The Writers' Circle

The British have a love-hate relationship with the French. They love the French countryside, the weather and the lifestyle, but in many cases have a mistrust bordering on dislike of the French themselves. This is curious as the French in general do not have the same strong feelings towards the British.

I have lived in France for some years now. I socialise mainly with the French, and speak French more often than English, but much of my work is for British ex-pats. This is mainly because it is rare for the ex-pats to speak French well enough for them to explain to the local tradesmen exactly what they want. As a result I have been able to observe some of the differences between the two communities. I don't claim to be an expert, and the following is just the opinion of one man, but it may be of interest.

Recently there was a general election in the UK. This was widely reported by the French media. The election itself resulted in a hung parliament, and the UK press reported that this was due to a general disaffection of the UK electorate with every shade of politician that was standing for election. The message that came across was that British politics was a shambles.
As an Anglo-Saxon, one would have expected the French to sneer or laugh at the stupidity of the British. If the roles had been reversed one would of expected this to happen from the British press. But with the French media it didn't. Instead of jeering, they were sympathetic. They had already been there. The most widespread phrase heard was that it was a shame that a once great nation had come to this.
The French think from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. It is more important to them what their next door neighbour thinks rather than what their politicians tell them. They relate to the man in the street rather than the nation or the tribe.
They have a healthy disrespect for all politicians, big businessmen, or authority of any kind. They assume that anyone with any degree of power is either lying, incompetent or corrupt. This is a widespread belief, that is so ingrained that instead of becoming angry or frustrated with their leaders as would be the case of the Anglo-Saxons, the French simply choose to ignore everything that those above tell them. They are more interested in their own well being rather than the status of their country. As a result there is less nationalistic xenophobia. The British cannot understand that the average Frenchman also has no need for new expensive cars or flash jewellery, as he has nothing to prove.
The mental Gulf between the rulers and the ruled is so great that he will never cross it, even in the unlikely event that he would wish to, and he has no need to buy expensive status symbols. Instead he spends his money on his family, and good food and wine, and ignores directives from above. He simply wants to be left alone, and have as pleasant a life as possible.

The French did not always think this way. Up until fairly recent times, they actually believed what their leaders told them. The slaughter of the first world war, where France suffered massive losses removed much of the confidence that the people had with the ruling classes. Indeed there was a wide scale mutiny during most of 1917 when the Army refused to attack. That decision coming from the soldiers rather than the officers.
22 years later France was again invaded.

The Second World War, while lower in casualties was even more significant than the first war in the way that it changed the way that the French thought about things.
For France the war was a disaster.
In a campaign that lasted little more than 2 months, the whole of Northern and Western France was overrun. Their sole ally Britain was forced to evacuate its tiny Army back to the UK in order to avoid it being totally destroyed. Not widely reported at the time was that the British evacuated as many French troops as British. At the time the evacuation was seen by many French now in an occupied country as abandonment. The politicians of the day did little to dissuade them from this view and also chose to ignore the fact that the French had a bigger army and a better air-force than the Germans, and that the defeat had been mainly due to their forces being incompetently led.
In order to salvage something the French leadership brokered a deal with the invaders to keep part of the country for themselves. The Germans, not having the resources to occupy the whole of France immediately, but negotiating from a position of strength, demanded huge repatriations, and that the new state should be a powerless one with an unspoken alliance to Germany. To their eternal shame the French politicians agreed, and Vichy France covering the south-east of the country was born. In order to give the new puppet state a degree of credibility they called it Free France, although everyone else referred to it as Vichy. To complicate things further an army in exile based in Britain was raised by the recently promoted General De-Gaulle.
In a staggeringly arrogant radio broadcast De-Gaulle stated that France had not been defeated as it lived on in his own persona.
Thus there were 3 separate nations; Occupied France, Vichy France and De-Gaulle France.
Two years later, De-Gaulle's forces found themselves fighting Vichy forces in North Africa. Frenchman was killing Frenchman, both sides believing that they were fighting for their country. With the Vichy forces wavering, Germany occupied Vichy France in a bloodless coup. France solely among the war's combatants had been invaded by the same nation twice, and had lost both times. Still the politicians clung to what little power they could, continuing to hold meetings in their now occupied state and keeping the custom posts along the now non-existent line of demarcation manned.
When France was liberated, or re-invaded by the Anglo-Americans, depending on which faction you belonged to, the political house of cards came tumbling down. De-Gaulle, having been on the winning side was now undisputed leader of the nation. Unfortunately as his forces including the resistance had numbered less than 1% of the population, the other 99% had little if no political leverage. Having been let down by the various ruling classes time after time it was not surprising that what faith the average Frenchman had in his rulers and betters evaporated. Coupled to this was the fact that the Gendarmerie as keepers of law and order, had had to collaborate with every one of the ruling factions that had lost the war. The result being that the gendarmes were held in contempt and viewed as lackeys. A feeling that remains within the country even to the current day. The Police/Gendarmerie has tried hard since to regain the trust of the people with the result that whoever rules France knows that they cannot now depend on them to suppress the populace. This was brought home in 1968 when De-Gaulle, once more president of France tried to impose his will on the population. The resulting riots leading to the near overthrow of the state, and resulting in reforms that greatly reduced the powers of the ruling politicians.
The way that the French thought about things had changed forever.

The current President of France M. Sarkozy is the most visual and dynamic leader for generations. He was elected on a mandate of sweeping reform. But despite this, even he knows that he cannot push too hard and the number of reforms passed by the government has been minuscule. He is shrewd enough to know the people. He knows that they are friendly but insular, that they are modest but not jealous, and that despite being generally laid back and accommodating they cannot be dictated to. The French as individuals have learnt a way of thinking that makes them different to every other people, and they are all the richer for it.