I like the french. Do I count?

Very least.

Angelus the Remover wrote:

Vive la France! It`s not often I have complimentary thoughts about our Gallic cousins but it is good from time to time to remember that we don`t live to impress others ....

No brits like the french. The rivalry goes back hundreds of years, to the bay of fighting the french again.

guh, well in that case I'm changing my name back again. ;p

Yes.
That'll be a typical Welsh sentiment.
Naively believing that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." etc.

Didn't the French seriously let you down in one of your many futile rebellions against Bonny King Edward?

footle wrote:

Didn't the French seriously let you down in one of your many futile rebellions against Bonny King Edward?

Hm.  The only French letdown I can think of offhand is deMontfort getting himself killed and parceled off in pieces to his enemies.  The Welsh were their own worst enemy against Edward, really.

welcome annabelle! just to let you know, the Halls of Fire is our area for political/controversial topics. angelus' titles on his topics tend to be a bit..um, extreme; he likes to make them rather attention-getting. that said, i seriously doubts you'll find any french haters here! we welcome tad fans from all over the world...which means we welcome you too!!

The topic title was deliberately phrased in a questioning form as a means of exploring the whole issue of national stereotypes - both "good" and "bad" ones - in order to debate whether or not such judgements have *any* basis  in fact or are simply the result of prejudice. The thread could equally well have been entitled " Everyone hates the Americans/* British*/ Germans.. but why?" ( Note I said "British" when to many of *us* we actually mean "English" - just to illustrate I`m as prone to such arrogant and unthinking self imagery as anyone else )and France only got the nod because such stereotypes often show as much about the qualities that "we" - as distinct peoples - admire or dislike about other nations/races/creeds regardless of how true those assumptions are in fact.

It all comes down to whether or not you believe there is such a thing as a "typical Englishman" or "typical Frenchwoman" in the first place since without such an assumption it would be impossible to confer any such set of qualities in the first place. As an individualist I prefer to downplay differences of culture - indeed I use sarcasm and irony to send them up - in order to emphasize that we are all unique so that if you`d been born in England and I in France then the fundamental characteristics of my personality would still far outweigh the impact of any inherited or learned prejudices. In short that if I were an *asshole*, the only discernable difference would be that I was a French speaking asshole rather than an English speaking one...*.

But now I`ve hopefully said what I wanted to say on this subject I would like to wish you a warm welcome to the board Annabelle and to say I think it`s very cool of you to make your first foray onto Shadowmarch in the "Halls of Fire". Salute!