Posted on 06/05/2004 4:42:59 AM PDT by lawgirl
PARIS - Fewer than 50 percent of French people think France has a moral debt to the United States 60 years after the Allied D-Day landings, according to an opinion poll published on Saturday.
The poll of 1,000 people on May 25 and 26 showed 48 percent of respondents thought France, which was liberated by U.S. and other Allied forces during World War Two, had a moral debt to the United States. Fifty percent thought it did not.
The poll was published by Le Parisien newspaper hours before U.S. President George W. Bush was due to arrive in France for the anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944. It also showed growing French criticism of the United States. Forty-four percent of people polled were critical of the United States, up from 36 percent in a similar poll in March 2003 and compared to 34 percent in October 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
And the Dems in California want to lower the voting age to 14. No doubt it is because they represent such a well-informed and reasoned demographic, and not because they could be easily manipulated to vote for Democrats.
/sarcasm
Absolutely true and to the point! No amount of our jingoistic nattering is going to make a whit of difference to the French or anybody else.
In fact it just reinforces what they think of us. So why piss and moan about it. They're ungrateful. So, what are we going to do - wallow in it?
Hell with them. And hell with us if we keep whining about it.
Lafayette was indeed a great Frenchman, and no doubt that without that French blockade at Yorktown, we might still be British. But I think Americans remembered even after 200 years- Lafeyette we have returned- and the French don't even care within a generation. I think it is time that Americans realize that the French are NOT our allies, and we should start acting so.
I don't think anyone is whining about it. I think it's important to keep track of who are your friends and who are your enemies, and more and more evidence is coming to light that France is NOT our friend.
5.56mm
Yup, the French are reprehensible. Not worth the breath expended. I just prefer to keep track quietly and not give them the satisfaction.
I think Polls and polling - are used in the most evil way imagineable.
What is the implication of public opinion with respect to reality - objective reality? What's more important in this story is what is NOT said, than what is implied. Even if (supposedly) half of the "respondents" _feel_ a certain way - A. Are we supposed to take such polls at face value and
B. Do we believe them, and C. So what? D. Are such "news" stories designed to elicit such reactions in the first place? E. What purpose could such a story have?
It's no secret that as the senior citizens of France pass on, the knowledge of the sacrifice of our veterans will pass as well, to be replaced by historical revisionism. Much the same can be observed in South Korea - the "old guys" remember, the young turks are ungrateful. Such is the way of the world, I suppose.
I seem to remember that the French women who "fraternized" w/the Germans had their heads shaved after France was liberated. Anyone know for sure?
I doubt the french feel moral anything.
Le Français peut se visser et aller directement à l'enfer. Mon oncle est mort pour sauver ces bâtards désolés. Tiré vers le bas dans son B17 au-dessus de la France. Son coeur pourpre se repose sur ma table de café.
My Uncle died to save those sorry Frogs, his Purple Heart sits on my coffee table. Hie B17 was shot down while loaded with a full load of bombs. They never even found ANY of his remains.... Nothing. And he wanted to go to war to save them. And my dad tried to sign up, too. They couldn't take him, due to health problems he had as a child.
I am getting more and more bitter about the Frogs. We used to love to go there on vacation. I think we may skip France from now on. There are plenty of other countries in Europe. Bunch of ungrateful children that is what they are.
Kudos to you both for remembering Lafayette, someone whom99% of American high school seniors wouldn't know if they tripped over him..yet France intervened in the American war solely to gain an advantage against the Brits..a payback of sorts for the French and Indian Wars, and the loss of Canada. So, France acts everso then as now, when it perceives an advantage for herself, not out of a greater sense of purpose.
BUSH 2004
France... modern day Sodom and Gomorrah...
Insert belly girl here.
At this point why should we feel any moral obilgation to France. The debt owed by the US has been paid thrice over in the last century alone. The amount of US blood, effort and money given to assist France far exceeds the assistance they rendered in 1781.
Of course Americans have always been overly generous. It's our nature.
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