Saturday, April 28, 2007

Je déteste!

clothing boutique at the Promenade

Disclaimer: I am a true francophile and love everything French - their country, their language, their food (well, maybe not frogs, snails and pig snouts!), even their much-maligned pop music...

But how can I resist commenting on the latest poll , taken by International Herald Tribune and France 24 TV, on how the French are viewed by other nationals:

14 percent of Germans had a negative view of the French, followed by
25 percent of Italians,
29 percent of Spaniards,
33 percent of Britons and
38 percent of Americans

Oh, yeah, the largest group that dislikes the French, at 44% ....were the French themselves!
Sacré bleu! What do you make of it?

21 comments:

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

Familiarity breeds contempt!!!! :DD

tfangel said...

Love the name of the store, so cute.
It would be interesting to see polls as to what each country thinks of others and itself. I wonder how many would be where most hate where they live.

Janet said...

And negativity breeds negativity!

freefalling said...

I love the quote by Jawaharal Nehru at the top of your page - I think he has hit the nail on the head. Here's what I know about Florida - lots of people retire there and anything else I know comes from CSI Miami. I love your blog coz it shows me what exists beyond the stereotypes. thanks.

Oya said...

Ha ! That's funny:)...

Kate said...

Perhaps many of these malcontents have never visited that wonderful country, with the exception of the French themselves! I'd hate to see a poll re. USA right now. PS Despites its warts and all, I love my country and wouldn't move, except perhaps to move to a beach community!!

Nikon said...

I hear that the Brits are buying property in France now that they have bought up most of Spain :)

Kala said...

it would be great to see how many people dislike americans haha!

Chuckeroon said...

1. Your kind comments elsewhere...answer)when you are transpositioning yourself spatially you need generic (not specific) reference points - now work that one out!

2. "Fussy Frog".......that says it all. They'll get over it.

3. On a serious note....you and that cheap camera teach us all a great lesson. Tks for the Blog Izzy.

Anonymous said...

Nice photo. I liked your poll results too. Was surprised the US wasn't higher.

I posted information about codes that might interest you.

Abraham Lincoln
Brookville Daily Photo

GMG said...

I must confess I'm not surprised. For most French people the results they get in this kind of pools in other countries are probably just an additional reason to improve their (apparently low, but actually very high) self-esteem. On the contrary, there are countries where the nationals’ self-esteem is so obviously high that people get shocked when realizing that not everybody has the same sensitivity towards them!
Anyhow, when we say French (or Americans, Brits, Portuguese, Spaniards, whatever) we're probably just preparing to pronounce an unintelligent verdict...

Dsole said...

oh! interesting... ;)

angela said...

The last statistic doesn't surprise me at all..but then I'm British and I don't like all the Brits I meet.
C'est la vie!
Angela

Anonymous said...

I think a lot depends on what you expect. Whenever I've visited Paris, I expect people to be genteel and courteous, and they are! The French are more reserved than Americans, and some take that for rudeness.

Besides, how much nicer can anyone be than Nathalie and Alice (and Eric, and Olivier, etc.)?

A fellow Francophile. :)

Anonymous said...

Moi aussi, Isabella! Je déteste tout. Ok so maybe I don't but if the French hate themelves more than Fox News hates them, well I have nothing else to say.
Well maybe I do, I miss baguettes and cafe noir and sitting watching the world go by.

Ming the Merciless said...

One of my friends said her husband won't take her to Paris because "the French people don't like us".

All I did was roll my eyes.

alice said...

I'm just a poor little Frenchie, may I say just a few words...? ;-)
Just to say something about French educational principles: when a French pupil does something right, his teacher will tell him: "yes, ok, but don't be too proud, because next (or last) time you will do (or you did) wrong, so stay calm." The permormance is not encouraged at all. I've worked as a speach therapist for many years and it was really difficult to restore just a piece of self esteem after years and years of "you'll never be good enough"...I think it could be a beginning of an explanation about our bad opinion of ourselves.
Anyway, I agree with gmg saying that generalities are often reducing and not very clever.
A very interesting topic, Isabella!

Olivier said...

oui mais 100% des français, sont français ;o) ce qui suffit pour justifier ce sondage (tu as tord de ne pas aimer la grenouille, c'est tres bon)

kuanyin333 said...

A great topic, but since so many others have immigrated to France, who is of true 100% French lineage anymore? So the poll is skewed!I love the French too, but I have noticed the ones I love and know well enjoy a debate and a complaint here and there. :-)

Anonymous said...

As far as I'm concerned (Im French...), I'm not very proud to be a French man when I travel the world. When my wife and I see French people, it's because they are shouting, they are angry and that's why we know they are French.
We love to meet people form other countries, and understand how they live, and what they think about French people. It's easy to speak with us as my wife is an English teatcher, but when we are in a foreign country, we do our best no to be French tourists. We respect queue, we don't want to be categorized as French people, what we dislike.

Cheers from Lyon, French food capital ;-)

PS: Sorry, but I'm not an english teatcher, I apologize for the mistakes I make.

Christophe Thibault said...

Bonjour Isabella,

Les Français ne se détestent pas eux-mêmes... ils détestent leurs voisins, celui de l'autre ville, de l'autre département, celui du Nord (ou du Sud, de l'Est, de l'Ouest).
Ceux de gauche détestent ceux de droite (et vice versa, regarde les manifestations liées aux dernières élections).
On est fier de nous que lorsqu'on gagne la coupe du monde de foot, c'est dire....

En final, ce sont les étrangers qui nous apprécient plus, même ceux qui prétendent nous détester (ne sommes nous pas, encore - et malgré le caractère de cochon des garçons de café, des chauffeurs de taxi et des hôteliers provençaux - la destination préférée des touristes ?).

Mais bon, les français sont des râleurs, tout le monde le sait, et ils ne veulent pas en changer.

A bientôt peut être sur notre territoire.