language.
Also – where do the royals fit into all this? They are famously witheringly anti the French. This aligns them to the working class. In fact, what about the aristos generally? They like hanging out in the posh bits of France but they are pretty snooty about French culture and language, aren’t they? Maybe it’s the early influence of their working class nannies.
I hate to be pompously French about it but the proper spelling is definitely minuscule.
I hate to be pompously French about it but the proper spelling is definitely minuscule.
What a pile of shite. Working class people do not hate the French – bar a little football rivalry. What Murdoch tells working people to believe is not wat they do believe. You are just trying to get away with a whole slew of Sun-style bigotry but hiding behind the idea that this is how “they” think.
As for the wars against Napoleon:
Y”ou say that Bonyparty he’s been the spoil of all,
And that we have got reason to pray for his downfall.
Well, Bonyparty’s dead and gone, and it is plainly shown
That we have bigger tyrants in Boneys of our own.”
What a pile of shite. Working class people do not hate the French – bar a little football rivalry. What Murdoch tells working people to believe is not wat they do believe. You are just trying to get away with a whole slew of Sun-style bigotry but hiding behind the idea that this is how “they” think.
As for the wars against Napoleon:
Y”ou say that Bonyparty he’s been the spoil of all,
And that we have got reason to pray for his downfall.
Well, Bonyparty’s dead and gone, and it is plainly shown
That we have bigger tyrants in Boneys of our own.”
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified and monstrous war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if our country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year if not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our history, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values.
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
Just a few words in brief.
I am French and I am always shocked by the way the English press treats us. Of course we are not perfect and can come across, especially in Paris, as arrogant. It is a fact. But never in France do we speak of the English in such a hateful way as you do of us. We have a more developed notion of respect for the human person than yours perhaps.
Did you know that? I am so proud that France did not participate in the unjustified and monstrous war in Iraq and that we do not have, unlike you, innocent Iraqi blood on our hands. Because justice is a very strong value in my country and, above all, because we are not the Americans’ dogs. Unlike you, we had the courage to say no to the lies of the neo conservatives, even if it meant paying a high price, and not to be complicit in the abominable crimes and destruction in Iraq.
The article also talks, among other things, about French mistresses. Yes, our sexual reputation is known, but unlike you, it is assumed and not hidden as you do under the guise of hypocritical puritanism.
And if our country is so rotten, so laughable, why do you come to live in France and get treated in increasing numbers every year if not to take advantage of a society that is certainly imperfect but so much more human than your?
I am proud to be French, proud of our history, proud of our culture, proud of our gastronomy, proud of our values.
Long live France! And long live Churchill who, like Queen Victoria, loved France!
LOL!
Normans! That is the real issue.
In Banking, the “hostility” toward the French came from the Essex crowd (equity traders, sales desk, etc.) since the French dominated structured products, equity/credit derivatives and so on…
Your second paragraph is interesting. Is that an education thing you are talking about then? The French being people with a proper grounding in maths, logic and clear use of language, the English being just “buy cheap and sell high” football fan types?
Yes, French dominate the quant desks at any serious (Tier 1) investment bank. France has a selective education system (grand ecoles) but it is purely based on testing. You can not buy yourself (unlike Ivy League in USA) a spot.
Plenty of History/English majors from Oxbrige in the City. the French come from a business/finance/math background. I have yet to meet a French banker that studied French Lit working in the City.
We used to have that until its was destroyed by Shirley Williams & Co, on ideological grounds, in the late 60’s
The Germans kept it.
What was the name of the French (Tier 1) Counting House that set fire to its Paris HQ, and then tried to do the same to its Record Office, in I think St Omer, a few years ago?
… just don’t mention The Fall of France … or 1870/71 … or 1914/18 … or indeed 1812 … [ ! ] .
When patriotism fits for purpose .. some.. will exploit the patriots’ sentiments with similar articles and fanfares. How else they could bend resistance and iron out logic, freedoms, and free will? and also dreams, hope and diversity? The article is only an example of the many ( Chivers’ with the statistics and how safe is AZ vaccine, is another one..) they interweave irrelevant issues, and yes is done smartly, but what are the purposes of doing so? How come politics, war, history, holidays, diplomacy, cooking and wine have anything to do with the UK vaccination program..? if not only for the author to justify blindfold vaccination with the most unscientific vaccines ever? Shots to boost national pride hoping to push to the vaccination center as many as possible…. ‘while it’s of course important that our vaccine programme has saved thousands of lives so far,..’.. yep.. so far.. .. it is too early. What will happen in a year or three-year time? And I am afraid those vaccines’ design, whatever damage is done to the human genome will be passed down from generation to generation .. They always plan a long way ahead and they will never tell you… This is the Anti-anti-Vaxxers anxiety to winning all arguments from all sides and every single angel.. No space, no voice, no credits, no breath for other world views.. all must be the same, do the same, think the same.. What do they fear? To say that their aim is to silence.. that is only the pick of the iceberg. And some.. made sure that every country/nation have their own set of Anti-anti-vaxxers to manipulate those sentiments from within..
French cuisine is grossly over-rated. It seems to consist mainly of cheap cuts of gristly meat soaked in watery gravy.
There is a series of (excellent) novels by Jean-Francois Parot set in the 18th century, the central character of which is Nicolas le Floch, a commissaire de police in Paris. Food plays a very major part in the novels and there are many detailed descriptions of the dishes the characters indulge in.
The recipes are even more shocking and disgusting than the brutal crimes which take place in the books.
The truth of the matter is than English cooking is underated
Indeed, French food is vastly overrated. English food was far superior and today you eat better in England than France. What ruined British cooking was Mrs Beaton – take four dozen eggs !
The Italians really get what food is all about! The French over think and over refine food, but it’s still delicious. The English (and all the UK) … Yikes! Is it the soil? But you do grow such pretty flowers, so that can’t be it.
It isn’t 1968
Thank you. I thought she must be posting from the past.
English food is good,its much better than what I had in the States and the selection and variety is better than what I’ve had on the continent.even the quality can be better in england than the continent.
English traditional food is also great.
London was literally voted the world best food city by national geographic
LOL
Yes the great global conspiracy to over-rate French cuisine. Thank god for people like you that know the truth
“that English Valhalla beyond the Loire”…… probably the Dordogne, where it is even wetter than Bognor!
Half of all things French are to be hated and the other half to be loved. Maximum gratification is realised by engaging only with the latter and speaking only of the former. Bliss.
Everyone hates the French. That is what they are there for.
Everyone hates the English, least liked ppl on the continental,North America, South America, middle east,Africa,east Asia.
English are hated much more than the french
French! I think the only place in the world where the English are hated is England.
Spot on. There is a sort of boasting among some English about how awful they are and how much they really suck. No other people put themselves down as much.
The technical term, from the Ancient Greek is OIKS.
Agree,its been around my whole life .
But unfortunately most of the world would pick england as their most hated country.
Not the only place. There is always Scotland (and Ireland)
And wee little Wales!
Sorry, not a deliberate omission : I just always felt that Wales was hostile to the English, but any hatred was less visceral than with the Irish, and to a marginally lesser extent, the Scots.
I had forgotten the slogan going round some years ago (70s ? 80s ?) “Come home to a real fire – buy a cottage in Wales.”
Not true,look around and read the room,there’s a lot of hate from the Irish,Argentina, other Americans,continental Europe ,East Asians, South Asians,ArabsAfrican,
A lot of people still hold grudges for imperialism-which seems absurd to me.
A lot of people aren’t reasonable
Also a lot of people think they are cultural or gastronomical superior or that we are too arrogant
The funny thing about Delors was that he was french elite but a protestant.. Could be that’s why he was much liked in Northern Europe.
Economist’s view that France is flawed democracy along with India is the typical left wing media view of what is democracy. India being the world’s largest democracy, has held elections successfully in a country of 1.3 billion people. Still, it is branded flawed democracy-because it does not agree with Economist’s definition of democracy!
In India you have nationally elected politicians that incite deadly violence against their fellow citizens. Local officials, judges, police that simply make close their eyes. Elections do not make a democracy.
I know this is an enjoyable series of rhetorical tropes- good fun in a way, but this is the UK not England. You’ll be referencing the Auld Alliance next…
We’ve owned a little house in the Périgord for 46 years. Locals hate the Parisians. Nuff said.
I winced when I saw “miniscule”.
“….in 1804 the authorities organised a mock training battle in Wood Green, Middlesex, they got the Islington Volunteers to be the British and the Hackney and Stoke Newington Volunteers to play the French.” Of course in those days there were actual British people in Islington, Hackney and Stoke Newington, nowadays not so much
Interesting to see that the author states that “Now the country has, inexplicably, halted AZ vaccinations because of a miniscule number of blood clots, fewer than you would get with the contraceptive pill.”
The author ought to be accurate here. The clots in question are not just any regular old blood clot, DVT, etc.., but a very unusual and rare type associated with a low platelet count (thrombocytopenia). Normally, of course, an increase in platelets (or platelet stickiness to vessel walls) increases the probability of clots not the reverse. In other words, the type of blood clots in question that have been observed in various European countries following the AZ vaccine (or perhaps a specific batch of the vaccine) are actually very rare indeed under normal circumstances and have occurred far more frequently following AZ vaccine administration than would be expected on the basis of pure chance.
On another note as an Englishman (now ex-pat living in the US) who grew up in London and went to the French Lycee in Kensington from K through 12 (although perhaps one should use the French nomenclature of K through 1 since they count the classes backwards starting from 12!) I can totally empathize with hating the French. At the time we used to have French Math and English Math, French History and English History, and I would always root for the English side. And of course we would always refer to the French as chicken littles as they were always defeated by the Brits.
And yes, the French are inordinately rude to anybody who doesn’t speak French or if they do don’t speak it with the correct accent.
I’ve lived in France for close to 20 years. Casual racism and excessive pride rule, insular, clever, vain and overly emotional, irrationally dramatic in times of crisis, they’ve perfected a miserable demeanour. All in all they have good values albeit prone to corruption at the first opportunity, although this is probably viewed as a virtue. Honesty – depending on circumstances – may be seen as weakness. The biggest upside to living in France is they detest the PC hand wringing that has so much affected the UK. The cheese is exceptional. Wine, a mixed bag but once you know your way around, again, excellent.
I’ve lived in France for close to 20 years. Casual racism and excessive pride rule, insular, clever, vain and overly emotional, irrationally dramatic in times of crisis, they’ve perfected a miserable demeanour. All in all they have good values albeit prone to corruption at the first opportunity, although this is probably viewed as a virtue. Honesty – depending on circumstances – may be seen as weakness. The biggest upside to living in France is they detest the PC hand wringing that has so much affected the UK. The cheese is exceptional. Wine, a mixed bag but once you know your way around, again, excellent.
This reminds me of being on a train and overhearing a fascinating conversation between the men in the seat opposite.
One worked for Airbus at in the UK, and was describing how his French colleagues had a resentful attitude toward the UK operation (they produce the wings).
He was describing how the French would constantly act in a superior manner, and undermine the UK operation, and also to put it bluntly, be as bloody awkward as possible.
To be honest, I can picture it.
This reminds me of being on a train and overhearing a fascinating conversation between the men in the seat opposite.
One worked for Airbus at in the UK, and was describing how his French colleagues had a resentful attitude toward the UK operation (they produce the wings).
He was describing how the French would constantly act in a superior manner, and undermine the UK operation, and also to put it bluntly, be as bloody awkward as possible.
To be honest, I can picture it.
Super article!
Super article!
French art ended in 1963. They have awful taste and wish to live in grimy modern bungalows or flats with flat pack furniture. Family restaurants are near extinct and the French coo pathetically over the micro-waved Brake Brothers mush that is served up to them. Like the Italians and Spanish the French are bemused by the way the elderly English fawn over the run-down farm houses masquerading as ‘Chateau’, the dingy country cafes. Outside every hamlet is the local dump just follow your nose. ‘La belle France’ time to let it go and fade into memory, don’t risk an encounter with the modern reality.
2 incidents in my life explain how I feel about the French. 1 De Gaulle’s arrogant disdain for a country that gave him sustenance exemplified by his haughty standabove all others march to JFK’s memorial on Runnymede 2 4 Frenchmen I saw pissing on the 4 corners of my Dad’s car when we stopped for a meal on the way to Nice thinking they hadn’t been seen by anyone . One was the cafe owner. These may be considered as small but they exemplify why I can’t abide the French psyche
“English and public drunken pissing” is everywhere in the Med during summer!
Wishful thinking by the author that French politics is worse than the British. If that was the case the guillotines would be out of storage by now. I suspect deep down the author is a tad fearful that the caution of the French (and other European countries) may take the wind out of his vaccine trumpet.