When it comes to individual Frenchmen, I've mostly had good experiences. People warned me before I went to France that the locals are intolerant of bad French, but I got the same positive reactions from my attempts there as I did in other countries.
But, as I point out above, the problem is less the French themselves than, on the one hand, the Statesiders who idealise them and, on the other, their political and cultural leaders, who reflexively turn to USA-bashing when they need to shore up support. The Germans have a very different experience of French political ambitions since the EU is, at its heart, a Franco-German collaboration. However, the lesson the French drew from the Suez Crisis of 1956 is that the USA was getting too big for its britches and had to be counterbalanced within the Western Bloc. Ever since then, it seems it's hardly missed an opportunity to stick one in the eye of the USA (as long as nothing really important is at stake).
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2007-05-26 11:57 pm (UTC)But, as I point out above, the problem is less the French themselves than, on the one hand, the Statesiders who idealise them and, on the other, their political and cultural leaders, who reflexively turn to USA-bashing when they need to shore up support. The Germans have a very different experience of French political ambitions since the EU is, at its heart, a Franco-German collaboration. However, the lesson the French drew from the Suez Crisis of 1956 is that the USA was getting too big for its britches and had to be counterbalanced within the Western Bloc. Ever since then, it seems it's hardly missed an opportunity to stick one in the eye of the USA (as long as nothing really important is at stake).