Posted on 10/12/2004 10:38:19 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
thanks for your thoughtful reply. i will put my cards on the table. i have been to france many times and have been treated with respect and dignity, i took three years of french many many years ago in high school and try to speak french when there. besides paris and neice, i have been to the bordeaux area, alsace and arcachon. when giving presentations i have been given extreme dignity and respect, which i would expect. when simply roaming the villages, i have found people, who do not speak english, extremely accompodating and trying to help me even though my french is awful. and as you say, the french have a certain attitude of superierority.
take people for what they are and still get your goals done. i am not going to change a culture. the real issue is not how the average french peasant treats americans, but rather why on a diplomatic front, in a global forum that espells peace for all, we were stabbed in the back by the french.
my anger is vented to the united nations and to france's foreign policies. i believe many americans have the same mind as i, and are voting with their pocketbook, and their feet, so to say.
after the duehfler report was made public, turning rumor into fact, i expect even more americans to boycott france. unless france admits and confronts its real problem, i believe their economy will be on a slow downward spiral.
thanks! as always, your comments are always thought provoking
Have you got any French friends ? Have you ever been to France ?
I have no friends who are French nationals. I've flown over France a number of times, but never had the inclination to put boots on the ground there.
I've never been to Germany, either, but I'm confident in the knowledge that the Nazis were evil...
BBuuahahahahahahaha!!!!
The French helped America in the Revolutionary War because, in so doing, they were hurting their hated British enemy.
After America won it's independence, the first nation that the United States of America had to fight against was France.
As a result, the U.S. Navy received it's baptism of fire against a French enemy.
Quasi-War with France 1798-1801
February 5, 1799: The USS Constellation capturing the French 36-gun frigate L'Insurgente off the Island of Nevis in the West Indies.
A naval scuffle over trade was not the same as a fully fledged war like the American War of Independence.
A naval scuffle over trade was not the same as a fully fledged war like the American War of Independence.
John of Arc?
Was this Joan's brother?
In sixth form I passed four of my subjects quite well. In French I got 49%. Nothing much has changed since then.
If the Quasi-War Against France did not produce more casualties, it is only because the land armies of the U.S. and France, during the Age of Sail, were not geographically located where they could come to battle.
As it was, when U.S. and French naval forces happened to meet, the fighting was fierce. In the engagement against La Vengeance , the crew of La Vengeance suffered 40% casualties. To those men, it was not a "scuffle".
You completely fail to address the other point that I and several others on this thread brought up as to why France aided the U.S. in the Revolutionary War.
While it is true that some individual Frenchmen, such as the Marquis de la Fayette, were motivated by democratic ideals, the fact remains that France's help for the American colonists during the Revolutionary War was a classic exercise in realpolitik undertaken in order to inflict as much damage on the hated British as France possibly could.
Once that goal was accomplished, France no longer had any special fondness for the Americans and behaved accordingly.
The only times when France has embraced the U.S. is when it has used the U.S. to hurt France's enemies or used the U.S. to save France's hide.
At other times, France has treated the U.S. with the same jealousy and hatred that France has shown Britain for centuries.
Franco-American relations were epitimized by the exchange between Charles de Gaulle and US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, when, in 1966, Charles de Gaulle ordered France out of NATO and ordered American troops off French soil.
Rusk said to de Gaulle, "I am directed by my President to ask you this question. It is from the mouth of the President of the United States: 'Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?'"
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