Anti French! Moi?

Rosbifs fight back or Was that another gold gong?

The new unmemorable French President Francois Hollande didn’t really distress me when a couple of days into the Olympics, British fans still waiting anxiously for our first Gold Medal and he gibed with “Britain has rolled out the red carpet for the French athletes to pick up medals.  How exquisite and ill-conceived those remarks look today.  For when the Olympics reach their conclusion tomorrow the French will be assuming their usual stance, a couple of goose steps behind the Germans.

I do admit that I also got rather upset when the French poison dwarf Sarkozy came to London to meet up with Prince Charles at De Gaulle’s statue in Central London and then went on to lunch at number 10 with David Cameron.  Water has passed under the bridge since then and Sarkozy was found out by the French electorate and kicked out.

At the time though Sarkozy rather upset me by basking in the heroism of General De Gaulle and the French in the Second World War. In fact De Gaulle was a hindrance to the Allied war effort in many ways and the French people were active belligerents against the Allies for most of the war.

Winston Churchill believed the French General to be a vain and malignant man with Fascist tendencies who hated England. He wanted to remove him as Commander of the Free French Forces but was rebuffed by his cabinet.

Churchill’s sentiments were shared by President Roosevelt who accused De Gaulle of fomenting racial discord and said that a speech by him was like reading pages out of Mein Kampf.

The greatest myth that De Gaulle propagated was that Paris had been liberated by the French people and made no reference to the Allies. Sarkozy obviously believed the myth judging by his failure to invite the Queen to the 65th anniversary of D Day in 2009. Sarkozy was hoping to hide during his visit the fact that the French were a hindrance, rather than a help to Allied victory in WWII.

Then came the 2012 Tour de France and their further humiliation at the 2012 Olympics and the ruddy Frogs are at it again.  They really aren’t good sports and have again sunk into their usual stance of blaming everyone else for their being such a nation of losers.  Who was the brilliant journalist that named them “Cheese eating Surrender Monkeys“?

I just had to get out my little black book for a few facts, such as;

in 1966 upon being told that Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. Troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson told Secretary of State Dean Rusk: Ask him about the cemeteries Dean! So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II. DeGaulle never answered.

Or as General George S. Patton put it, “I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me” or as General Norman Schwarzkopf said, “Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion, all you leave behind is some very noisy baggage”

Or, better still, the quote about the French from a recent Wall Street Journal: “They’re there when they need you.”

An old saying: Raise your right hand if you like the French…. Raise both hands if you are French. Or next time there’s a war in Europe, the loser has to keep France.

Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day — the description was: ‘Never shot. Dropped once.’”

We shouldn’t really bear grudges, but for the French we can always make an exception!! Viva EU!! 

An elderly British gentleman of 83 arrived in Paris by plane. At the
French customs desk he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry-on bag. ‘You have been to France before, Monsieur?’ the customs officer asked sarcastically. The elderly gentleman admitted he had been to France previously.  ’Then you should know enough to ‘ave your passport ready,’ said the customs officer.

The elderly gentleman replied, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.’  ’Impossible! The British always ave to show their passports en arrivee en France !’  The Man gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained; ‘Well, when I came ashore on the Beach on D-Day in 1944, I couldn’t find any f…ing Frenchmen to show it to!’

I feel much better now but I really must stop reading the newspapers at breakfast.

“Do you know how to sink the French Navy? Put it in water”.

“Starboard twenty!  Stop engines, Pirates on the port bow.  Boarding party man the RIBs. . . . . . “  JC

About Jake

Long retired travel writer, author and freelance journalist. Educated at Wolverton Grammar and Greenwich Naval College. Happily married since 1958, with a married son and daughter, a married granddaughter and an adult grandson. Hobbies rock-climbing, dinghy racing and ocean racing. Still regularly working out in the gym.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply