English dislike of France

xpost - France are rubbish at football - they are just lucky.

I don't understand this either. We'd be having tea at 4 and that bitchy queen on our stamps if it wasn't for the French! Viva la revolution, bros!

Or their hatred of immigrants?

Or the RAMPANT ANTI SEMITISM

The headgear thing is wierd. The french elite will protect secularism even if it means stomping on every other human right going. Bizarre is slightly understandable.

Only in theory. Our money has weird God crap all over it, and our institutions of government routinely invoke God (and not just in Dubya's shitty speeches neither).

-- Matt DC (runmdc@********.***), May 28th, 2004. (later)

!!!! Ed = OTM!!!

In light of the Wars of Religion, the persecution of Jansenists, Huguenots, the massive Catholic resistance to public education in the late 19th Century, I find the French Republic's attitude understandable if not slightly exagerated.

NA you're so cute when you play the stupid American.

This shocked the hell out of me when I was there. I didn't know how the powers-that-be could just pretend things were OK out in the zone! It was a weird feeling being on the RER sometimes and the Metro near Barbes-Rochechouart and stuff - there was this almost palpable violence in the air like some of the young people were about to explode. I got pushed out the door of the Metro once, 'cause I was speaking American I guess; I saw some dude clock a (pregnant) woman during some massive argument among total strangers on the RER...

Sorta, but eg De Gaulle's snubbing of the yanX0R NATO in the 60s was sort of Bonapartist, and the revolutions of 1830, 1848, 1871, 1936, 1968 were all qt significant abroad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/25/dominique-strauss-kahn-imf

this is pretty hilar as special pleading goes. don't care one way or the other about the case, but the argument, 'hey, sexual harrassment is just part of our culture' is pretty lol.

The point is how you define sexual harrassment though, isn't it? Anyone who's every worked in a totally French work environment can confirm that constant flirting, one night stands, affairs etc. is the pretty much to be expected from both men and women and across the hierarchy. There's just no sense that the work place should be somehow sexually neutered, as in Anglo-Saxon work culture.

this is still overstated right

I dunno, obviously most individual English people don't have a problem with most individual French people, but the French as a whole are still a frequent and easy target of slightly mean jokes n jibes, both in the media and the pub. Couldn't say whether this is reciprocated across the channel.

Interestingly, the Germans get a lot of stick too but it's generally much more good-natured ime. Guess one immense fucking war in living memory still doesn't trump centuries of military, imperial, and cultural rivalry.

By coincidence I caught a bit of Schama's History of Britain which dealt w/the French Revolution and why that didn't spread across the channel. No dislike was cited, more that The Terror wasn't anyone's erm cup of tea.

The British establishment has always been v good at giving the working classes just enough concessions to keep em from rising up.

i'm half french but have always lived in england. seems there's this ongoing thing between the french and the english where the english think the french are 'snooty' and the french see the english as uncouth. i think a lot of these conceptions stem from certain social signifiers that i only noticed on my last trip to france this summer.

for example, in france it's considered incredibly bad mannered to start talking to someone you don't know without saying 'bonjour' first. french shopkeepers will only grudgingly serve the britisher who walks in and simply hands over a newspaper and some money to them without a greeting. similarly, the british are infamous for not saying 'thank you' and 'goodbye' in situations like these. i believe in france it's considered vital that 'bonjour (monsieur/madam)', 'merci' and 'au revoir' are involved in any passing context, from being served in a restaurant to asking for directions.

on the other hand, the british also have a similar set of codes and signifiers that would seem dogmatically flowery to the french. even at the dinner table, long diplomatic sentences like 'if it's not too much to ask, would you mind passing over the salt when you get a moment' get needlessly trotted out while 'passé le sel s'il vous plait' would suffice nearly every time in french.

the number of times i've heard a relative say during a discussion 'I do not agree with you' - despite being perfectly grammatical, isn't something you hear english people say very often. we skirt around arguments and approach them from oblique angles 'i see what you're saying, but...', 'that's all well and good', 'you are right, but i also think...' etc...

there are even little things, for example if you give way to someone on the road in france, you rarely get an acknowledgement from the other driver, whereas in the uk it's polite to give a little nod or a wave; and this is in contrast to the french being keen on greetings and thank yous.

^^^
Interesting post, thanks.

my kids have just started school here in France for the year, and my older children, in secondary school, have English class four days a week (at their regular French public school). I'm looking at my son's English textbook, which is focused on Britishes English rather than American English, and it has a section on Brit food. The one page discussion British mealtimes, the birth of the sandwich, scotch eggs, & fish and chips. Re. the last: "Approximately 25% of the meals eaten outside the home are fish and chips." No sneer here, folks.

even at the dinner table, long diplomatic sentences like 'if it's not too much to ask, would you mind passing over the salt when you get a moment' get needlessly trotted out

they do not

Maybe not to that extent, but needlessly qualifying request is definitely an English trait.

Like I only really comfortable using the imperative, 'get me pint' or whatever, with close friends.

feel comfortable.

that stuff is as overstated as the dislike of the french

remarks about the french seem more common w/ older ppl. I've heard northerners conflating southerners w/ the french on account of softness/dislike of chip naans, but it's always nonsense self-parody of the "south of tyne = france" type

I dont really understand that point re. Shopkeepers, asking directions. If the full gamut of greetings arent used and in such a formal way as in france then hello and thanks etc are used all the time

I dunno, obviously most individual English people don't have a problem with most individual French people, but the French as a whole are still a frequent and easy target of slightly mean jokes n jibes, both in the media and the pub. Couldn't say whether this is reciprocated across the channel.

Don't worry it is reciprocated, the stereotype french people have of the british is: undersexed greedy bankers or uncultured hooligans, ugly cities, can't cook for shit.

I'm kind of surprised that mostly political/historical reasons are given above, because I never got the impression that the average French-hating brit or american really knew much about that stuff.

Isn't it just that many British and American guys find France too feminine and don't care for what little they see of the culture? In French language classes at school, boys were embarrassed to speak French and would have picked German if they had a choice. Also that from lots of media (including cartoon stereotyping), French men seem more animated and expressive, often being called pretentious.

Always seemed similar to a homophobic response to me. I honestly don't think I've ever seen a woman say she disliked the French.

for example, in france it's considered incredibly bad mannered to start talking to someone you don't know without saying 'bonjour' first. french shopkeepers will only grudgingly serve the britisher who walks in and simply hands over a newspaper and some money to them without a greeting. similarly, the british are infamous for not saying 'thank you' and 'goodbye' in situations like these. i believe in france it's considered vital that 'bonjour (monsieur/madam)', 'merci' and 'au revoir' are involved in any passing context, from being served in a restaurant to asking for directions.

i side squarely w/ the french on this btw

lots of french film directors seem to seek out british musicians to score their films btw, while I hardly mind this i've never quite been able to explain it

i side squarely w/ the french on this btw

it is a lot nicer. i found myself saying 'hello' a lot more after i'd got back, but slowly went back to 'just this please..' or 'excuse me, do you know the way to...'

Robert Adam Gilmour has a point about how the French are seen as being a bit flouncy or effeminate, but where does this stereotype come from? You'd think the number of French movies that have come out in the last 25 years, from La Haine to Irreversible to Les Intouchables, all which reflect a certain macho or even violently male world, might change that? Is it because we still think of the French as people who go around in powdered wigs or sad mimes and harlequins or emaciated painters dying of hunger in Parisian lofts? The Italians are seen as just as expressive, perhaps even more so than the French and yet there isn't quite this same stereotype.

one thing i like about france is the infinite shadings of the word "bonjour" that occur in everyday discourse

how so?

or are you being sarcastic?

absolument pas

Interestingly, the Germans get a lot of stick too but it's generally much more good-natured ime. Guess one immense fucking war in living memory still doesn't trump centuries of military, imperial, and cultural rivalry.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Wednesday, 3 September 2014 16:32 (4 hours ago)

this is a lot to do with this perceived feminity

germany has its sins mostly forgiven and is seen as a kindred nation sharing certain numinous values of cold instrumental rationality, rigour, industry, martial spirit etc

The Italians are seen as just as expressive, perhaps even more so than the French and yet there isn't quite this same stereotype.

Italians have the mafia

nobody in America watches french films btw

it is weird that french men are stereotyped as effeminate given that they are among the most sexist in western europe

I honestly don't think I've ever seen a woman say she disliked the French.

this is OTM

i also don't think i've ever seen an english dude crack wise about french women

it seems like a strictly guy-to-guy thing

Italians have more aggressive men in their stereotypes, which seems more acceptable. Sopranos and all the gangster films are widely accepted by manly men.

I think Jeremy Clarkson and John Wayne fans probably don't keep up with edgy French films. The Artist and Amelie are what the average punter sees from France.

I think these guys would have less dislike of France if the population was exclusively female.

lol

this is sort of true but mostly people like clarkson are very fond of france, they own homes there, they appreciate its conviviality ands its sybaritism, all of this stuff is a sort of bantz that they can enjoy with the locals while they give it the rosbifs dogshit

do the british have a minister of culture at cabinet level?

culture media and sport is the current department name, unless they have renamed it again

'ministry of fun' is its residual title

Also the handsome charming soccer players and Gambit from X-Men* threatens macho English speakers because they are maybe seen as mixture of masculinity and femininity that ordinary guys can't compete with. French accent seen as inherently sexy.

*Wolverine is more acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if Frank Miller didn't like Gambit. He was recently citing a Rod Stewart song as the moment gender relations went to shit.

Christ help this site

Sorry, the forum has too many superheroes. I promise I'm not into the films.

I saw an episode of QI years ago when Stephen Fry said the French have a stereotype of Brits being lazy (which is a popular stereotype of France) and I was surprised when the normally decent comedian David Mitchell starting heaping all the cliched insults on the French. Annoyed me a lot.

Are there many French stand-up comedians going to English speaking territories?

"During the Hundred Years' War, the French took to calling the English les goddams because of their frequent use of expletives."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_names_for_the_British

wait, is there another comedian called David Mitchell?

It was the Peepshow guy. I quite like him.

désolé