They eat well, live well and — so they would have us believe — make love pretty well, too. But despite their many gastronomic and artistic achievements, the French have often been viewed by their neighbours with a disdain that occasionally borders on loathing.
Suggestions that France is afflicted by an epidemic of rudeness, arrogance and a ridiculously inflated sense of superiority have traditionally been dispelled with a shrug of the Gallic shoulders.
But a report on how France is perceived by other European countries may give even the most patriotic Frenchman pause for thought. Not only are the views expressed damning — its authors are French.
The conclusions of the study, Why the French Are the Worst Company on the Planet — by Olivier Clodong, a professor of social and economic communication, and Jose-Manuel Lamarque, a journalist — speak for themselves: the British think the French are ”chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless”. Even the tolerant Swedes admit to finding them ”disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty”.
The Germans find them ”pretentious, haughty and frivolous”, the Spanish see them as ”cold, distant, vain and impolite” and the Dutch describe them as ”agitated, talkative and shallow”.
The story is similar elsewhere. The Portuguese find them too preachy, the Italians think they are ”snobbish, arrogant, carnal, righteous and self-obsessed”, and the Greeks dismiss them as ”out-of-touch, egocentric bons vivants”.
Those questioned were not asked what it was they particularly hated about the French, merely five adjectives to describe them. — Guardian Unlimited Â