EUROPE UNITES IN HATRED OF FRENCH

May 17, 2005 (Telegraph) - Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they come across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

[Emphases added.]

(Hat tip: Papertiger)

This is news? I thought disecting frogs was a common practice.

:-)

"Perhaps now they will understand that the world sees them as arrogant", to turn the phrase of a psuedo-frog.

Ah well... you just can't please everyone. It's also interesting to note how the same group of Europeans makes France the number one destination in the world.

Zoomer, the answer lies in the old saying (I paraphrase from memory):

France is such a beautiful country. Too bad it has so many Frenchmen.

Nice country. But unfortunately it's a country full of pompous obnoxious jackasses. Europe agrees

But unfortunately it's a country full of pompous obnoxious jackasses. Europe agrees

True, there are many. We finally agree on something.