h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, apart from the obvious things, like eating horses, snails and just blowing up the occasional environmental activists boat in the harbour of a peace-loving country...

...behaving very badly in Mitrovica, Kosovo, allowing the serbs to kill freely.
Passing NATO reconnaissance plans to the Yugoslavians allowing them to commit genocide undetected

...pouring acid into european rivers in industrial protests

...bullying other EU member states who don't do things the way the fr*nch want them to...

i could go on, and probably will with links, but if anyone else has any experiences / news stories concerning this most morally
reprehensible of all the european nations, please feel free to post them here.

Let's not be insulting or inaccurate, links will help.

But they are not the benevolent nation with the funny taste in cheese that everyone may think them to be.

Let us not forget, they are the nation whose colonial cruelty inspired Ho Chi Minh himself and started the war in Vietnam.

Of course, if anyone would like to speak for the Fr*nch or refute any of the things which may appear in this thread, please do.

alec.

It is indeed ironic that a nation founded on the principles of liberté, égalité et fraternité has such a dismal track record - especially with regard to it's colonies and their neighbours in SE Asia and the Pacific

The contempt shown by François Mitterrand's government following the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior will not be forgotten here in the South Pacific for a very long time, if ever
http://archive.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/pkbomb.html

However, it was the *leadership* of France that perpetrated these crimes and I cannot think of any country that is considerably less guilty

Britain's history is littered with injustice on a truly global scale - dig out an old map and look for the pink bits, for there there be sized atrocities carried out in the name of a succession of Kings and Queens and/or their church

Is the man on the Clapham omnibus any less guilty than his counterpart on the métro?

excellent link to a tragic story which must never be forgotten.
thankyou six-sevens.

it is my hope that this thread will not deteriorate into mere 'frog-bashing', but will highlight the crimes and misdeeds committed in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity.

by the way...anybody know what happened to messrs. Mafart & Prieur ??

Both Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur returned to France (and freedom?) much earlier than stipulated in their sentences following their pleas of guilty to charges of manslaughter, which the French Press reported as *man's laughter*

If I remember correctly, Prieur returned even earlier than Mafart because she became pregnant (to her France based fiancée) whilst *imprisoned* on Hau Atoll

Happy to defend the French for you, Alec.

The kind of fairly random list you make here, you could easily do for the UK, the US and indeed most other places. It's ridiculous to argue that the French are worse than any other western nation. The horse and snails point I'll just leave - you eat cow, don't you?

Maybe take things point by point?

Mitrovica - possibly, but see the Dutch in Srebenica for an even better example - and weren't the British supposed to be co-ordinating a lot of these areas? I don't recall any outstanding position of principle being taken by the UK or anyone else for that matter during this conflict. If you want to go a bit further back, try Yalta for another great example of principled behaviour of this kind by UK + US.

Pouring acid into rivers - have a look at the UK Environment Agency web page, the section about infringements - there are people pouring acid and worse into rivers on a regular basis in the UK and elsewhere. If your point is about unprincipled civil disobedience, then maybe you might want to think about the Countryside Alliance and the Fuel Protestors for examples nearer to home.

Bullying Europe - believe me, I work in Brussels and they are no worse than the Spanish, the Brits, the Greeks (and soon) the Polish, all of whom are happy to put their national interests in front of any wider European interest at the drop of a hat.

Colonial misdeeds? Remind me again who invented the concentration camp in the Boer war? It wasn't on what the Victorians did for us, but it still happened... Or maybe we could talk about the colonialisation of Australia and what happened to the indigenous people there? Or the repression of the Mau-Mau in Kenya etc, etc.

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior I'll give you. But they learnt that kind of tactic from the Americans...

Sprout

Ok then...
"Let's not be insulting"
Calling someone morally reprehensible in your post aint the best way of not being insulting.

"it is my hope that this thread will not deteriorate into mere 'frog-bashing'"

Sowwy, but by two lines into post one you'd messed that up...
As I could easily dig up as much dirt on every other European country
within about 10 minutes of playing with Google (and don't get me started on the US, coz then we'd be here all night!)

Let me give you a starting point on where you _could_ start a valid arguement on what's wrong with France...

Health Service?
Unions?
Immigration policies?
Bureaucracy?
Hunting?
Environmental policies?
just to give you a few starting points...

Until you actually show some _real_ arguements, this thread has no real meaning as we could all just pick a country and start a similar thread... Your 'holier than thou' attitude just makes you sound like a complete francophobe...

Come on, you can do better than this...

**Waves to sprout**

Welcome to the tricolor corner sprout

"Allons enfants de la patrie..."

*Adjusts beret on head*

*Waves tricolore at Whisky*

The French aren't perfect but no-one is. My better half and some of the nicest people I have met are French. Still happy when we won the rugby this weekend though

It's hard work having an arguement with someone the other side of the atlantic... they're happily snoring while I'm getting all worked up about their posts... Wake up Alec...

The French people themselves are nice enough, in the main. The French government are totally corrupt. That's not to say that they are any more corrupt than any other government in the world, just that they either get caught out more often or they are just more open about it!
History shows that French governments (royal or republic) cannot be trusted on any issue, even when it comes to French matters. I don't think, however, one can dismiss the whole country, culture, literature music, food and above all wine just because the government is crap.

A friend of mine is French and he can't stand the French or France! He thinks they are the rudest, most arrogant, self-centred bunch of b*st*rds on the planet! Sometime's you just can't win.

Well this didn;t get off to too good a start did it?
It is indeed easy to pull out info about most countries and what they have done that others think wrong.
However, Sprout, your 'defence' of France is no such thing, merely saying 'yeah well, so did you' is no justification for any action, especially not for a nation which, it seems to me, prides itself on its independance. Did France really do all things merely because everyone else in europe has done equally bad things themselves?

Perhaps we could elevate this thread somewhat by finding out the real reasons for these actions and the internal perceptions of them.

On the other hand, Alec did throw the gauntlet down when he called France the "most morally reprehensible of all the european nations", so I think Sprout's defence was timely and eloquent.

They're French, that's what's wrong with them

before Whisky pops up again.

Their wine is sub-standard and over priced too. Vive Australia and Chile!

Though some of their cheeses are pretty good!

Yes, I'll agree on wine front. French wine is suitable only for pouring on chips.

I suspect that the questioner feels that the lack of agreement with every/anything GWB has to say about Iraq is what is wrong with the French...

Yellow frogs- nothing new there, been breeding those since the 1940s, and headless ones since the 1800s.