What Makes Someone French?

NY Times ^ | November 11, 2005 | CRAIG S. SMITH

[Pharmboy]

The more I learn about other countries, the more I appreciate this one. Here, if you are a good citizen and work hard, you can make it and society accepts you as American. In France, being French includes having the Gauls in your ancestry.

[Ninian Dryhope]

Semou Diouf looks like he has had his horns removed.

[SamAdams76]

But...but...France is a great multicultural society. Their culture is so much more SUPERIOR than that of the "ugly, uncultured, warmongering Americans."

At least this is what I've been told all these years.

[mewzilla]

...put simply, being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair.

Well, if you don't want what the folks who were there first want, why move there?

[Ninian Dryhope]

"All citizens are French, end of story, the government insists, a lofty position that, nonetheless, has allowed discrimination to thrive."

The poor old misbegotten French just need to institute the wonders of affirmative action, after all, it has worked wonders here.

[Fenris6]

"being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair"

The same reason certain people only wear Polo. Wow, what "culture" the French have. No class.

[Pharmboy]

Well, it seems that this article is saying that even if you embrace their culture (as the Senegalese appears to say at the opening of the piece) you're still not French if you're black.

[counterpunch]

CNN calls French-Tunisians "African-Americans".

 

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Croissants?

[Pharmboy]

Omigawd! That is the stupidest/funniest thing I've seen in a while...did she ad-lib or did some ignorant copywriter do that?

[Recon Dad]

France is the most inhospitable country on earth due to their overbearing conceit. They have built this self-image in their minds that they are the very important country in the world.
They just don't allow mirrors in France or if they do they say, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the prettiest of them all"?

I find them to be the joke that they will never get.

[mewzilla]

Okay. But I'm still curious about how much is racism, and how much is it folks who refuse assimilation.

[clee1]

A yellow streak running down their spine?

[wayoverontheright]

What Makes Someone French?

Condescension?

[son of caesar]

mewzilla, while we know that islam will neve assimilate, most of this problem is frances own racism. you can rest assured that when a nation, group or individual points fingers at others and cries racist, that nation, group or individual is the truest racist on earth. this defines france and btw, mostly defines black americas leaders, racists one and all thru and thru. they judge blacks based on hair texture, and skin tone. lol, THATS RACIST.

[mark502inf]

European nations are built on ethnic heritage; that is their defining characteristic. It's why the Czechs & Slovaks split up their country, it's why the Balkans are such a mess, and it's why immigrants have such a hard time fitting in.

The USA is built on ideas & ideals, not ethnicity.

[Gay State Conservative]

I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France.

But,M.Diouf,are you a Muslim? If you are,then you and I both know that you cannot be French,or British,or American,or Australian....thanks to that silly (and scary)comic book called the Koran.

[sure_fine]

What Makes Someone French?



anyone who considers BO as a aphrodisiac

[Gay State Conservative]

The USA is built on ideas & ideals,not ethnicity.

A correction,if I may:the US was once based on ideas and ideals,but is no longer.

[mewzilla]

Racism's that bad over there? Has it always been racist? And is it really racism or ethnocentrism? I suppose it might not matter much to someone at the other end of it, but are African immigrants the only ones who are treated this way, or is it anyone from a non-Western country? And if the situation in France is so bad, why the heck move there?