Europeans dislike the French (too)?

May 17 - At first I thought this was a joke: Europe unites in hatred of French.

Pollsters asked Europeans to list five words that describe the French and the answers were not very complimentary:

Why the French are the worst company on the planet, a wry take on France by two of its citizens, dredges up all the usual evidence against them. They are crazy drivers, strangers to customer service, obsessed by sex and food and devoid of a sense of humour.

But it doesn't stop there, boasting a breakdown, nation by nation, of what in the French irritates them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". ..

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

This probably reflects mostly that other nationalities are not really that fond of other nationalities in Europe, but it begs the question as to why are they trying to submerge the sovereignty of each nation by ratifying the EU Constitution. The minimum requirement ought to be mutual respect and trust, no?

The French were also asked about other people:

Another section of the study deals with how the French see the rest of Europe.

"Believe it or not, the English and the French use almost exactly the same adjectives to describe each other - bar the word 'insular'," Mr Coldong said. "So the feelings are mutual."

12:48 Looks like Warwick got to the story first. Nice shots (heh.)

Posted by: Debbye at 12:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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