Merci Beaucoup Pour Rien Le Francais

[retrocop]

Just why the hell did we bother with these cheese eating surrender monkeys in 2 World Conflicts.Their true colours emerge and it doesn't include the Red ,White and Blue of the UK. I bet there are a lot of graves turning in the hundreds of Commonwealth War Cemetries in France. Damn Monsieur Marie of Carentan

 

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/row-over-union-jack-snub-175910280.html

[bhg481]

I would like to believe that they decided they needed nice, new bunting for a big anniversary and ordered "European flags"; the order ended up in China where they confused Europe with EU and nobody noticed. Yes, I know, there are non-EU flags in there as well but I'd like to think it's an honest mistake.

[barry1010]

We didn't bother with the French out of concern for them; it was concern for the close proxity to the south of England.

[Untitled]

it's not that big a deal really is it

[retrocop]

We can't move our close proximity to France but they could at least show some respect for those who crossed the channel and gave their lives.The 2 WW were about honouring pacts with Belgium and France.We are were we are since long before the Napoleonic Wars and others.

[Untitled]

and did we honour those pacts because we wanted to be admired for it or did we do it because it was necessary? i suspect the latter. the fact that they have swiss and irish flags would also suggest that the priority isn't necessarily matching the flags to participants in the normandy landings. 

[retrocop]

 

              // t's not that big a deal really is it//

You never let us down with comments like that do you?

Tell that to the few surviving vets ho still cross the manche on 6th June every year.The first time they did it there was no passport control of officious Frog immigration. Just a hail of bullets to welcome them.

You obviously have'nt bothered to watch 'The Great Escaper' as it's no big deal to you.

[Khandro]

There's worse than that; In June 2119, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-day, one of the French supermarkets issued a plastic carrier bag with a map of the Normandy landing beaches.

Which one did they leave out? - 'Sword', the British one !

 

[davebro3]

I think a boycott of French imports would be a good idea. Bloody frogs...

[ichkeria]

It's one small village in fairness not "the French"

[choux]

retrocop, I understand your view point but I would add that every time I have similar thoughts I remember the French Resistance and my attitude certainly softens. I wonder how many of them are still alive and what they or their families think of us now.

[davebro3]

//It's one small village in fairness //

I think it goes much deeper than that.

[Old_Geezer]

Most likely jumped up local politicians for you. No wonder politicians have a bad rep.

[Ringlet]

As Francophobia goes, that is a fairly impressive example. 

[Khandro]

Even worse still; I believe that in 20th cent. history in French schools now, the whole of the Allied evacuation of the German forces is played down, and kids are being taught how it was really the French Resistance that did it.

[davebro3]

I don't think the French have ever forgiven us for this -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

but if the Nazis had got their hands on those ships....

[Untitled]

you are quite right retrocop... i haven't watched the great escaper because i thought it looked like sentimental rubbish.

i'm afraid you're going to have to accept that world war 2 was 80 years ago and that it simply isn't going to mean as much to future generations as it does to you. that's the way that history goes.

the british did not participate in the liberation normandy for a clap on the back, they did it because the nazis were a threat to us.

[ToraToraTora]

09:14 I see as usual the EW never miss a chance of a dig. Makes you wonder why they choose to live a country they clearly hate.

[ToraToraTora]

....Fun fact the French flag was indeed white from 1815-1830

[10ClarionSt]

When DeGaul was "negotiating" the French withdrawal from NATO back in the sixties with the USA Sec of Defence Dean Rusk, he was thumping the table and demanding "that every American is out of France within 24 hours". Dean Rusk said: "Does that include all those in the cemeteries?"

An elderly American was visiting France, and border control asked him for his passport. He said: "You didn't ask me for one last time I was here".

"You always need a passport to enter France"

"Well, nobody asked me for one when I came ashore on Omaha Beach on June 6th 1944"

[retrocop]

I had an Uncle who served in the Welsh Guards. He was fighting a rearguard action to help the final evacuation of France from Calais.He was wounded and eventually captured by the Germans who treated him well in their commandeered military hospital. After surgery,and in a recovery ward, he was seen by the German doctor who treated his wound. "Here *Tommy* is your souvenir which I took out of your back. I can assure you it is not a German Mauser bullet but one of your comrades. It is a French Lebel Rifle bullet."

As an American Battalion Commander once remarked,'I would sooner face a German Panzer Regiment in front of me than have a French Regiment at my back"

*My uncle was actually called Taffy* but he forgave the doctor. Not so much the coward who shot him in the back.