No Stupid Questions

As an American I've never understood the hate for the French. In France, if you're a leader and you fuck up bad enough, they will literally murder you.

If anything, we should be taking fucking notes

Nobody is mentioning Vietnam? That's the source of boomer complaints IME. France "abandoned" the US and the industrial war machine convinced the American veterans that it was France's fault that the greatest military in the world couldn't defeat communist Vietnam.

Some of it goes back to one of those dumb Bush wars when France refused to allow American warplanes to fly over their airspace.

Republican Congressman threw a tantrum, and did important stuff like rename French Fries to Freedom Fries in the Congressional cafeteria.. Not kidding.

I dislike the French for normal reasons, not weird nationalistic ones.

Note how anti-french sentiments in US only get serious when republicans are in power. Otherwise it's just "hon hon hon stinky frenchman more baguette please we love you ❤️".

They folded like oragami in WWII, and the french have a reputation for cultural pomposity that dates back centuries so people give them shit for both. I don't know of more than a handful of people who mean anything by it though, and the french/american cultural exchange is one of the most vibrant in the western world. Excepting politically right now (especially given the current trump BS), we've gotten along extremely well as nations for a long damn time and americans tend to tease their friends.

I've never heard the french complain about it - I have heard the french clap back with some equally devastating mockery of their own, though. Seems healthy enough.

France has no US military bases on its soil and has refused to be entirely vassalized by the US unlike much of the rest of Europe. It's one of few Western countries that has managed to maintain strategic autonomy in the face of US hegemony. Refusal to participate in the Iraq war is an example of this, as other Western countries like the UK followed the Americans in blindly like a dependent vassal would.

From what I remember: France refused to join US war in Iraq in 2003, and around the same time I started hearing nonsense like "freedom fries" and "google french military victories and you get no results lolololol", and it was all really fucking stupid. But some of that seemed to remain in popular culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-French_sentiment_in_the_United_States

The French are our oldest and bestest friend and it's fun to give your friend shit, I know we are probably gonna lose that friendship because we have lost our minds and that's sucks

Ignorance, propaganda and probably racism.

I can imagine that many African and East-Asian countries have their own strong opinions on the French and with better reason than the USA.

WW2 ruined their reputation.

Ignorance... that is usually the root cause

Muricans are poorly educated, half can't read past 6th grade level and most do not read unless forced to.

In this particular case they make fun of the French for not beating the Nazis in WWII because they probably saw it in a meme somewhere but their history knowledge does not go far back enough to realize how stupid they look when they do this "seriously"

I mean... Look at the news any day of the week.

Americans on the whole are incapable of understanding history at even the most surface level.

Because "the revolution" to the French is not the one in 1776. Nor is it "the revolution" for most of the world. The French Revolution was the big one for most of the world.

That makes a cataract of meaning for the USA.

Americans and Europeans disdain the French over WW2 with little regard to the damage done to human life in France during WW1. There are still uninhabitable zones in France from the world military poisoning swathes of land in WW1 with shells, mines, munitions, and corpses.

They are both called WW for a reason. They are inextricably linked.

American exceptionalism at work. Decades of being lead to believe they are the solver of the world's problems and the centre of the "free" world. I'd also many don't even know that the French were involved because US education is very good at altering history to make them look superior.

I'm 1/4 French Canadian, I have my own feelings about France.

Do most Americans give the French shit? I think most Americans don't care one way or another TBH. Our country is famously self-centered and unaware of the rest of the world.

I do give my French friend a hard time sometimes, but it's all in good fun. He does the same to me. I certainly do not look down upon him or his country.

The minority of Americans who do sincerely talk down about the French are ignorant and shitty, though.

Americans forget that France was basically our only European ally for a very long time, while we fought the British twice. Memories of what happened in WWII, though, remain strong and color American perception. It's mostly harmless joking based on stereotypes. The French are far more likely to go their own way compared to the British, including in areas of culture, and that annoys some people. Hence, the "freedom fries" kerfuffle during the 2003 Iraq war.

I think it's the reputation that the French got in the second world war along with Charles De Gaulle having been a MASSIVE asshole.

Thing is, the French are actually insanely good at war and often do not care about minor inconveniences like "the laws and customs of war" or "the Geneva Conventions". It's why half the words of the English military lexicon are French.

Because WWII is the only history.

In addition, they gave us the Statue of Liberty.

A French politician actually called for it to be returned—to be clear, it was just a single politician, not the whole government—and the Trump administration said (very heavily paraphrasing), "No, it's ours, and also you suck for being invaded by Germany, so we deserve it more than you." However, I personally find it ironic that the administration is so attached to it, given the famous poem inscribed on its base that is inseparable from the signifiance of the statue:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Why do educated people tolerate stupid people when the world would be a better place without ignorance?

As a native American, I can say "fuck the french" with my whole chest. I get to keep a French last name on my birth certificate for the rest of my life as a consequence of their little colonial adventures.

Honestly fuck every single old world country right in the asshole. Every last syphilis carrying flea bag immigrant can fuck right off back across the sea with your horseshit. Anyone who cannot prove their family lived on this land back before 1200 AD is to be deported immediately after being burned with branding irons.