A flippant expose of the country and people hosting this year’s Olympics. Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne puts on his riot gear to investigate why the French hate the English.
China and the USA might be battling it out at the top of the Olympic medal table, but meanwhile there is another more serious rivalry taking place between France and Britain. And not just on the medal tally.
The bilateral relationship started going downhill when teenage French war hero Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the English during the Middle Ages, over 600 years ago.
England’s historic defeat of France’s beloved Emperor Napoleon at Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington over 200 years ago in the 1800s was another stake in the French heart.
The bleeding continued when the English exiled Napoleon to the island of Saint Helena where he died of stomach ulcers – or was poisoned by his English captors if you’re a fan of French conspiracies. Was it a merci killing?
It’s no wonder the French regularly supported the Scots in their many historic battles against the English. Naturally, they sided with the Americans against the English in the US War of independence. How do you sink an English ship? Have it built by the French.
Even after the British and their allies liberated France in World War II, French President and war hero Charles de Gaulle continually vetoed British entry into the European Community during the 1950s.
The French continue to curse to this day the hordes of English holiday makers who invade their beaches every summer, insist on speaking English in their boutiques, drinking tea in their cafes and eating steak bien cuit (well cooked) in their bistros.
They hate even more the Anglais who inflate their property prices by buying-up villas across regional and southern France.
It remains an uncomfortable truth for France that their great teenage leader, the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, was betrayed by a French traitor during the Hundred Years War that ran from 1337-1453 – more than a century but who’s counting.
The Duke of Burgundy was hedging his bets and swaying between supporting the French and the English when Joan was seized by the Duke’s soldiers, ransomed to the English and executed.
Her demise and the earlier victory by Henry V at Agincourt provided some respite for the English in the long-running war that the French would ultimately win.
That war was sparked by the English kings who laid claim to the French throne – essentially because they descended from the Normans after William the Conqueror crossed the Channel in 1066 from Normandy in north western France to take the English crown.
So effectively it’s just been a long-running, violent family squabble with the English who descended from the Normans, the long lost cousins of the French.
At their closest point, France and England are just 32km apart across the narrowest section of the English Channel between Calais and Dover. Oh so close and yet so far.
Of course the enmity is not all one-sided.
Despite their love of French pastries and French wine including Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne, the English look down their noses at French menus that feature snails, steak tartare and frogs legs. Why do the French eat snails? They hate fast food.
The English also subscribe to the stereotype that paints the French as rude and arrogant, and in Victorian times they were horrified by the sexual morals of the French royal courts and theatres.
Despite the ingrained differences and a few close calls over the past two centuries, Britain and France have not been at war against each other since Waterloo in 1815.
And after de Gaulle’s death in 1973 the UK finally entered the European Communities – only to manage a spectacular Brexit from the EC some 50 years later.
It was inevitable that when 50,000-60,000 English football fans arrived en masse in Paris for the 2022 European Champions League Final that they were tear gassed and assaulted by police and attacked and robbed by criminal gangs before and after the match where Liverpool lost 0-1 to Real Madrid.
An independent English report, based on the written testimonies of 485 women, men, and children, found English fans experienced extreme unprovoked violence at the Stade de France where the 2024 Paris Olympic athletics is being held.
There’s no love lost at the Olympics either. Despite both sharing a similar size population of about 67 million, France has more than three times the land mass (644 square kilometres) than Great Britain (210 square kilometres). Yet on the historic summer Olympic medal table Britannia rules.
Over the previous 29 Olympic Games, Great Britain has won 284 gold medals, 910 medals in total and was ranked 4th in the world on the medal table at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Over the same 29 summer Games, France has won 223 golds, 751 medals in total, and was ranked 8th in Tokyo.
Here in Paris it’s currently a tight contest as the two countries battle for fourth and fifth on the medal table. (Both are currently behind Australia which is in third place.)
What do the French call an English sports fan? The Enemy.
NOTE – This is the latest in a series of “Frivolous facts about France for Olympic bon vivants”. You can read other Frivolous Facts stories by clicking on these topics: Art, Architecture, Sportscars, Language, Wine, French Heroes, French Inventions, French Olympic History, Famous French Athletes, The French Pacific, Cafe Culture, French bread.
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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