By Denise Winterman: Les Étrangers

*Read and translate the text.
*Make up 5 special questions to the text.

LES TRANGERS
By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine
Two-hundred years to the day after France's defeat at Trafalgar many Brits still view their cross-channel
neighbours with suspicion and antipathy. The French however, think we should just get over it.
France is the UK's top tourist destination, with 12 million British visitors each year, while the UK is the second
most popular spot for French tourists with over three million visits a year.
The air route from Paris to London is the busiest in the world, carrying some 3.3 million passengers a year...
then there's the Channel Tunnel.
Such statistics might fool a person into thinking the British and the French actually like each other. But even
though it is over 100 years since the Entente Cordiale was signed, pledging Britain and France to a lasting
political friendship, relations on many fronts are decidedly frosty.
But the main problem seems to lie here. Stereotyped by the Brits as garlic-loving, snail-eating, skirt-chasing,
shoulder-shrugging "Frogs", the French don't really care what the British think. Not without their own
stereotypes and prejudices, "Les Rosbifs" are not important to the average French person.
"Most of the French feel neither burning animosity nor deep affection towards the British," says Christian
Roudaut, author of a book on Anglo-French relations, L'Entente Glaciale. "I'm sure the British would say this
represents precisely the sort of arrogance for which the French are notorious in the UK.
"But the level of abuse over here is amazing. I can't believe what is said and appears in the national press in
Britain. If you interchanged the word French for black you would be branded a complete racist."
And the age-old French stereotypes appear to show no signs of disappearing in the UK. Seventy-two percent of
Britons questioned in a recent survey believed the French warranted their negative stereotype, while only 19%
of French believe the Brits deserved their "Rosbifs" tag.
But where does Britain's anti-French feeling stem from?
While Franco-British enmity stretches back centuries, many of the xenophobic stereotypes of the French in
today's society stem from the post-war period, according to Professor David Walker, from the University of
Sheffield.
Take the notion that the French don't wash. This might have stemmed from the hardships France endured after
World War II. Recovery was slower and accommodation often lacked basic sanitation.
"The contrast between the two domestic environments must have been startling for the British visitor of the
1950s and early 1960s," says Mr Walker. "It is not hard to see how the myth of the 'dirty French' was
disparagingly communicated back to the Albion."
But the two countries' similarities are as much part of the problem, according to some.
"The French are a kind of sibling, cast in the same mould as us, but showing how the same genes can express
themselves in alternative ways," says Dr Wendy Michallat, an expert in popular French culture.
"Given this common background, the English, in spite of themselves, tend to give way to what Freud called 'the
narcissism of minor differences'. We make a great deal of what distinguishes us from the French, for fear of
seeing our prized identity lose its uniqueness by being revealed as just another set of shared human traits."
But the British have a more complicated relationship with the French than just straight forward xenophobia,
says M Roudaut. While French folk might not appeal to the British, the way they live their lives does.
Last year's French census revealed the number of Britons living across the Channel had increased by almost half
in the past five years, to 100,000. That's not counting the 47,000 who have second homes in France, according
to the Office for National Statistics.
The flow in the opposite direction is even more pronounced. There are an estimated 270,000 French people
registered as living in Britain, according to the French Embassy. The real figure is higher as not all French
register when they come over.
"You come to us to retire and we come to you for work," says M Roudaut. "I don't mean to be rude but the
French people living in the UK are not here for the weather or food. There are many things I love about Britain like the sense of humour of the people and their politeness - but for most French people here it is an economic
decision, not a lifestyle one."
In an attempt to improve Anglo-French relations the organisers of an upcoming exhibition of French and British
art are producing a pledge book to combat negative stereotyping of the French.
All British visitors to the Entente Cordiale show in London will be encouraged to sign, as will French visitors
when the show transfers to France next year.
The idea is being driven by Richard Kaye, who was alarmed by the attitudes survey mentioned earlier, which
was commissioned for the exhibition.
"Nobody is pretending that this is full blown racism, but rather the inheritance on the part of the younger
generation of 'acceptable' attitudes of suspicion and cultural isolationism towards France and the French," says
Mr Kaye.
"This intolerance is simply not constructive. By encouraging visitors to the exhibition to pledge to reverse this
worrying trend, we are taking a step in the right direction."

By Denise Winterman: Les Étrangers

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

By Denise Winterman: Les Étrangers

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

By Denise Winterman: Les Étrangers

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

*Read and translate the text.

*Make up 5 special questions to the text.

You might also like