France is actually the mother country of not just the USA. For the USA, billions were secretly spent by the doomed French king Louis XVI to vanquish the British, and he established a republic in North America (in spite of warning by his advisers not to establish a republic!). For years, 90% or more of the bullets of the American army were made in France (among other things). In the end, at Yorktown, two converging French armies helping the US army (one headed by Lafayette), and the blockading French fleet, forced the surrender of the British army, ending the American war of independence.
France was the mother country of the USA in still another sense: the Duke of Normandy led a large French army and conquered England in 1066 CE. The 20% slaves found in Britain were immediately freed, as per French law (slavery had been outlawed in France, by a ruling queen, four centuries earlier). William proceeded with in-depth reforms promoting the English Parliament. The French barons, who were not vassals of the Duchy of Normandy, thus not forced to obey him, then forced the Magna Carta onto the king, followed by further, durable, powers for Parliament as the Count of Toulouse tried to be elected king of England. England was another France, a France freed of an all too absolute king.
The Franks had earlier united and created Germany, as a nation, and also the German language and not just the Carolingian minuscule, as they imposed their rule all over Europe. Thereafter the Franks proceeded to free Rome and, 2 centuries later, southern Italy and Sicily from the savage Muslim invaders, whom they had also thrown out of northern Spain…
France has been the West’s most prominent military power since before the Franks put the Huns to flight at Orleans (they were thereafter decisively defeated in Champagne). Julian the “Apostate” was proclaimed “Augustus” (supreme Roman emperor) in Paris in 360 CE. Julian, who had attended Athenian schools, was a top philosopher, not just an amazing general; he saw clearly the danger of Christianism. Thus the anti-clerical and rebellious French mentality is from way back. (Julian died in combat in Mesopotamia in 363 CE; a bit like France in May 1940 a military event not supposed to happen did happen; however Rome didn’t recover, whereas France was soon reborn… thanks in part to her network of affiliated powers she had parented over the centuries…)
Julian’s anticlerical election in Paris was no accident: at least four Franks became Roman commander-in-chiefs , at the time, and fought against theocracy and its allies, the Goths: Richomer, Arbogast, etc… however, at the Battle of the Cold River, in 394 CE, the Occidental Roman army, mostly Frankish, headed by a Frank, was defeated, partly thanks to hurricane force winds blowing the wrong way: another example of a military defeat which was not supposed to happen. That defeat had a very durable effect. It brought thousands of years of theocracy by that slave religion sustaining plutocracy, “Catholic Orthodoxy”.
Thus the fanatical Christians and the Goths won, for 110 years, seizing Rome (410 CE) and destroying the Roman state. But in the end, the Franks defeated them both under Roman Frankish Consul and King Clovis (Battle of Vouillé, 507 CE, where the hyper soldier Clovis himself killed the Gothic king Alaric)…
The rebellious, liberty loving French mentality resulted in:”Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”… All what plutocrats hate. Remember the plutocrats? They hold the media, the politicians, the “economists”, and the most prestigious universities… So plutocrats hate France, and can’t stop to heap villainous notion onto her.
In truth, France is the rebellious and military core of European creativity, and has been thus, ever since Julius Caesar intervened in the “Gallia Comida” (Long Haired Gaul). Raging against France is, at least partially, raging against rebellion, fraternity, liberty, equality, the very essence of a free humanity, all what plutocracy hates… Infant mortality in France is a small fraction of that in the USA. That costs plutocracy a lot.
Right, the French Republic was defeated in six weeks in May-June 1940. But that Battle of France was the deadliest on the Western front for the whole war. More than 50,000 elite Nazis died. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and combatants died. Two years later, a French army, in Thermopylae style, prevented Rommel’s Afrika Korps and the Italian Army to encircle the defeated and retreating British army in Libya, at Bir Hakeim: so the French military eclipse was short-lived (by then the USA has still not engaged Nazi Germany in battle).
Right, France had declared war to Hitler in 1939: respect. While the US plutocrats were helping Hitler in all ways: infamy.
The elite, vast, and well-armed French armies and the professional British force got pierced from behind May 10–15, mostly because they had not been at serious war for 21 years, whereas the Nazis had trained by conquering Spain. The second-in-command of the french army told his superior the Germans may just do what they did. Gamelin, the C in C, just didn’t believe the Germans could be that smart, and that fast, and that invisible prior to action. War in Spain would have enlightened him.
Moreover, among other problems, French and British air crews were rusted, for the first few days; to boot, the Brits didn’t engage all their air force; somewhat related, the British Second Armored division was late arriving just where the Nazis broke through… Just where the inspector of the British army, the Prince of Wales, had informed his personal friend Adolf Hitler he should breakthrough… At Sedan…
So why didn’t France intervene in Spain as the Spanish Republic had requested her to do? And get the little military action the French army needed to refresh itself? Because the French leader, the Jew and Socialist Leon Blum, got intimidated by French hater F.D. Roosevelt, and his Anglo-Saxon plutocratic cohorts who absolutely didn’t want France to defeat Germany in 1936. And so on. US and Anglo-Saxon plutocrats loved doing business with Hitler, and some, like IBM, did business, crucial business, business which, had it been absent, the Great Reich would have collapsed without, throughout the war, all the way to May 8, 1945.
One can’t understand the travails of France in the Twentieth Century without understanding in-depth the machinations of US plutocracy to defeat what it hates in France. And this is a warning for the future, as, arguably, US plutocrats are mightier than ever… And indeed, an ex-banker, a collaborator of US plutocracy (he overviewed the gift of the French Alstom to its US competitor GE) is now in power in France, playing Thatcher-Reagan. Sure enough, Macron, as French president, while part of the global plutocracy, has been busy accusing France of “crimes against humanity“.
Patrice Ayme
Note 1: the preceding was expanded from an answer to Quora:
Why do some people consider France as a nation of cowards without any army?
Yes, indeed, why are so many people so stupid? To better control and enslave them….Oh, BTW, France has the world’s third nuclear force, with 600 nuclear ICBM warheads for nuclear subs, plus nuclear attack subs, plus supersonic nuclear strike capability, and her army is arguably, in some ways, more active than the US Army itself… The French deterrent is also independent of the US, which the much weaker British deterrent is not…)
Note 2: Macron has been busy excoriating French “colonial” past… when much of the French population (including yours truly) has a colonial past (all colored types have it, and that’s a majority if not of the country, certainly of the French soccer team, as the whole planet, even Obama, knows…) Moreover “colonial” troops fought superbly in WWI and WW2 against the real racists and criminals… Germans and Senegalese, even in WWI, made no prisoners. The Senegalese, part of this “colonial” army Macron and those who accuse France of cowardice, in the end, won.
September 20, 2018 at 1:38 pm |
Oui oui oui! If only republics would enact laws to prevent the cooptation of elected officials by Plutos! J’aime la France, plus que l’Allemagne.
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September 21, 2018 at 7:21 am |
Indeed. The problem, though, is that politics attracts unworthy individuals who know they will make a buck through it. So they aren’t too good passing laws cutting down their trade. Many top officials in the US are allowed to have “consulting” on the side. Even heads of state have been known to do this (not just Trump; Sarkozy was a partner in his own 2 person law firm, while a politico…)
The only real solution is to cut down on the power of elected officials, replace it by Direct Democracy…
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September 20, 2018 at 8:01 pm |
Germans were plenty crazy, and for a long time. Full of madness in German philosophy.
Enough to read Luther, Kant, Herder, Hegel, as you pointed out in the past. These guys are always on the look out for crazy simple model to justify manifest destiny where plenty bad guys get killed. No wonder US academics love them
You also explained that USA supported the Kaiser in WW1, until 1917. Funny you didn’t mention it this time. It was bait and switch! Vive la France, like Benign says!
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September 21, 2018 at 7:24 am |
Essays are somewhat repetitive, sometimes, but can’t repeat everything all the time… The picture of US media (and that includes late night comics) hypocrisy about the French being cowards, is clear enough…
Right, German philosophy played a crucial role in Nazism and WW1. German fascists were the first to say it, on the offense and in defense…
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September 21, 2018 at 11:22 am |
Can you give me a source for this attitude that the British wanted France to lose in 1940?
This is the second answer I’ve seen suggested, and I find the idea somewhat troublesome since I thought France and Britain were pretty strong allies since WWI, where hundreds of thousands of British soldiers were killed and maimed to help their French brothers in arms defeat the Germans.
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September 21, 2018 at 11:29 am |
I never said the British wanted France to lose in 1940. As the UK and France had sent a joint ultimatum to Hitler and had jointly declared war to Nazi Germany, and jointly made several landings in Norway, with the aim of cutting in half Hitler ally Sweden… That would have been rather self-defeating.
What is true is that it took one month for the first British soldier to reach the continent in 1939: Britain, as in WW1, had a ridiculously small army…
Churchill, a self-contradicting francophile, and fluent French speaker, ordered to keep crucial air squadrons in reserve. That was a mistake: it probably made the difference on May 13, 1940, as the French and British air forces were unable to disrupt the heavy concentration of the entire Luftwaffe where it succeeded to break through, crossing the Meuse. In particular, the French B division got pummeled, and the Nazi pontoon bridges were not destroyed.
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September 21, 2018 at 11:35 am |
Jon Jones:
The cowardly French trope is almost entirely a figment of Fox News imagination. Napoleons troops. Verdun. Your foriegn Legion and even Eric Cantona prove the lie in their words.
I’m a Brit and have never anybody who thought the French cowardly. Although I’ve met many who are infuriated by your stubboness and intransigence 🙂
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September 21, 2018 at 11:36 am |
If it were only Fox News… Fox News just follow here a trope of the US Deep Mind, because they know it pleases their audience… The situation was acute in 2003, when it was total propaganda world war between the US and French governments about invading Iraq… But the French cowardice slogan first surfaced in WW2, to mask the fact that the USA refused to attack the Nazis until it was carefully too late… And dropped its PARENTS, France and Britain, just when their survival was in question…
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September 21, 2018 at 11:40 am |
Chris Ansett
Wed
“France was the mother country of the USA in still another sense: the Duke of Normandy led a large French army and conquered England in 1066 CE. The 20% slaves found in Britain were immediately freed, as per French law. William proceeded with in depth reforms promoting Parliament. The French barons, who were not vassals of the Duchy of Normandy, then forced the Magna Carta onto the king, followed by further, durable, powers for Parliament as the Count of Toulouse tried to be elected king of England.”
The Duke Of Normandy had a claim to the English throne, he only came over when Edward died as was related. He also had Breton blood ( British blood) in him too. Godwinson had zero claim. The way you talk is like it was the Kingdom Of France that came over, it didnt !
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September 21, 2018 at 11:49 am |
Chris: Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. You are indeed right that William, in several ways, had a righteous claim to the throne of England. It had been the plan, indeed, from the preceding king. The real problem of England was that all of it had fallen under brutal Danish control, a generation earlier, in a spectacular war.
My point is rather subtle, and has not been made before, that I know of, although it is completely obvious: William was ONLY Duke (DUX, in Latin, war chief only below the emperor, or Consul(s)) He didn’t command Bretons or Angevins and others coming from Flanders, etc. William did command during the expedition itself. But once that was over, his command ceased (an old Roman method Caesar was all too familiar with…) Hence the (FRENCH) barons he created in England by distributing lands from the preceding English/Viking/Danish aristocracy of Knuth, didn’t have to be under the orders of his new English dynasty… And the Angevins would indeed succeed later…
Anyway… hence the Magna Carta, I say… The barons were in position to limit the powers of the descendants of this uppity Duke…
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September 21, 2018 at 12:53 pm |
The comment on Blum is anti-Semitic.
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September 21, 2018 at 12:55 pm |
I didn’t see an “antisemitic” “comment on Blum”. That Blum got intimidated is a fact: first the French government of Blum said, per the request of the Spanish Republic, France would intervene. Loud and clear. Then the USA screamed against France, and Blum backed off. It’s easy to check that chronology. Meanwhile Texaco gave Hitler enough fuel to fly the rebellious Spanish armies from Africa to Spain (they were blocked by the Spanish Navy).
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September 21, 2018 at 12:58 pm |
All is said…
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