French Student Visitors Get the Cold Shoulder

NY Times ^ | July 4, 2003 | ALISON LEIGH COWAN

[jwh_Denver]

Please tell me those have been altered in Photoshop so my blood stops boiling

My thoughts exactly. Lousy bastards.

[Prodigal Son]

They are flying the UK & French flags, but not the US. Do you think this is OK?

I don't know. Is it the Normandy museum? How many of the facts are straight from this story? From the debunking article, it had mentioned that the museum wasn't for a part of the invasion where the Americans landed. If that's the case, and if they're honoring the Brits, I guess, no. I don't see anything wrong with.

Look, you don't need a special license to hate the French. If you hate 'em just hate 'em. You don't need a flag that wasn't on a pole. If that flag has never been flown on the pole- why wait until 2003 to get worked up over it? You've had over half a century.

I think this is silly. If they removed a flag they had normally flown- this would be something to get worked up over. But if they've never flown the flag in the first place- why get worked up about it now? It just seems silly. But the bottom line is- if you want to hate them, just hate 'em. You don't need this incident. I don't like 'em myself. I lived in France. Traveled extensively there. I don't like the French. I don't like their ways. I don't like their language. It's a beautiful country but I have no special affection for the people. I don't need any special reason to not like them- I just don't.

[catpuppy]

Any American who has ever been to Normandy knows that the conclusions reached by this author are just plain wrong. At no place on earth are Americans more honored.

[catpuppy]

Sorry. My response was meant for post #2.

[Prodigal Son]

This is your picture from a distance:

We agree that's the one yes? That is a monument to Sherwood's Rangers- specifically a monument to that particular unit. It is only a part of the entire Bayeux Memorial. You will note there is also not a Canadian flag. There's nothing inappropriate for the French to fly only the British flag when the specific monument (and that wee stone beneath those flags spells it out) is for one particular unit or country. Americans are honoured elsewhere in the museum.

For what it's worth, if you visit some websites concerning this particular museum, you will note that the American flag is on prominent display out front along with other flags in front of an American Sherman tank. In the photo above (if you can view it) you see that the "missing flag" is still "missing". Maybe the town simply can't find the a good Sherwood Ranger's flag to put up there. This French guy who posted the site that people are worked up over- he is clearly trying to be provocative by bending the facts. I think that's pretty clear.

[FairOpinion]

OK, let's give them the benefit of doubt over the flags or let's just take that out of the list.

The fact still remains that Chirac actively worked against us and the French people supported him

And here are some well documented additional issues:

Maybe we don't have a problem with SOME French people, but I sure have a problem with these ones:

"Around 100,000 French citizens gathered at the Concord square in Paris on 03/29/2003 in protest against war on Iraq.

The demonstrators raised placards with anti-war slogans such as “No to Bush’s illegitimate war”, "No to destruction of Baghdad", “Drop Bush from the warplanes instead of bombs”, "Bush is an assassin and a war criminal", “No to cowboys war”.

A CSA poll published in French daily Liberation on Saturday showed that 78% of the public in France opposed the war, with 79% said they had no confidence in US President George W Bush.

Latest Outrage: French Cowards Attack British Military Cemetary

Vandals have defaced one of the biggest British war cemeteries in northern France with graffiti condemning the US-British invasion of Iraq, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said.

Insults aimed at British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush were sprayed in red paint over a monument to Britain’s dead from World War I and discovered by a gardener last Thursday. “It was removed by the afternoon but not before a couple of coach loads [of visitors] had been through and seen it - we are pretty hacked off and I am pleased to say the French authorities are too,” Tim Reeves said, the CWGC’s representative in France.

The words "Rosbifs [British] go home! Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood" were painted in French over the base of the cemetery’s main monument - an obelisk topped by a cross. On one side was a swastika and the words "death to the Yankees".

Also daubed were the words "dig up your garbage, it is fouling our soil," and “Bush, Blair to the TPI (International Court of Justice)”. Some 11,000 British dead are buried at Etaples, which lies on the Channel coast around 24 kilometres south of Boulogne. It was the site of several hospitals during the 1914-1918 war.

A judicial inquiry has been opened. “This violation of a burial place, scandalous in itself, is an attack on the memory of the sacrifice made by the British and American soldiers who contributed to the liberation of our soil,” local member of parliament, former Socialist arts minister Jack Lang said. “Our disagreement with the British and American governments [on Iraq] can in no way justify any assault on the memory of men who sacrificed themselves for our country,” he said.

Link

[jwh_Denver]

Some things never change.

[zerosix]

Gee, are these the same "French children and teens" who were last seen rioting, looting, burning automobiles outside Paris?