Don’t mess with France

Don’t let France’s obsession with such stereotypical “feminine” things as cuisine and fashion fool you; France is no wimp.

Despite the fact that France hilariously once had a national war flag that was entirely white and that they opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, France is not at all a nation of effete wimps, as the commonly held American stereotype loves to remind us. Rather, France has had an extremely long and intimate relationship with violence, even rivaling that of the United States.

From the French Revolution of 1789 (at the height of which 50 people were being executed each day), Napoleon’s conquest of all of Europe and the brutal occupation of dozens of colonial territories, France has shown that it does not merit being considered among the most violence-fearing states in history. Considering France as such shows a startling lack of knowledge of world history and a short-sighted and politically convenient view of France, one of our nation’s most loyal allies.  

France has a long history of violence.  

For example, during the war over the French occupation of Algeria in the 1950s and ’60s under Charles de Gaulle, France lost around 30,000 troops and killed as many as one million Algerians, mostly civilians.

And during the French occupation of Indochina, France lost almost 100,000 troops and killed more than 750,000 Vietnamese.

Perhaps the example most frequently given that supposedly links France to military cowardice is World War II, in which it was occupied by Germany. In fact, during the entire period of the German occupation, France had one of history’s most active and successful resistance movements, which arguably helped lead to Germany’s eventual defeat in the war.  

And the apparent capitulation of France to the demands of German occupation is more accurately classified as a fairly wise (but difficult) decision by one man (Marshal Philippe Pétain) to save his country from what was likely to be total annihilation at the hands of Germany.

And when people make fun of France’s apparent lack of military prowess, they conveniently overlook that slightly short man named Napoleon who dominated and conquered the entire continent of Europe.  

The point of all of this is not that violence is at all a good thing or even that modern France is a particularly violent society in comparison to the United States or other countries, but merely that the modern American stereotyped views of France as a cowardly and quickly capitulating state are inaccurate and entirely irreconcilable with France’s history of conquest, aggression and domination. Many Americans have simply fallen for the war-mongering and drum-beating used by the previous administration to ostracize anyone who opposes America’s bull-headed determination to go to war at any cost, and France is simply an undeserving victim of this unfortunate indoctrination.


E-mail: zammerma@indiana.edu