Are the French as cowardly as stereotypes suggest?

[qwertyMike]

Or are they just decent?

They are still in Afghanistan fihgting with the Coalition :)

The front page of Le Paris Match said after 9/11 :

"Today We Are All Americans"

[unpossibles]

1. we would probably be English Citizens were it not for the French

just sayin.

[qwertyMike]

14. And the cops wouldn't need to carry guns

Just sayin'

[unpossibles]

15. good point. We also would not be saddled with an inbred moron cowboy wannabe as President

I apologize for that, even though I didn't vote for him. Damn it.

[qwertyMike]

24. Not a cowboy

He's a New England born Frat boy. Same state and school as Kerry.

Kerry 1 Oscar
John Wayne (Marion Morrison) 1 Oscar
Bush zero, though he does the cowboy thang well

[unpossibles]

44. no, a "cowboy wannabe" which is worse n/t

[Esra Star]

57. All hat and no cattle. He is scared shitless of horses.

That pretty much disqualifies him from ever having been a cowanything.

[mitchum]

23. Hell, Americans would be speaking English if it weren't for the French

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. That's a good one!

[Sequoia]

51. We could very well be French if they hadn't lost the French Indian War.

Guess which American saved the day on that one: Benedict Arnold, that's who.

http://www.magweb.com/sample/scry/sch23ben.htm

[Little Wing]

2. Have you ever been in a fistfight with a Frenchman?

There's your answer.

[Miss_Strawberry]

6. I wouldn't know...

in the Biblical sense....but I hear they are better lovers than fighters...

[qwertyMike]

8. Have you?

Try playing hockey.

A fighter is a goon.

[Cobalt-60]

16. there was a dust up with my cousin Emil

but it was a family matter.
Although we were so wasted that neither one of us can remember exactly what that matter was...

[Blue-Jay]

19. Why is it Ok to say "Frenchman", but not "Chinaman"?

[Little Wing]

21. Because a Chinaman will kick your ass

QFT

[AngryAmish]

49. Chinaman is offensive?

Chinaman has a whole different meaning in Chicago.

[Sequoia]

52. What does it mean in Chicago?

In the show Kung Fu, David Carradine would've kicked some butt. No, not really, he'd talk like Cap'n Kirk.

IF

YOU

WANT

TO

CALL

ME

NAMES

I

DO

NOT

MIND

,

[AngryAmish]

68. He is a cloat heavy guy who gets you your job

In a sentence:

"I was just a laborer in the Water Dept., but my Chinaman got me on as an equipment operator with Streets and Sanitation."

[Lethe]

70. "Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature."

"Asian american, please."

"Walter, this isn't a guy who built the fucking railroads here. "

[Kutjara]

73. Because Chinaman is the equivalent of Franceman?

Chinese man or Chinese woman is the closer equivalent to Frenchman or Frenchwoman, and people generally consider that construction acceptable.

[qwertyMike]

22. Oh, Macho, Macho, Macho

Oops, sorry that's Spanish.

Bet you never had a fist fight in your adult life.

[Taverner]

40. I have

And in that drunken moment in Bangkok,

I realized that alchohol doesn't make you fight half as good as you think it does at the time...

[Miss_Strawberry]

3. They know how

to have a real revolution.

[qwertyMike]

11. And gave the USA the courage

To start your own slave-driven-greed fest against the Brits.

You did well in the Pacific. The only war you won.

[PVnRT]

48. "Real"?

A Reign of Terror and massive executions that more resembled old-time witch hunting is a "real" revolution?

[brentspeak]

4. The French were known for tough soldiers but inept military leadership

Inept military leadership, with the exception of Napoleon, of course.

[JCMach1]

72. Napolean, Vercingetorix, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc etc.

Plenty of military greats to choose from...

It's myth mostly because of the position of the French in the 20th century.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

5. I'm reading the

"Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich" and I'd say the Italians are the ones who didn't like to fight. Not that war is anything to be glorified and worshipped. But they got pushed all over the place and just weren't much interested in the dirty work. Can't say as I blame 'em........ :)

[brentspeak]

7. For sale: Italian WWII rifle. Never fired; dropped once.

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. They''d seen it all before, when we were running around daubed in woad.

They didn't need Smedley Butler to wise them up.

Nevertheless, both Allied and Axis generals agreed that their elite troops were the match of any other, on either side. Though I don't suppose they're a kind of cult, like the Legion.

[Tektonik]

9. Whereas the French do have that sterotype

The Italians could have a stereotype 1000 times worse tagged onto them :P

[qwertyMike]

38. Rome ruled the world

until they ran out of enenmies, so they turned to growing grapes and producing art, architectre and music.

Now if they had the PNAC to invent enemies for them, well . . . . . .

But we have enemies to keep the rich rich, like the Iraqi's who had zero of 19 passports on 9/11.

[trof]

10. Yeah, Napolean was a wimp.

;-)

[ContraBass Black]

12. If not for the French, there might be no USA.

[ForrestGump]

13. And no France, either

:P

[GoneOffShore]

17. You do NOT want to get arrested by the Gendarmes

Or mess with the Paratroopers. They are some tough mofo's.
This canard about the French being cowardly is such BS.


You do however want to go to the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. The parties given by the firefighters are legendary. And according to Mrs GoS those guys are very hot. The food and booze is pretty good too.

[El Fuego]

18. Mais non!

Il est seulement, comment dit on en Anglais, le freep propaganda.

[bicentennial_baby]

20. tu es tres rigolo!

oui, oui, je suis d'accord! :bounce:

[GoneOffShore]

35. B'oui

vous avez raison.

:bounce:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. the french joined the resistance after the war

jill sobule

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. That is absolutely false. What did happen towards the end of the war,

was that some of the collaborators posed as resistance fighters, and denounced innocent people.

There were school-girls who immobilised stationary German tanks (I believe through their fuel or lubrication), making it impossible for them to be sent to the Normandy landings.

But I remember talking to a Jewish Frenchman who had been a resistance fighter in Clermond-Ferrand, known at the time as the "Nazis' graveyard". I was kind of excited to hear about it, but he was very unforthcoming, really - in fact, such was the stress they had been under throughout that time, that just recalling it, he seemed close to tears.

Because of possible infiltrations by traitors, their knowledge of each other and their own chain of command had be limited to need-to-know.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. umm sorry ..its just a quote from a song.

i respect the french in general

[Joe Chi Minh]

53. Sorry, I didn't realise.

[qwertyMike]

39. The USA joined the WWII

AFTER the Russians, I repeat, Russians had defeated the Germans after Leningrad.

The US joined in to stop Europe becoming RED and try bargain for territory.

You didn't even reach Berlin.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

45. its a quote from a song. sorry shoudl have been more clear.

[Joe Chi Minh]

26. The French Foreign Legion is legendary. The utlimate corps d'elite,

at least in terms of regular troops.

I read today that they were fighting an action (I think in Afghanistan) with SAS troops.


An old Parisian priest used to visit a local priest here every summer and say some of the Masses. He had been a chaplain with the Foreign Legion and was very fond of a story he used to tell about how he fell into a vat of red wine; and due to the circumstances, he had no change of clothes available. It naturally occurred to him to recall the passage in Isiah 63: 1- :

"Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosrah (our Basra, apparently)? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine vat?"

[Hardrada]

30. The FFL was a mixed group though. After WWII, they had

a lot of former SS, Waffen SS, I suppose and not Allgemeine.

[Joe Chi Minh]

54. Sure, but its officers are always French.

[seemunkee]

42. I have a friend that was in the FFL

I'd want him on my side in a bar fight any day.

[HEyHEY]

31. Go into a bar in Jonquire and say that

[achtung_circus]

32. Ever hear of Verdun?

or le Voie Sacrée?

BTW for others, the Legion is officered by Frenchmen, but French citizens are forbidden by law to join. That isn't to say that none do, but they have to have reasonably good forged papers saying that they, are in fact, foreign.

[achtung_circus]

34. Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie,

commander of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR)in Sarajevo had his choice of troops as bodyguards.

His choice? Les Paras.

[LostInAnomie]

36. The French foreign exchange student I knew in high school was.

Always trying to keep me from racing the trains to the railroad crossings, and refusing to throw junk off the overpass. Damn, that guy was a wuss! :evilgrin:

[GoneOffShore]

37. And how many American wusses do you know?

I know lots.

[Omphaloskepsis]

41. The idea that the location of someones conception dictates ability(love of) fighting is absurd.

My parents fucked in the back of a Pinto in the USA to make me and I am the most cowardly motherfucker you will ever meet. I hide behind girls in paint ball.

edit -- spelling -- vowels are cool

[Joe Chi Minh]

55. You're absolutely right. No country can have a monopoly or higher score

in physical or moral courage (which often don't coexist in the same person) than others, any more than cowardice in either.

As they get older, wiser and more mature, the tendency for young men to want to prove themselves, if only to themselves, is apt to recede, while a correspondingly more mature understanding of what's manly and what isn't takes its place.

It's interesting that one of the rules of the Code of the FFL is to bear themselves modestly, unassumingly, a feature also of the set of qualities expected of the SAS. "Jackass"-type larking around is basically for rough-diamond youngsters, who don't know their backside from their elbow. Everything in its time.

[Hardrada]

59. When you get older, like me, one thinks more of where

to get a great meal rather than love or glory. The French actually do well at all these categories!

[Joe Chi Minh]

62. Do you remember th old Italian geezer in Catch 22, who was trying to explain

the nature of things at that time, from the perspective of the ordinary Italian struggling to survive, in a world rendered insane by the far right throughout the West, which had brought about that cataclysmic war?

[Hardrada]

69. To an extent. I thought someone in that book was making sense

but I'd forgotten who it was. I guess I should reread that part (I've read it a few times and have a video copy of the flick).

[sammythecat]

43. I've never understood this malicious scapegoating

of the French, and I believe those who "hate the french" have no clue why. It's taken on a life of it's own with no basis in reality. As an American, it's embarrassing.

[taterguy]

58. It's because they surrender

Ya see, they haven't won every war they've fought. Therefore they're losers and Amerika will not tolerate a loser. Or maybe it's because they talk funny.

[raccoon]

46. I never heard of such a stereotype. Did it just start when they

didn't think the invasion of Iraq was a wonderful idea, blessed by God?

[struggle4progress]

61. No, it dates back to the French Mutiny in 1917:

once again, the rear officers ordered still another pointless suicidal attempt to rush out of the trenches and directly into machine-gun fire -- having somehow not yet gotten it through their boneheads that this had zip chance of success and would only get a whole helluva lot more soldiers killed without changing at all control of the terrain.

The trench-rats responded essentially by collectively waving their middle fingers at the officers.

Here's an account: http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria17_3.htm

[realisticphish]

63. one stat I read

had the french losing as many men in 2 months during WWI as the americans lost in the WHOLE TWENTIETH CENTURY:o

[struggle4progress]

64. Dunno. But at Verdun, after identifying every corpse possible, there were the ...

... unidentifiable remains of somewhere between 100K and 400K French and German soldiers, which were later collected in a monumental ossuary

[realisticphish]

65. people talk about Vietnam

but nothing fills me with horror like WWI.

[raccoon]

74. That was not cowardice, I think that was bravery to defy their head-in-the-arse

officers. Good for them for mutinying.

Thanks for the link.

[taterguy]

47. When I hear French I think bad-ass mo-fos

[Strawman]

50. I highly doubt nationality is a good predictor of cowardliness or decency

[DrunkenMaster]

56. Allow me to recommend the marvelous film

"Army of Shadows" finally just released in the US. It is all about the Frech resistance to the Nazis.

[Redstone]

60. The French, they are a funny race...

I think you have to be as old as me to remember the rest of that one.

Redstone

[democracyindanger]

66. As the late, great Molly Ivins wrote:

"As our coaches used to say, "OK, people, settle down and listen up." We have been enjoying a lovely little spate of French-bashing here lately. Jonah Goldberg of The National Review, who admits that French-bashing is "shtick" — as it is to many American comedians — has popularized the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" to describe the French. It gets a lot less attractive than that.

George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried." That was certainly amusing. One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Hitler...

...Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For eighteen months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany...

...Surrender monkeys? Try Dien Bien Phu. Yes, the French did surrender, didn't they? After 6,000 French dead in a no-hope position. Ever heard of the Foreign Legion? Of the paratroopers, called "paras"? God, the trouble we could have saved ourselves if we had only paid attention to Dien Bien Phu..."

http://www.creators.com/opinion/molly-ivins/molly-ivins-february-18.html

[Redstone]

67. Molly will continue to amaze us with her wisdom, even though she's gone.

Redstone

[sammythecat]

71. Thanks for posting that

What a loss not to have her around anymore. She always knew what to say and just how to say it.

This nonsense about the French made me feel like I was in a country run by 6th graders.

[Blue_Tires]

75. i don't seen anyone picking a fight with Zidane

or anyone else on the French National Soccer Team (even though Henry has always struck me as a little wimpy--if ever there was a fight, Henry would be the first person they go after)