Here’s the email I got:
1. Go to www.google.com
2. Type in “french military victories”, without the quotes
3. Instead of hitting “Search” hit “I’m feeling Lucky”
4. Tell your friends before the people at Google fix it
Here’s what I wrote to Google at
http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py
Well, I want you to Fix It. I’m more than tired of the litany of jokes about the ‘hapless French’. My family was practically wiped out in WW2. 52 direct family members were killed fighting for their homeland. I became the 3rd male when I was born. Americans have no idea what national sacrifice really means. And yes, i would appreciate a response to…..
I’m fed up with everyone and yes i am including the Daily Show and many ‘liberals’ and progressives who make jokes about the French. I’ve seen on blogs, I’ve seen it on TV, newspapers, etc. Everyone knows the movie scene (Saving Private Ryan I think) where the Mom collapses on the porch as the military come bearing tidings that her sons had died…well, I grew up never knowing any uncles or grandfather. My grandmother lost every male relative except one. From concentration camps to fighting for the Free French they were killed. My aunt saw the Germans bust into the place they were hiding and chase her fiance out the back. Last she ever saw of him. And that’s just my family. You can repeat that by the tens of thousands.
France was the front line in two wars. Without the lowly French there would be no successful American Revolution. And it was the French who almost stopped the US war machine. I don’t want (or need) your sympathy. I would appreciate you writing Google and the next time someone tells a French joke educating them some. Thank you, end of rant.
I apologize for the insensitive, ignorant fools we have in my country that have promoted that hatred. I have never understood why they do that. I appreciate your family’s contribution and losses.
I share your outrage.
American Revolution
1778:
The French Alliance (2/6)
French and American forces besiege Newport, RI (8/8)
1780:
French troops arrive at Newport, RI, to aid the American cause (7/11)
1781:
French fleet drove British naval force from Chesapeake Bay (9/15)
Cornwallis surrounded on land and sea by Americans and French and surrenders at Yorktown, VA (10/19)
French volunteers in the American Revolution
There were at least 87 officers of the French Royal army that served in the the US Continental Army, and about four French army or naval officers served with John Paul Jones’ naval squadron. The estimated number of French who served ‘in the ranks’ of the US forces is higher, but not well documented.
The French Revolution
The pivotal event of European history in the eighteenth century was the French Revolution. From its outbreak in 1789, the Revolution touched and transformed social values and political systems in France, in Europe, and eventually throughout the world. France’s revolutionary regime conquered much of Western Europe with its arms and with its ideology. But not without considerable opposition at home and abroad. Its ideals defined the essential aspirations of modern liberal society, while its bloody conflicts posed the brutal dilemma of means versus ends.
The revolutionaries advocated individual liberty, rejecting all forms of arbitrary constraint: monopolies on commerce, feudal charges laid upon the land, vestiges of servitude such as serfdom, and even (in 1794) black slavery overseas. They held that political legitimacy required constitutional government, elections, and legislative supremacy. They demanded civil equality for all, denying the claims of privileged groups, localities, or religions to special treatment and requiring the equality of all citizens before the law. A final revolutionary goal was expressed by the concept of fraternity, which meant that all citizens regardless of social class, region, or religion shared a common fate in society, and that the well-being of the nation sometimes superseded the interests of individuals. The resounding slogan of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity expressed social ideals to which most contemporary citizens of the Western world would still subscribe
The French Resistance, WW II, D-Day
On 5th June, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower asked the BBC sent out coded messages to the resistance asking them to carry out acts of resistance during the D-day landings in order to help Allied forces establish a beachhead on the Normandy coast.
This included attacks on the occupied garrisons in the towns of Tulle and Gueret. In revenge for the French attack on the German garrison 120 men were hanged in Tulle on 9th June. Later that day another 67 were murdered in Argenton.
These armed resistance groups were able to slow down the attempt by the 2nd SS Panzer Division to get to the Normandy beaches. It was decided to carry out a revenge attack that would frighten the French people into submission. On 10th June a group of soldiers led by Major Otto Dickmann, entered Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in the Haute-Vienne region of France. He ordered the execution of more than 600 men, women and children before setting fire to the village.
Despite these atrocities the French Resistance continued to take up arms against the German Army. After the war General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote: “Throughout France the Resistance had been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their great assistance the liberation of France would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses to ourselves.”
Battle for Paris, WW II
The resistance also assisted later Allied invasions in south of France in Operations Dragoon and Anvil.
When Allied forces began to approach Paris on August 19, its resistance cells also activated. They fought with grenades and sniper rifles and arrested and executed collaborators. Most of the Paris police force joined them. Roosevelt sent troops to help–the first Allied troops arrived on August 24. The last Germans surrendered on August 25.
You’ve said it far better than I ever could. Thanks.
Much, much more could be said, this is only scraping the surface of a deep and positive linkage between the U.S. and France throughout our modern histories, focusing on the bravery of the French people. I could talk about French writers and philosophers, for example, and their great influences on American and world progress. Volumes could be and have been written on the contributions of the French….
My voting doesn’t work either but that’s a good short history lesson. By no means have my countrymen done everything well but their contributions have been largely overlooked and the low humor is sometimes beyond belief. Merci et Allex les Bleus (we did get a decent draw for the World Cup and that counts for something)
And whose countrymen have? No country has a perfect record, but the French are deserving of our respect and “Fraternite” more than any other nation on the planet.
I love the French, French food and wine, French movies, etc. But I still think that Goggle thing was funny.
It is one thing to have a sense of humor, another to be ignorant. People who bash the French do so out of ignorance.
But if it is OK to bash Bush through Google’s “I Feel Lucky” button, I think the French will survive this little joke. Afterall, they may their troubles, but they don’t have the Bush family.
Perhaps you’ve misunderstood. This was but one example of many. People send me french slur jokes adn every comedian on TV, including John Stewart and Al Franken take shots at the French. This was but one example, the one that got me to say enough already.