Do you know how to make croissants?

or a good wine?

can you be as snooty as possible while smoking a ciggarette?

can you lose ever war you're involved in for 150 years?

join a game with a CD France (theres bound to be one somewhere). otherwise, your stuck with what your given

I thought "frog bashing" was a right wing thing to do...

I think it's been more than 150. Apart from colonial wars I can't think of any French successes off the top of my head since Napoleon, and that was just ephemeral. I'm no scholar of French military history, however.

France kind of won World War I as one of the Allies and got back Alsace-Lorraine. I would consider that a success.

What is so unique about French Carriers. They have three engines: Two of their engines were created to go backwards swiftly and one was meant to move it fowards. <---------(fleet carrier)~~~~~~

Try googling "French Military Victories" - make sure click "Feeling Lucky" though, instead of search. You will get your answer.

:) I did last year and I'll never forget it.

and the only reason the french carriers have an engine to go forward is just in case the enemy attacks from behind.

In Soviet Russia the joke cracks YOU!!!

While I am aware of the use of the phrase "French military victory" in English, I ignore where the expression comes from and what is the stereotype at its base, given that the French, indeed, have won plenty of conflicts, not last that little skirmish that some call "World War II"...

Many thanks to anybody who will be able to explain the origin of this sentence! :)

The French then led by Jacques Chirac(pronounced Jack Shirack in case anyone forgot) refused to go into Iraq so American conservatives started stereotyping the French as cowardly and making lots of jokes about them. In one restaurant French fries* were renamed liberty fries to make them sound more American.
*The Belgians insist that they invented them and that therefore they are in fact Belgian fries. Heck I just want some fries, lots of 'em with a big burger and 7UP.

The cowardly French stereotype is WAY older than the Iraq War. If I had to guess where it came from, (and this is all guessing on my part, albeit educated guessing) it would be from DeGaulle wanting France to be in a more powerful position than it really earned, given its performance against Germany, in the post-war world. The French have also always been portrayed as sissies for hundreds of years, so it most likely comes from that ultimately.

French stereotypes aren't all bad though. They're supposed to be great lovers. Aren't condoms even called "French Letters" in England?

The French were considered one of the more militant powers for centuries. The fear invoked by the 'Old Guard' was well known. The Courage of the French Foreign Legion is never doubted.

It was only after World War 2 and the losses in Vietnam, the retreat from Suez, Algeria and the colonial wars that pro British folks in America and elsewhere tried to disparage the French.
In fact there have been many French victories in both wars and combats in the last few hundred years.
Many Americans forget that it was the French that helped us secure our independence from the British and that at the Battle of Yorktown there were more French troops then Americans.
Additionally the French were with the British in the Crimenian War, Defeated the Austrians shortly later that helped Italy become free of the Austrians and united. The French won various Colonial Wars and their sufferings and ultimate victory in WW1 should not be under played.
It is easy to dump on the French because their foreign policy is based mostly on the concept of Balance of Power which is rather contrary to the manner in which many Americans (and Russians and Chinese by the way) look at things.

The french won WWII ?? wow - you learn something every day. I always thought that they were conquered and occupied by Hitler and The English, Americans and Russians conquered Germany, Italy and Japan.

but that's not really why I was replying - I was going to ask a serious question ... How many French does it take to Defend Paris ...

The world may never know!

That joke is amazing, philcore.

And in WWII, the Free French under De Gaulle did less than Poland, didn't they?

We really just let DeGaulle and the Free French continue because there was a real chance the Communists could have gained power in France after the war. Although the French commies would probably have been as ungrateful to the Soviets as they ended up being to the Allies.

Nobody 'won' WW1, it was simply a bloody end of the old order. The English call it 'The Great War', and that's what it was: a great war with many losses and without real victory.


I now understand something. I had a text from an American comedian about the announcement of Bush's 'Axis of Evil'. (With three countries starting an axis that was 'just as evil') It has the following phrase: 'Within minutes, France surrendered'. I always wondered where that came from, but now I know :)

lol i love how threads turn out on this site i was only bitching about never being france, by the way invictus no condoms are not called that.

Lets go through the powers one by one:

France: "France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes." —Mark Twain

The Balkans (not a power but deserve a mention): "They're like Russian dolls, one keeps popping out of another."- Sandi Toksvig

Britain: “Being British is about driving in a German car, to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way home, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV, and the most British thing of all is a suspicion of all things foreign.”

I shall leave it there for a bit.

you missed out italy germany and turkey and russia and austria :p

Wow that's amazing, the last war France won was the 100 years war.

so you not counting world war 1 and 2 as victories then or the wars faught before the napolenic wars really got started

Well, France technically won WWII as it signed the treaty declaring Germany the loser and France as one of the winners...

France is still a major military power; it's got a seat in the U.N. Security Council, nuclear armaments, and one of the most advanced military as well as dealing extensively with arms trade.

Other than the last 70 or so years, France has a very glorious military history from the Gauls, to the Merovingians and Carolingians and Charles le Martel and Charlemagne, to the Crusades and the fearsome Frankish knights, and Joan of Arc, the Ancien Regime, the great Napoleonic Era, massive French Colonialism, the Franco-Austrian war already mentioned, the Crimean War and so on.

All victories are ephemeral. French stereotypes today are only coloured by their relatively recent "cowardly" acts.

By that logic the ROC won WWII since it signed a treaty with Japan declaring it the winner. Different situations and circumstances, but sometimes treaties are just a legal fiction.

Folks,

More French died in World War II than Americans. The French lived for four years under Nazi occupation; their homes were bombed, their women raped, and anyone who resisted was shot. Americans living north of the Mason-Dixon line have never had to face such treatment. Of the people calling the French 'cowards' and losers here, I'm wondering how many of them would've joined the Resistance and face certain death, or just shrug their shoulders and said "oh well!" when faced with the same circumstances. Eisenhower said the Resistance was worth 15 divisions; "Cowardly Frenchmen" undoubtedly saved tens of thousands of American lives during the invasion of France.

I would highly recommend the French movie "Army of Shadows" about the French resistance to the Nazis (the only place I know of where you can get it is Amazon).

Also, if it weren't for the French, all us Americans would still be forced to pay oppressive taxes, hand over our guns to the government, and the police would be able to search us and take our stuff whenever they felt like it.

Er... nevermind. At least we don't have to buy overpriced tea.

why do the French plant trees along their roads?

so the Germans can walk in the shade

France has never really won a war in centuries...
It lost the Napoleonic wars. It lost the Franco-Prussian war. It only 'defeated' the Germans in the two World Wars because USA was on their side.
Also, the hundred years' war actually wasn't a war France fought with another nation, rather it was a civil war. The result was that there was now a France and a Britain instead of on country.

Well-said,Tolstoy.

The French lost Alsace-Lorraine thanks to Otto von Bismarck's amazing diplomacy strategy called realpolitik. This was during a time when germany was comprised of over 300 city-states that were later consolidated into 39 independent nations who lacked a central government and a will to work together(you know how princes can be so selfish). The reason why the "Germany" was in pieces was because Napoleon did not want Germany to ever be able to challenge France again. After the fall of Napoleon I, the second time, Clemens Wenzel von Metternich of Austria(who charged a toll when the French were coming back from their defeat in Russia after losing hundreds of thousands of men and i believe he required that the French pay 1/3 of their treasury) realized that the Germanic nations needed to be strong enough to be an efficient buffer in case France got big again, which we know never happened, so he reduced the 300 cities down to 39 nations during the Congress of Vienna. He also made a law that stated the 39 Germanic nations could in not join together in any way in order to avoid aggression towards France out of revenge.

Bismarck would taunt other countries, that he knew Prussia could beat in battle, until their people got so mad that they would threaten their crown to fight or get overthrown. He used this tactic on Denmark, Austria, and France.

Germany gained Schleswig from Denmark(Austria got Holstein), recognition and Holstein from Austria, and from France, Alsace-Lorraine and a solidified German Empire.

The only reason why France got Alsace-Lorraine back was because someone had the bright idea to let France, who got completely embarrassed by the Germans, write the Treaty of Versailles. In this treaty France took back Alsace-Lorraine and made Germany pay a 1 billion Mark indemnity to France, which went completely against Woodrow Wilson's 14 points who said that Germany should not be harshly punished because it would incite the need for revenge. Therefore i think that France deserved to get spanked one more time by Germany in WWII.

Invictus, I was partially joking with my first statement. I meant to put technically in quotation.

Why do people like to belittle Napoleon's conquests by saying he was eventually defeated...? Why would you count that as a French loss, when you probably consider Ghengis Khan's Mongolian empire a victory, as well as Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire a victory...

To say that France has not won a war in centuries is a ridiculous statement. I can think of at least the Franco-Austrian war off the top of my head, which lead to the unification of Italy among many things... Also the many wars that France fought during it's colonial period, many of which were "victories", and to say that France was defeated in WWI is just not true...

Whilst I think it is wrong to say France has not won a recent war, I don't follow your logic Chris. To the best of my knowledge Alexander the great was undefeated, and Khan formed the largest empire in history. Still, I agree the french achievements have been greatly put down.

What was the conclusion we came to for the origin of the idea that the french are cowards then?

I think it dates back to rivalry between the English and the French. They have fought a lot of wars over the years. But its a joke, that's all.

The anti-French attitude in America is pretty surprising when you consider America gained its independence with a lot of help from France, and even the Statue of Liberty which is one of America's main icons was donated by France (I think someone else already made this point)

I think under Sarkozy there'll be a smoother relationship with England and America

I think it has its roots in post WW2 Europe and America's influence, as well as America's close relationship with the UK. There has often been tension between the US and France over NATO. For example, Charles de Gaul thought the US had too much power and demanded that France have an equal say. Also France was disappointed that NATO did not support them over Algeria. Since then there has been tension between France and the US/UK over the Iraq war, with France demanding UN approval before attacking Iraq.

What Chrisp is saying is both those empires grew really quickly and then collapsed, just like the Napoleonic empire. The only difference being that Napoleon was alive when it collapsed. Not that the French should be belittled for that.

America has historically been isolationist and needed to be slowly coaxed into the world wars. They generally only enter wars for personal gain. I'd take the french over them any day.

yep me to and with the french you dont have to worry about your allies killing your own men, time and time again!

I find this thread sociologically amazing. With some exception, it seems that there are two ways for people to look at the thing:

1) People who know history (or at least took the time to make a brief research before posting) and assess France merits on the basis of comparisons with other powers, its record along the centuries, and the present situation of its military system.

2) People who assess France merits from the perspective of how they did interact with US policies (more precisely: the more independent they are, the less they deserve respect). At times (but not always) this judgement also comes from a thick ignorance of how the WWII was fought in Europe, what it meant from the population, the productive infrastructure, the culture, resistance, and all the rest.

Ethnocentrism is a funny thing, isn't it? :)

Wow - i find it quite incredible that countries should be judged on how many wars they have won. I'm going to start a thread entitled - "Top 20 countries based on how long they have lived peacefully without going to war" Unfortunately I don't know enough about the subject to contribute to my own thread - somebody help me out.

I would hazard a guess that one of the reasons that France came off second best to Germany in conflicts after the Napoleonic wars is that Germany was more heavily industrialized than France, and was thus better able to create a war machine. The Industrial revolution occurred in Northern European before Southern Europe. A major reason for this is the Northern Europe had more coal than Southern Europe (according to Jared Diamond, author of Guns Germs and Steel).

@Maniac - "Wow - i find it quite incredible that countries should be judged on how many wars they have won." That depends from what you are judging them on... if it is about their military capacity, that's not the only indicator but it is surely a quite important one, I would say.

@mac - my point (although not expressed particularly clearly) was that there seemed to be a lot of anti-french feeling based on the fact that they have lost a lot of wars. I just thought there should be more important things to say about a country and maybe "big it up" (Did I just say that? I'm 42) for countries that have avoided wars and lived peacefully - like Iceland! Go Iceland!!

Didn't Iceland just borrow 5 billion (US) dollars so they wouldn't go bankrupt?