Miquelon.org – The Fighting French

“It’s hard to remember sometimes that France and the United States actually are each other’s oldest foreign friends.

French assistance was critical to the success of the American Revolution against Great Britain. In fact, if not for French help, we’d probably all be speaking English right now. We repaid the favor – most notably during the two world wars, when we twice helped the French drive out invading Germans. Read the rest of this entry »

According to Paul Damour (Fini le “French bashing” aux États-Unis), French Bashing is no longer. While it can be argued – and we have taken that stance – that Official French Bashing is now behind us, the number of articles on this site and elsewhere dedicated to documenting recent cases proves otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »

Frank Luntz: If it wasn’t for us, the French would be speaking German right now

• Update 1: looks like the video was removed. We did not get a DMCA notice.
• Update 2: the video was likely flagged and subsequently restored for viewing

This has to be one of the strangest, out-of-the blue, French Bashing comments ever aired by Fox News. It happened during Hannity & Colmes. The odd exchange came after a clip where Barack Obama’s suggested Americans should learn another language. Barack Obama : “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup, right?” Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Danziger mocks the French Army following a tragic incident in Carcassonne. 17 people were wounded, some severely, including children who were shot through the heart and lungs. By resorting to the usual Anti-French stereotypes, most notably military bungling or cowardice, has Danziger crossed the line or is this acceptable satire? Read the rest of this entry »

Italy beat France at soccer two nil. Soccer is a game of endurance, strategy and team building. Being the most popular team sport in the world, it often stokes the patriotic fibre in fans and the public at large.

However, when it comes to sports commentators, we sometimes have to endure slurs and jabs. The latest example is Paul Doyle’s June 17 column replete with the entire Anti-French lexicon of latter day French Bashing. Read the rest of this entry »

During World War II, thousands of American G.I.s from Camp Twenty Grand in Normandy (near Rouen) carved messages on the bark of neighboring beech trees. A local historian, Nicolas Navarro, and a number of locals were calling for the preservation of these trees, for their classification and protection as historical monuments but to no avail. Sixty years later, the trees have grown old and were deemed unsafe by local officials : the owner of the land on which they grew decided to fell them.

This story might never have broken out of the local pages of French papers had the story not had “traction”. Thanks in part to the Times (TimesOnline.co.uk) and now Matt Drudge, the usual and predictable histrionics are coming to the forefront in the comment section of the Times Online article. Replete with the usual French Bashing Themes, legions of indignant users are wallowing in classic anti-French histrionics. Read the rest of this entry »