Why are the French so unpopular?

[Englishman2010]

Ever wonder why the French are so unpopular?


JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded
"Does that include those who are buried here?"



You could have heard a pin drop



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'


A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:


'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply
Emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day,
They can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'


You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Royal Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, the English learn only English. He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'

Without hesitating, the British Admiral replied,
'Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

"You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The Englishman said,
'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."


"Impossible. You English always have to show your passports on arrival in France !"


The English senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained,

''Well, when I came ashore at Gold Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."


You could have heard a pin drop.

[Arthur Little]

I almost ed myself laughing, Ian ... "oui, oui" ... pronounced phonetically!!

[Pete/London]

That was a great read, I may pinch them and re use them.

[ynwa]

very



try this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5xu35bAxA

[Englishman2010]

That was a great read, I may pinch them and re use them.

Why not......it's what I did

[Doc Alan]

[grahamw48]

But I like hairy women.

[RickyR]

hahaha, the funniest part its so true.

The real issue is that the problems with the French are actually the reasons why we should respect them. They have national pride, they have strong unions which fight to maintain their rights, the try to resist change which ruins their good quality of living and they make a real effort to promote their own countries manufacturing. Of course it annoys the hell of out of us when they are so arrogant, but we seem to have lost our way with protecting the good lifestyles that we used to strive for in England.

As an aside, I once met a MD of a Paper Mill company on a flight to China, and he'd had a factory in France and really regretted it. The strikes, time off, holidays and working hours were a nightmare and when he did pull out, he had to pay a lot of severance and cover salaries for quite a long time (something along the lines of until people got a new job, but can't recall the exact terms).
Another situation was when we took our yachts for drydock in France a few years ago and really regretted that. Work often finished at 2 or 3pm, the place closed for 3 weeks over Christmas (with us stuck paying drydock fees), everything seemed to made difficult. The whole project ran over schedule, cost more then expected and wasn't done well. Decided to use German Shipyards in future, despite having to sail out of the Med!