why does france hate england so much?

Question

like when we go over they blatantly will not talk to us in english, and from the stuff i recently read on a msn forum it's awful!
i know we're in their country but they're meant to make us feel welcome!

Answer 1

The French pretty much are arrogant back stabbers, as a nation. Individually they can be wonderful people, awful people or anything in between, but as a culture they stink. Recently they have felt the need to legislate their language so that it is illegal to have signs (even on private businesses ) which aren't approved by their sign Nazis. They went against UN sanctions and supplied arms to Saddam and made a fortune doing it. Furthermore they hid these transactions and kept putting stumbling blocks in the way of the UN in getting into Iraq before the war. Germany was guilty, also.
The French GOVERNMENTS have been notorious cowards and were invaded and over-run twice in the last century with little or no resistance. It took the Allied powers to free them, TWICE, and they bad mouth us like we are slime. I have no use for them, and will not travel there again.

I'm speaking governments, which influence people; but basically people are people when you get to know them I know ex-pat French that are great.

Answer 2

destination, with 12 million British visitors each year, while the UK is the second most popular spot for French tourists with over three million visits a year.

The air route from Paris to London is the busiest in the world, carrying some 3.3 million passengers a year... then there's the Channel Tunnel.

Such statistics might fool a person into thinking the British and the French actually like each other. But even though it is over 100 years since the Entente Cordiale was signed, pledging Britain and France to a lasting political friendship, relations on many fronts are decidedly frosty.

But the main problem seems to lie here. Stereotyped by the Brits as garlic-loving, snail-eating, skirt-chasing, shoulder-shrugging "Frogs", the French don't really care what the British think. Not without their own stereotypes and prejudices, "Les Rosbifs" are not important to the average French person.

Most of the French feel neither burning animosity nor deep affection towards the British," says Christian Roudaut, author of a book on Anglo-French relations, L'Entente Glaciale. "I'm sure the British would say this represents precisely the sort of arrogance for which the French are notorious in the UK.

"But the level of abuse over here is amazing. I can't believe what is said and appears in the national press in Britain. If you interchanged the word French for black you would be branded a complete racist."

And the age-old French stereotypes appear to show no signs of disappearing in the UK. Seventy-two percent of Britons questioned in a recent survey believed the French warranted their negative stereotype, while only 19% of French believe the Brits deserved their "Rosbifs" tag.

But where does Britain's anti-French feeling stem from?

While Franco-British enmity stretches back centuries, many of the xenophobic stereotypes of the French in today's society stem from the post-war period, according to Professor David Walker, from the University of Sheffield.

Take the notion that the French don't wash. This might have stemmed from the hardships France endured after World War II. Recovery was slower and accommodation often lacked basic sanitation.

"The contrast between the two domestic environments must have been startling for the British visitor of the 1950s and early 1960s," says Mr Walker. "It is not hard to see how the myth of the 'dirty French' was disparagingly communicated back to the Albion."

But the two countries' similarities are as much part of the problem, according to some.


"The French are a kind of sibling, cast in the same mould as us, but showing how the same genes can express themselves in alternative ways," says Dr Wendy Michallat, an expert in popular French culture.

"Given this common background, the English, in spite of themselves, tend to give way to what Freud called 'the narcissism of minor differences'. We make a great deal of what distinguishes us from the French, for fear of seeing our prized identity lose its uniqueness by being revealed as just another set of shared human traits."

But the British have a more complicated relationship with the French than just straight forward xenophobia, says M Roudaut. While French folk might not appeal to the British, the way they live their lives does.

I don't mean to be rude but the French people living in the UK are not here for the weather or food

Christian Roudaut
Last year's French census revealed the number of Britons living across the Channel had increased by almost half in the past five years, to 100,000. That's not counting the 47,000 who have second homes in France, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The flow in the opposite direction is even more pronounced. There are an estimated 270,000 French people registered as living in Britain, according to the French Embassy. The real figure is higher as not all French register when they come over.

"You come to us to retire and we come to you for work," says M Roudaut. "I don't mean to be rude but the French people living in the UK are not here for the weather or food. There are many things I love about Britain - like the sense of humour of the people and their politeness - but for most French people here it is an economic decision, not a lifestyle one."

Answer 3

i know exactly what you mean! and the reason we dont speak french to them is because we cant and its just annoying that they refuse to speak english even though they can do it! the only reason they are arrogant like this is because they think french should be the internationally spoken language and because it is english they are jealous. dont go to france and dont give them the chance to make money out of you. last time i went i brought home food poisoning as a souvenir- they think their such great cooks!!! lol! its almost amusing

Answer 4

The same reason Canadians despise Americans. Jealousy.

Answer 5

It probably has alot to do with the past, long frequent wars and maybe like some people say jealousy

Answer 6

France is the sewer of Europe..it resents England for its morals, courage and integrity.

Answer 7

French people dislike Americans, not English people

Answer 8

When they come to your country, do you speak to them in French?

Answer 9

France is jealous.

Answer 10

dk but ive heard they hate americans too....