Posted on 07/22/2017 9:06:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Around 30,000 French troops held back Nazi divisions near the city of Lille to protect their allies during the evacuation code-named Operation Dynamo.
Renowned French film critic Jacques Mandelbaum called Nolan "witheringly impolite" and slammed the director's "deplorable indifference" towards his country's contribution to the epic evacuation.
"Where in the film are the 120,000 French soldiers who were also evacuated from Dunkirk? Where are the 40,000 who sacrificed themselves to defend the city against a superior enemy in weaponry and numbers?" he asked in his review in French newspaper Le Monde.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.co.uk ...
Before they surrendered, a small part of France was occupied by the Italians. Interestingly, they refused to hand over Jews to the Nazis.
I realize this movie is about the British retreat and how the Germans failed to press home the attack to capture them, but the French were a huge part of the battle of Dunkirk and to leave them out entirely is really horrible story telling.
It is a shame that is all left out. They really should have covered the French military’s part in the battle.
And in true French fashion, Parisian women were on their backs using their legs to make the V for Victory sign.
I have a wonderful 94 year old neighbor from Lille. Her father, an electrician for a mining company and a World War I vet, tried to get them out at Dunkirk but could not. They walked down but we’re turned away and had to walk back. His wife and two daughters spent the next three years indoors so they would not be raped by Nazis.
Her husband was a prominent French economist, and when he died of wounds related to his war service, she came to America. Started out as a hairstylist in Palm Beach, went to college, became a French professor, retired at 75.
Get outside of Paris and the French are great. Dordogne is probably my favorite place outside the US. Boar hunting, eating what you kill (with someone’s grandfather’s gun handed down through generations b/c of the gun laws), fresh vegetables and mushrooms, and homemade red wine.
France ( like Germany) has already been ruined by its “elite” . The UK is in the on deck circle. America bats third.
Great movies aside.
40,000 French stayed behind fighting as a rear guard knowing they wouldn’t be evacuated so the others could.
They have a point.
More please
Dunkirk 1940 - How the French Army saved GB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6C5P-AYGdY
Very good video and enlightening for those who think of the French military only as surrender monkeys. The French army acquitted itself extremely well coving the British retreat and evacuation at Dunkirk. A very proud event for the French army. They stood.
I know the Brits can be irritating. I remember them saying that they almost had the war won before we ever got into it.
While I will not argue your point, if the French leadership had moved faster and proactively 4 weeks earlier, Dunkirk may not have ever happened or been necessary.
Poland NEVER Surrendered! They fought the Nazis the rest of the war. The 303rd Kosciuszko Squadron had the highest kill rate of any RAF Squadron. There is a huge Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino.
+1
While in general the French Army failed badly in 1940, Dunkirk was the exception. There the French fought heroically and it is unlikely the British Army would have survived without the French covering their retreat. And of course we must also remember the sacrifices of the Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle who carried on the fight after the ignominious capitulation of their government.
What’s the motto of the French Army? Stop, Drop, and Run
Why don’t Master Card and Visa work well in France? They do not know how to say “CHARGE!”
Why did the Statue of Liberty take karate? She wanted to be the first French person to be able to defend herself.
Raise your right hand if you like the French... raise both hands if you are French.
Freepers will recall a recent event aboard a French train..an unharmed American rushed and disarmed an armed mussie terrorst.....while armed French police hid in a closet..!..nuff said
75% of French Jews survived the war, one of the highest rates for an occupied country. Most of the Jews that were handed over were not French citizens, but alien Jews who had fled Germany and other parts of Europe. The Nazis convinced the Vichy authorities, that they would take these alien Jews off of their hands and send them to "Family Camps" in the East. Now what's open for question is what did the Vichy Authorities really know about what their ultimate fate would be.
Unfortunately, the French Resistance was heavily infiltrated with Communists.
You know why France has tree lined roads?
So the Germans can march in the shade.
Normandy was fantastic. I saw more American flags flying in the region than you’ll see in many parts of the US.
I've heard it said that the number of self-professed members of the French Resistance exceeded the total population of France by a factor of two ...
I hadn't thought much about the French in the latter years of WW2, so I did a bit of research. From what I've read, German POWs were horribly treated by the French, and as referenced in Band of Brothers, frequently murdered. Thousands more were sent to Vietnam to fight France's war. And considering the existence of Vichy France, and that the French African garrisons usually fought against the allies (this was often for different, frequently justifiable reasons, but the fact remains), and that an unknown, but certainly in the tens of thousands, number of French women married German soldiers, there is something ridiculous about the savage reprisals the surrendering French took on German soldiers AFTER the United States bailed France out (for the 2nd time). I recall an old fable about terriers biting and ripping a lion after it had been fatally wounded by wolfhounds.
The French fought bravely at the start of the war, and obviously the occupation of France was not a pleasant time for the French, but more than plenty of them were happy to cooperate for one reason or another once the Nazis were in charge.
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