Description of a French...

I am one of these people you call The French.

I actually have one head, two arms and two legs.

I speak French (how bizarre).

I love good wine and enjoy various foods (however disgusting it might smell for a newfie's nose, camembert is good :-).

History of the Frenchies...

I won't put English translation of proper nouns as (1) I don't know al of them (2) If you actually reached this point, then you want the original version, not a w/u which would be sounding as the above w/us.

Before Jules Caesar's invasion, France was "La Gaule".

It consisted of unorganized tribes living of hunting or fruit-collection.

They however invented useful things like the barrel or the soap.

The first event which federated people was Vercingetorix's victory in Gergovie.

As he had to capitulate in Alesia, the Gaule become a part of the Roman Empire.

The latter slowly died of a mix between saturnism (leaded pipes actually poisonned the water) and barbarian attacks.

But France kept some kind of inner organisation until a tribe which was bigger than the others just got the suppremacy : Les Francs, their king was Clovis, son of Mérovée and best known figure of the Merovingian Dynasty.

He converted to Christianism after his wife, Sainte Clotilde, convinced him it would made win future battles.

Besides this story he also had an issue with a Vase that his warriors stole in the town of Soissons.

Some priest asked him to give him it back and though he agreed with this, some nasty soldier decided to break it with his sword, claiming that even the king should share fairly with the others...

Next other King just enforced the French unity, like Hugues Capet (From the Capetian Dynasty) and then Charlemagne.

Charlemagne invented the school and also extended the French territory to its widest.

His 3 sons just wasted it, after he died, though.

After him, we had other kings and events, including Louis XIV (there have been XX kings named Louis).

Noticeable events were the 100 year War against the Brits that actually lasted 116 years and ended around Jeanne d'Arc's being burnt.

In 1789, as the French were fed up of having a King, they just organized what was called "La Révolution Française" and used their Guillotine to kill him along with his family and whoever would disagree with such a mess (Jesus, i'd have been more than one foot smaller if I had lived in these times).

Republic actually had some good sides, like a better way of sharing goods with one another, better... hmmm... less worse... administrative communication and also new month names (Brumaire, Vendémiaire, Floréal,...).

Some Corse guy, Napoléon was still young when this occurred but once he got mature, he just became the first French Imperator.

He did some very good things like drying the Dombes ponds (thus eliminating one of the most epidemic zones in France), developping the paper money or simply democratising school even more. He also pissed off the Brits so much they sent him on a lost island... "plutot deux fois qu'une" ;-)

Shortly after this we are getting to our close history. Industrial Era, World Wars, etc.

Conclusion ?

Well, even less than a century from now some French were still German while some others didn't even plan to leave France. So, let's say our history, like yours, is a mix of many cultures and identities.

You *also* benefit from it.

You were happy with M. Hulot, who worked on NeXTstep Interface Builder, with Jean-Louis Gassée, with the Altavista search engine inventor, with Pasteur who discovered the anti-rabbic cure, etc. etc.

Tomorrow, France will be another part of Europa. But it will still be rich of a longer than 2 millenia history while America is only several centuries old.

I no more live in France but rather in Switzerland but I am still proud to be born in France and can't tolerate the numerous trolls or flame baits I read on Everything.

Why we pretend to hate French people:

1. They refuse to learn our language
   One of the great assurances about travelling abroad, as an English speaker, is the knowledge that we can say "Do-oo yo-oo spee-ee-eek Eeen-gleee-sh?" and suddenly surmount the language barrier. Only in third world countries does this rule not apply.

   The French are the only exception. Perhaps it's the fact that they were at war for so long with England. Perhaps it's just pride. But the French steadfastly resist attempts to Anglicize their entire nation, and will speak French wherever possible. Not because they can't speak English - continental Europe has the best language teaching methods in the world. Just because they want to.

   Incidentally, next time you're in a restaurant, try interrupting the waiter when he's reciting the specials and ask "parlez vous francais?" See what reaction you get.

2. They still love art
   I read once in a newspaper that French people are more likely to ask "what are you reading?" than "have you seen any good films recently?". The person who wrote the article seemed to think that this was a bad thing.

   Art is dying. I was recently at a production in a 150-year old theatre. The play was free, but there were large collection buckets at the front asking for cash so that the theatre could be refurbished and the leaks in the roof be repaired. Later I learned that the leaks would never be repaired. The money was going directly into the till of the bar next door, which was a far more stable profit source for the owner.

   The arts scene in France is equally chaotic, but it has one essential difference - most French people believe in it as a noble and worthy cause. In English-speaking society, this is by and large seen as ponciness. Then I watch Gladiator, and feel sad.

3. They understand love a bit better. No honestly, they do.
   I remember sitting with a French girl in sunshine once, lying amongst the grass and flowers and talking about nothing. I picked a daisy and taught her a rhyme from my childhood as I picked the leaves, "she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me..." until the leaves ran out.

   She smiled at me and taught me the French version:
   

   "He loves me."
   "A little."
   "A lot."
   "Passionately."
   "To madness."
   "Not at all."
   
   
   She smiled as she picked the last leaf. It was "pas du tout" - not at all. I haven't been quite the same since.

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Note to future noders: some writeups have already been nuked from this node for relying on the words "garlic", "frog", "armpit hair", "smelly" and "Camembert". Please don't debase yourself by repeating their mistakes.

And the stars, and the moon,
Have been keeping us together since June.
But the stars, and the moon,
Are getting bored of hearing I love you.
(The Stars, The Moon, The Sun and The Clouds)

The French are a band born out of the embers of Hefner, bedroom poets of love, lust, obsession, guilt and addiction. Hefner don't formally admit to having split, but musical differences seemed to lead to their disintegration in 2002, and the following year singer Darren Hayman and bassist John Morrison (and Darren's dog Beulah, the third member) revealed a new outlet for Hayman's lyric-writing. It's fair to say that The French are all about the lyrics, which are witty, tender, dispassionate, and closely-observed tales of city life and relationships; Hayman sings over a simple electronica backing track which has disappointingly little interest.

Their only album to date, Local Information, is frustrating. It starts really well, and by track four I was convinced this was a classic record. Then it totally runs out of steam: not only do the limitations of their music become horribly evident (and the insistent beeps horribly annoying), but the lyrics deteriorate in songs like The Pines which is about a girl with a swastika tattoo and tries to make some point about evil.

However, before then, you have four strong tracks which might make the album worthwhile if you can ensure your CD player explodes before track five. Porn Shoes is a witty tale of a man and a woman going on a date where she wears unexpected footwear

She wore gold shoes with diamante,
Like Kylie wore on TV,
They kept her feeling sexy,
They were what she always wanted.
But he thought they looked like porn shoes,
Like the porn stars wear in porn films...

With all its brand-name dropping and pop references, the song is more like Saint Etienne than Hefner, and The French seems to echo a wider range of cultural references than Hayman has written about in the past.

The Wu-Tang Clan is maybe the stand-out track, a picture of urban alienation about a woman who lives and works in London, dodging unpleasant workmates and riding the tube home. But she is detached from this mundane life; her mind is far away, dreaming of American gangsta rap:

And in her mind she pictures ODB, in his prison cell alone,
It's not wrong to want to be alone, she would tell him so.

The next couple of songs on Local Information are good too, particularly When She Leaves Me, about the way the world totally fails to stop if your heart is broken. Most of the good songs are co-written with John Morrison, while the rest of the album is by Hayman alone. This suggests an obvious course of action.

Two of the later tracks, The Pines and Gabriel at the Airport, were originally performed live by Hefner, and the album in some ways reflects Hefner's later direction. I feel, and most Hefner fans seem to agree with me, that the band was great for the first couple of albums (Breaking God's Heart and The Fidelity Wars) in which the music was based around acoustic guitars, but later on they moved into a dodgy synth style sometimes reminiscent of Momus, which seemed to alienate most of their fans. Gabriel at the Airport is at least amusing, chiding do-gooder singer Peter Gabriel to stop worrying about the state of the world and charity and stuff, and just go home and spend time with his loved ones.

The band's other main recording is the Dagenham EP, the first (and so far only) entry in a planned series of releases named for Essex towns. Preceding Local Information by a month, it has the same faults, with interesting lyrics accompanied by tiresome electronic beeps and gurgles.

The band The French most resemble, or would like to resemble, is perhaps Pulp, with their brilliantly-observed songs, by turns compassionate and satirical. Sadly, without improving their music The French are never going to be on that level; nonetheless, there are moments when The French's suburban angst seems near-perfect.

One question remains: why call themselves "The French"? Hayman explained:

We think it's funny. I had the name a few years ago and wondered if I had the front to use it because it's 'The French' as opposed to 'La Francaise'. I think it says more about the English really...¹

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Discography (UK)

Dagenham, July 14, 2003, a limited edition EP, on the Too Pure label. Track listing: The Animals, Vanessa's Birthday, Living The Wrong Way, Anne and Bill, The Day the Aliens Came.

Local Information, August 11, 2003, album, on the Too Pure label. Track listing: Porn Shoes, The Wu-Tang Clan, The Stars, The Moon, The Sun and The Clouds, When She Leaves Me, Canada Water, The Day You Arrive, The Pines, Nestbuilding, Gabriel in the Airport, Let It Go.

Porn Shoes, September 15, 2003, single, on the Too Pure label. Track listing 7 inch: Porn Shoes, Gabriel in the Airport; CD single: Porn Shoes, Gabriel in the Airport, Punk Rock is Going to Die, Nasty and Mean.

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¹ Darren Hayman quoted in "The French Interview", Record Overplayed, 2003 http://www.meanmartini.freeservers.com/french.html

The main reference for this write-up was the official The French website at http://www.thefrench.org/