On French Jokes

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, May 20, 2003

[presidio9]

Is the French government taking advice from Sidney Blumenthal? We ask that question after last week's news that our erstwhile ally has formally protested to the U.S. government against what it claims is a concerted "disinformation" campaign against France.

Readers may recall that Mr. Blumenthal was the sharpie who reinforced Hillary Clinton's belief in what she famously called the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Jacques Chirac's government is now in thrall to a similar victimology that it is being punished by a U.S. government campaign to spread lies to convince Americans that the French don't like us.

[A Longer Name]

The only people who can change that image are the French themselves.

How? Invade Germany?

[presidio9]

Well, obviously the Ivory Coast ploy didn't work.

[GoLightly]

Blood for Chocolate!!! Where's my puppet?

[Smedley]

Let them start with regular bathing before we talk about acts of bravery.

[SwinneySwitch]

Hear! Hear1

[SwinneySwitch]

Hear! Hear1

[sarasmom]

BTTT

[GOPJ]

True and funny:

France's biggest U.S. image problem isn't with politicians; it is with America's late-night comedians. During the Cold War they told Russian jokes; now they tell French jokes, and not because John Ashcroft is ordering them to do it. Americans laugh at these jokes because the stereotype of France as a truculent but ultimately feckless adversary of America has sunk deep into the U.S. psyche.

[exDemMom]

It is so sad. France is a beautiful country with a long history, and the language is pure poetry. I spent a year there as an exchange student when I was 17, and I could happily spend the rest of my life there (except for their current infatuation with socialism). What a shame that they have brought such disgrace upon themselves, all for the political ambitions of one Jacques Chirac. Quelle horreur.

[presidio9]

France is a beautiful country with a long history, and the language is pure poetry.

I'll have to take your word for it, because I'll never know. Incidently, Spain is a beautiful country with a longer history, and a more beautiful Language (Castillian). So is Italy.

[exDemMom]

Spain is nice, too. I spent 3 years there, in Rota, and I like it, but I'll always like France more. Even if they are currently being weenies.

[McGavin999]

I'm sure the countryside is beautiful, but the ugliness of the souls of a people who would openly fight against freeing the Iraqi people when it was known what was being done to them would make the most beautiful country repellant.

I'm sure they are a friendly and gracious people to your face but now we know what they are like behind our backs.

[presidio9]

but the ugliness of the souls of a people who would openly fight against freeing the Iraqi people when it was known what was being done to them would make the most beautiful country repellant.

To say nothing about harboring Iraqi strongmen and fostering a culture whose youths would desecrate the graves of foreign soldiers who gave their lives freeing their grandmothers and the French homeland.

The French are reprehensible. There are plenty of of countrysides more beautiful in Europe. There are many cultures that have given more to Western Civilization. If you have never been to Poland, the countryside is beautiful, and the people are wonderful.

[jpl]

San Francisco is also beautiful... when viewed from a distance.

[clamper1797]

I don't think that America will forgive the French for their betrayal and especially for the desecration of the graves our fallen french liberators ... not in my lifetime. I know I never will.

[LonePalm]

Tourism to France is down so much, the French have to be rude to each other.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)<br

[exDemMom]

but the ugliness of the souls of a people who would openly fight against freeing the Iraqi people when it was known what was being done to them would make the most beautiful country repellant

The French people I knew were wonderful people. Remember, some of the French risked their lives to shelter Jewish children from the Nazis. I have met a man who was, in fact, one of these children who was hidden at a boarding school during WWII. I could even say that, in general, I found the French to be more genuinely caring than Americans...which is why the resistance of the French to the liberation of Iraq is so totally incomprehensible to me. I think the dabbling in socialism that the French (and most of Europe) have been engaging in has poisoned their souls. The way I see it, their objection was not so much to the liberation of Iraq, but to the rejection of socialism by the US. We also cannot forget the role of Chirac's political aspirations.

Why is it that Germany behaved just as reprehensibly as the French, but we seem to have no national anger at them? Could it be because we have already seen the Germans support brutality (in the form of Hitler/Nazism), and so we don't really expect high standards from them as we do the French? Isn't much of the anger we feel towards the French based on our expectation that they would behave better?