Miquelon.org – The Fighting French

Whether it’s Women’s Soccer, DSK, Tennis, Bastille Day or a sponsored hash-tag – the web remains rife with anti-French prejudice and sentiment.

1. Brian Moylan of Gawker.com thinks he can do better than Cracked.com with his weak list of “10 things we should send back to France”. We’re guessing Ryan Tate(1) was too busy.
2. @LukeRussert (2) tweeted: Also in the midst of depressing #debt talks, go #USA women’s soccer! I don’t like losing to #France in anything. #FreedomFries
3. Still over at twitter, a sponsored hash-tag (#wheninfrance) unleashed a flood of French Bashing
   
4. Women’s Soccer provided plenty of fodder for the press and twitter
   1. After gargantuan win, U.S. can’t expect a French surrender
   2. Twitter was rife with surrender jokes over Women’s Soccer
   3. Some took offense at our replies: (1) (2) (3) (4)
5. In other news: Les Bêtes Fromages by Llewellyn Hinkes – “After all, this is the selfsame empire that slaughtered its way through most of Europe under Napoleon and used its trans-national power to colonize Haiti, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Chad, Algiers, Tahiti, Polynesia, Togo, Madagascar, Mauritania, Benin, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Congo, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, French Guiana, Morocco, Quebec, Eastern Canada, the American Midwest, and Louisiana.“

Meanwhile, part the French Consular Network (Miami – San Francisco – Nouvelle Orléans) is promoting the work of a group called “The French Will Never Forget“.

(1) Ryan Tate @ Gawker : “But [Angelina Jolie's] lazy, arrogant French doctors will make her wait in agony for three more days so they can celebrate cutting off rich people’s heads like communists and probably also so they can fornicate with their unbathed mistresses, get drunk and fantasize about terrorism.”
(2) Luke Russert is a television and radio personality who has followed in the footsteps of his father, the late Tim Russert)

Où fêter le 14 juillet 2011 en Amérique du Nord ?
Where are you going to celebrate “Bastille Day”?

États-Unis d’Amérique, dépendances et Bahams

• Boston : 7-24 juillet : Festival du Film Français
• Où fêter le 14 juillet à New York ?
• New Jersey – French Institute Alliance Française
• Où fêter le 14 juillet en Floride, à Porto-Rico, dans les Iles Vierges américaines ainsi que dans les Bahamas ?
• Nouvelle-Orléans : Festival de cinéma français de La Nouvelle-Orléans
• Célébrations du 14 juillet : Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas
• Los Angeles : Fêtez le 14 juillet avec French Tuesdays !
• Chicago
• Nord-Ouest Américain
• Washington D.C. (Ambassade) – avec carton d’invitation

Canada

• Acadie et provinces atlantiques
• Toronto – Torontois.com (17 juillet)
• Ottawa (Ambassade) – avec carton d’invitation
• Consulat de France à Québec – avec carton d’invitation
• Montréal : l’Union Française

Saint-Pierre et Miquelon

• Mairie de Saint-Pierre : reporté au 17 juillet

Seriously, happy Fourth of July.

Long live Franco-American Friendship.

According to French politician Jack Lang, and some journalists, the fact judge Melissa Jackson refused to grant bail to Dominique Strauss Kahn is proof anti-French sentiment was part of her decision. From a purely legal standpoint, her decision is understandable: the accused is a flight risk, he was taken off a plane.

What’s really interesting to us, at Miquelon.org, is that after 8 years of no support from the French political establishment, French Bashing is now a convenient card to play when it suits someone’s political agenda. How convenient …

So far, we have seen little or no French Bashing save a few lousy headlines in faux-French over the DSK Affaire. Most attacks have been aimed squarely on DSK’s personality, his status and his lifestyle. Just like in France.

If anti-French sentiment is expressed in this case, we’ll be the first to denounce it. In the meanwhile, Jack Lang might want to keep his opinions on the matter of French Bashing to himself.

• Source : LePost.fr

It’s been close to eight years now since Miquelon.org first appeared on the web with a clear mission: to be a Watchdog dedicated to documenting anti-French attitudes and commentary in the world of politics, media and entertainment.

I enjoyed this endeavor, I was proud to do the work so many others recoiled from and appreciated the support from the many thousands who donated, wrote in with leads or confided their personal stories stemming from the stupidity of base French-Bashing.

But something lately has not been quite right.

Last year, many French citizens discovered they had become second class citizens. Having a foreign born parent, like myself, meant they could not renew passports or identity documents without proving their foreign born parents had indeed become full fledged French Citizens. At the time, like many others, I alerted my elected officials. The issue seemed to be resolved despite the decree, written by then Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkzoy, still being on the books.

This week, state affairs have taken on a new twist.

French member of parliament, Claude Goasguen, put forth a proposition that would curb the number of dual citizens by stripping them of political rights and keeping a special register of said dual nationals. Being a Citizen of France through my father and a Citizen of Canada by maternal lineage, here I am today, lumped into a new class of sub-citizens of the French Republic.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes. It’s back. Nothing like during the Iraq war of course, but proof none the less that anti-French prejudice is alive and well in American Pop Culture. A few minutes on twitter suffice…

Here are a few articles and comments worthy of note.

• Du «french bashing» en Amérique – Petite poussée anti-française avec l’intervention «alliée» en Libye, mais bien moindre que lors de la guerre d’Irak. By Antoine Bourguilleau – The article’s approach is interesting but misses a lot of what we’ve uncovered over the near decade of existence. See my response below to Bourguilleau.
• “‘[...] Only Obama could make France look good” – David Letterman
• The French: ‘Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys’ No More?