WI: French Not Seen As Cowards in Popular Culture?

JonasResende

JonasResende

There are several memes that poke fun at the supposed general French cowardice, saying things like:
f7RE2WxX0zI.jpg yvUdS_DZ6VU.jpg etc. Nor is it the only place, since to ditch a party without saying anything to anyone is commonly referred to in English as either a French or Irish goodbye (the implication being that the Irishman is too drunk to remember he needs to say goodbye, while the Frenchman is too cowardly).

However, I've never seen someone imply Germans are cowards for losing two World Wars in a row, for instance. So why the hate on France? Was it due to their loss of the Franco-Prussian War? Or is it just a general Anglophone Francophobia?

And what POD would be needed for the French not to be seen as cowards (if it's NOT just Francophobia, that is)? Survival of the French Empire? A more revanchist France at the Treaties of Versailles?

NOTE: I'm asking this as an actual historical question, since I think there'd probably be no jokes about French cowardice in a world where Napoléon won Waterloo or where France had carved the German Empire up like a Thanksgiving turkey at Versailles. (but this is only my opinion)
DISCLAIMER: I mentioned the examples of Irish/German because those are two I'm familiar with - my dad's German, my mom half-German, half-Irish. I DON'T mean any offense to any one (least of all the French).
 

Deleted member 109224

You'd need a post-1900 POD. It was only WWII that popularized the notion of the French being wimps.

Just think of what Kipling wrote in 1913.

Out of these things is born their power of recuperation in their leisure; their reasoned calm while at work; and their superb confidence in their arms. Even if France of to-day stood alone against the world's enemy, it would be almost inconceivable to imagine her defeat now; wholly so to imagine any surrender. The war will go on till the enemy is finished. The French do not know when that hour will come; they seldom speak of it; they do not amuse themselves with dreams of triumphs or terms. Their business is war, and they do their business.
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RightHoJeeves

Banned
Don't fold like a house of cards in 1940. Now that's not at all fair to the French solider who fought tenaciously along with their junior officers in defense of their country but the dysfunction in the French Army of 1940 was a result of bad leadership and severely misjudging German abilities.

The perception of French cowardice gained renewed prominence in the early 2000s when France refused to back the US in invading Iraq and the "cheese-eating surrender monkey" meme was created by Republicans. This along with Republican aversion to supposed French hedonism and liberalism created an environment of ridiculous Francophobia. There was actually an internet movement to rename French fries "freedom fries" for God's sake.
 

DominusNovus

That stereotype is strictly a 20th-21st century persoective, to the best of my knowledge. So, at minimum, it should be in post-1900.

And I think its a combo of the three wars they were in back to back to back where the Germans did or nearly did crush them. Add in the horrendous attrition they suffered in WW1, and the fact that they had to decolonize after WW2 against their will... and that they weren’t a giant super power autocratic state that could shrug off casualties like the Soviets, who probably kept the Nazis from killing plenty of their citizens with the expedient of killing them first.
 

DominusNovus

RightHoJeeves said:
Don't fold like a house of cards in 1940. Now that's not at all fair to the French solider who fought tenaciously along with their junior officers in defense of their country but the dysfunction in the French Army of 1940 was a result of bad leadership and severely misjudging German abilities.

The perception of French cowardice gained renewed prominence in the early 2000s when France refused to back the US in invading Iraq and the "cheese-eating surrender monkey" meme was created by Republicans. This along with Republican aversion to supposed French hedonism and liberalism created an environment of ridiculous Francophobia. There was actually an internet movement to rename French fries "freedom fries" for God's sake.
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Actually, that was the Simpsons, not the GOP.
 
Atamolos

Atamolos

WilliamOfOckham said:
"On the winning side" definitely doesn't mean "won".

Just ask the Romanovs.
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There was continuity of government before and after the war. The constitution was changed, but the people in charge broadly did not. Whereas in Russia, the people in charge before the war were decidedly not the same as those in charge after the war. Plus France participated in the occupation of Germany, and the same cannot be said about the Russia after WWI
 

Fabius Maximus

Atamolos said:
There was continuity of government before and after the war. The constitution was changed, but the people in charge broadly did not. Whereas in Russia, the people in charge before the war were decidedly not the same as those in charge after the war. Plus France participated in the occupation of Germany, and the same cannot be said about the Russia after WWI
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Yeah, but France was totally occupied/vassalized by the Germans, and had to be reconquered by the Allies. I have no time for the "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey" meme, but let's not rush to make the opposite mistake instead.
 

Lampiao

That's an American joke that got the status of an Internet meme. It's mostly related to the fact that France was the most important enemy of the country responsible for the two World Wars. Similarly, Poland will always have the fame to be a friendless pushover.
 
Atamolos

Atamolos

Honestly, I think this is only their reputation because of their performance in the most recent war. So to fix it, we just need a third world war where they perform better.
 

West

Atamolos said:
Honestly, I think this is only their reputation because of their performance in the most recent war. So to fix it, we just need a third world war where they perform better.
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If the French fight on from Algeria they never gain the reputation to begin with, they will still have the snooty jerk sterotype because Paris is Paris but they wont be seen as cowards.
 

Kirook

I think part of it is that when France lost the Franco-Prussian war easily, the Napoleonic Wars were still (distantly) in living memory, so nobody would make the mistake of assuming that France was a pushover no matter how quickly Prussia defeated them. But by 1940, the only recent war they’d fought in was WWI, in which they performed better than some other countries but not spectacularly so—and the oldest people around at that time remembered the Franco-Prussian War itself.
 
jolou

jolou

Fabius Maximus said:
Yeah, but France was totally occupied/vassalized by the Germans, and had to be reconquered by the Allies. I have no time for the "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey" meme, but let's not rush to make the opposite mistake instead.
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The Free French were still an important part of the Allies and at the end of the War, the French Government had like around one million soldiers to invade Germany alongside the others allies. If the Free France didn't have an important part of Overlord (Except for it's resistance part) it had an important one in Dragoon that liberate a great part of the country more quickly than Overlord.

And well let's not forget the fall of France is also a British defeat too and one the most important of the War.
 

TRH

It's overkill to go back so far, but I'm imagining a timeline where the Armada of 1779 succeeded in forcing a British surrender. One way to keep other countries from making fun of the French would be to knock anyone else down a few pegs re: their martial fortitude.
 

Tanc49

mad orc said:
Not lose so many wars.
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Not to be snotty or anything but it's a même propagated by the Americans. It's ironic given the fact the US haven't won a war on their own since the Mexican one.
It's a même that needs to die, and fast. The Simpsons are not a valid historical source
 

Jürgen

This one is very easy, it would just need the French began to active licking the ass of USA and gave up any foreign objectives outside following USA, if they did so, they would known as brave and stubborn fighters. As long as France behave like the real great power it is, it will get that reputation in USA.
 
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