I have nothinig to say on this subject.
I will, however, share that today, on Bastille Day, I am settling on my new house... on Normandy Drive.
Yay, France!
Being as a large part of USA was at one time owned by the Frence (twice) and being of French ancestry, I would say the French are very independent and do not like to be pushed. They will however always take up a cause just to be on the opposite side but maybe they were correct fries.
There is not so much ambivalence toward the French as you think - Karl Rove and Lee BBQ Atwater and everyone on the American Right since Mitterand the French Socialist was elected have caricatured the French into an elitist socialist boogeyman, and they played right into it because the French are fiercely independent, even when the cause is unpopular, and that translates as E-Leete, the favorite of the East Coast liberals, frogs, gays, and of course the effeminate arugula and snails democrats. Do the French know better about how to enjoy life than we do? Lets see... bullet trains, great food, great wine, free healthcare, mandated 6 weeks vacation, wonderful art, literature, architecture, did I mention the food? Street crepes to die for (imagine the NYC hot dog guy making fresh crepes filled with warm nutella instead of nitrate laden death dogs, ooh la la). France is wonderful. Can't wait to visit there again.
The French? I work with them every day, lived there twice, and still wonder at the ways that American AND French people mis-understand each other.
Just yesterday, I found myself sitting in a conferece room with some PR folks discussing current perceptions held by different demographics of the US population about the French. What a riot! I basically came away from the meeting with the feeling that we had either a)learned nothing about each other since Americans became Americans (while the French remained French) or b)...well, perhaps I only came away with one feeling...
The jist of it is: we have different histories, different opinions, and similar insufficiencies of the human-variety when it comes to engaging in a healthy, cooperative exchange with someone outside our sphere of understanding about the world. I don't wait to sound synical -- it is really not my style -- but I do think that we would do better to first recognize and accept that, as two large groups of people, we will never ABSOLUTELY agree on anything, and then see where we can go from there.
At the end of the day, though, I still love France (no matter how little I may like working with them on some days) and have celebrated the French National Holiday by buying a house on Normandy Drive (I did not seek out this coinscidence, mind you, but energertically embrace it).
Bonne soirée à tous!
Maura
La Nouvelle Vague. 'Nuff said.
On that note, if you have never seen L'Année dernière à Marienbad it is highly suggested that you do so.
I don't think we hate the French. We love to hate the French, which is just another way of saying that we love the French. But we deeply loathe that we love the French, and that's why we hate the French. 
So it's not so much that we're ambivalent, but rather that our disjointed appreciation comes off as ambivalent. But, really, we're quite secure in our awkward relations. We've been very consistently inconsistent over the years, have we not?
'Likely?'
There were more French troops at Yorktown than American troops. The reason the British did not evacuate Yorktown to fight another day was that a large French fleet drove the British fleet away. next time you see a Frenchman, say 'merci.'
And let's not forget the opposite: French loathing about having to be rescued by Anglo-American forces,not something of which a proud people with a long noble history wish to be reminded. It always hurts to need help, and the more help you need, the more it hurts. That resentment explains much of French-American relations over the last 60 years.
I knew this post was like catnip to Hanno...
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