Je Suis un Francophile
The late great Clement Freud once remarked that the British idea of Germany being the ultimate adversary is a relatively new theory, one spawned by two twentieth century World Wars. ‘France is really the enemy,’ he said. ‘France has always been the enemy.’ In historic terms, he’s right. But I like to think of our Gallic cousins across the Channel as estranged siblings, ones we were once attached to and ones we have spent the time since our split engaged in a long-running rivalry with. Even when we were at war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France at the end of the eighteenth century, French fashions and style were still regarded by Brits as the height of sartorial sophistication. There has been a constant cultural tit-for-tat between Britain and France from 1066 onwards; for every William the Conqueror, there is a Henry V; for every Charles de Gaulle, there is a Winston Churchill; for every Brigitte Bardot, there is a Jane Birkin.
As today is Bastille Day, I think it only fitting that Europhobia is put aside and we celebrate all the good stuff to have made it over the White Cliffs of Dover, across that small stretch of water that separates us from them. As the title indicates, I am a self-confessed Francophile. It was the first foreign soil I ever set foot upon, and I will never forget a teenage crush on the daughter of the guy whose camp-site I stayed at in the summer of 1981, a petite blonde by the name of Francoise. Sigh. Where is she now, I wonder? Anyway, I hereby unveil my fifty favourites and invite you to nominate a few of your own…
![charle3[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/charle31.jpg)
![1412183361708_Image_galleryImage_No_Merchandising_Editoria[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/1412183361708_Image_galleryImage_No_Merchandising_Editoria1.jpg)
![MTE1ODA0OTcxNzA1MDA5Njc3[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/MTE1ODA0OTcxNzA1MDA5Njc31.jpg)
![Serge-Gainsbourg-008[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Serge-Gainsbourg-0081.jpg)
![878[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/8781.jpg)
![francoise-hardy-alone-cover[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/francoise-hardy-alone-cover1.jpg)
1 Napoleon Bonaparte∗ 2 Simone de Beauvoir 3 The Magic Roundabout 4 Serge Gainsbourg 5 Jeanne Moreau 6 Brigitte Bardot 7 Juliette Greco 8 Marcel Proust 9 Louis XIV 10 Voltaire 11 Francois Truffaut 12 Jean-Luc Godard 13 Toulouse-Lautrec 14 Jean-Paul Sartre 15 Charles de Gaulle 16 Edith Piaf 17 Catherine Deneuve 18 Albert Camus 19 Alexandre Dumas 20 Jules Rimet 21 Jean Cocteau 22 Louis Pasteur 23 Jean Genet 24 Jacques Tati 25 Coco Chanel 25 Yves Saint Laurent 26 Barbarella 27 The Lumière Brothers 28 The Montgolfier Brothers 29 Sylvie Guillem 30 Orangina 31 The Marquis de Sade 32 Gitanes 33 Edouard Manet 34 Hector’s House 35 Hector Berlioz 36 Eric Satie 37 Belle et Sebastien 38 Georges Méliès 39 Rene Descartes 40 Jacques Cousteau 41 The Flashing Blade 42 Jules Verne 43 Champagne 44 Braille 45 The Rococo 46 The Nouvelle Vague 47 Francoise Hardy 48 Joan of Arc 49 Eleanor of Aquitaine 50 William the Conqueror
∗And before the pedants revolt again, I know Boney was Corsican; but his birthplace was a French colony and the French regarded their colonial territories as sharing the soil of the mother country.
Petunia Winegum
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:20 am -
I’ll swap you Jane Birkin for Brigitte Bardot any day of the week.
In her prime Bardot was bloody hot stuff, not so much nowadays though.
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:47 am -
Agreed, but I kind of admire her for not having her face replaced by Californian plastic!
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:59 am -
You should admire Bardot even more then, she looks like a Shar Pei these days. Good job she loves animals.
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:02 am -
I actually meant Bardot, not Birkin; but ditto for our Jane as well!
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:05 am -
Sophia Loren seems to demonstrate the benefit of the Meditterranean diet over the Frog one..
-
-
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:20 am -
Joseph Pujol. The spiritual founder of the Euro, and not the last Frenchman to make his fortune by talking through his arse.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:48 pm -
Cheeky, Larkin.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:32 am -
Marc Isambard Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and a pretty fine engineer himself. Also, the Hugenot refugees. They brought many desirable skills to Britain.
In Revolting Pedant mode for a minute, William the Conqueror wasn’t French, he was Norman, which was different at the time. It’s also a bit of a stretch to call him a ‘good thing to cross the channel’. Historical fact he may be, but he was a seriously nasty piece of work, who made a two-century-long tear in the cause of freedom and the Common Law.
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:43 am -
I made the point about Napoleon because Corsica isn’t attached to mainland France, but the problem of what was or wasn’t within the country’s borders centuries ago could be applied to any modern European nation – Italy and Germany being the most notable. Were I to do an equivalent list for either, I’d have to include all the little kingdoms and principalities as well as those parts that fell under the Holy Roman Empire. It just seemed easier to name The Bastard, as Normandy is now very much in France.
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:56 am -
Some say he was French since all the people he ruled were French and Bill was second or third generation after the Norsemen had arrived. It would be a bit like saying Colin Jackson isn’t Welsh.
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:13 am -
Camembert, Brie, Calvados, Haute Couture, Marie Curie (radiation/X-Rays), Louis Pasteur (pasteurisation), jointly with other Airbus and Concorde, jointly Eurotunnel.
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:14 am -
How about Raymond Blanc and the Roux brothers? Came to show us uneducated Brits how to eat, and found that we do it better; they don’t want to go back, now!
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:51 am -
Yes, and if I’m not mistaken one or other of the brothers had a restaurant closed by health inspectors for breaches of hygiene rules. In my opinion it’s a load of old cobblers this notion that the French are the best cooks in the world. Funnily enough I’ve recently been watching dvd’s of Maigret done in France with Bruno Kremer in the lead role. There are several scenes where he’s in rural hostelries and is less than impressed with the cuisine – definitely not haut.
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:58 am -
Oh, and I forgot to mention effing nouvelle cusine – or how to fleece gullible diners – “where’s my steak?” – “That’s it Sir, under your pea!”
-
July 14, 2015 at 3:24 pm -
Many years ago at the height of the ‘nouvelle cuisine’ fashion, my father attended a trade dinner in the town’s poshest hotel. Several courses were consumed, along with much fine wine. At the end of the meal, one of the other guests on Dad’s table stopped a passing waiter and asked if the hotel had any pork pies, because he was still half starving. The waiter’s response was, apparently, somewhat frosty – at which the guest left to find a chippie.
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:23 pm -
Absolutely!
-
-
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:14 am -
Charlemagne and Charles Martel spring to mind. Also Prince Talleyrand, who objected to a poor cabinet decision by announcing: “This is worse than a crime; it is a mistake.”
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:16 am -
Petunia!!! How can you have overlooked our very own Louis Le Prince, invented the single lense movie camera and who shot the first movies in Leeds several years before either the Lumière brothers or Thomas Edison got round to it! For shame Pet, for shame!!!
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:16 am -
Delighted to see M. Descartes, but no Pierre de Fermat?
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:37 pm -
Ah yes, good old Fermat – nevertheless took an Englishman to find the proof of his last Theorem. I’d also include Pascal, he was quite good at sums.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:17 am -
Bruno Dumont needs adding to the list…and Baise Moi…and every ‘French Film’ shown late night BBC2 in the 80s.
Jean Nicot, Gauloises, Gitanes, Absinthe …and HOW COULD YOU FORGET ASTERIX?!?!?!?!?!?
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:28 am -
Asterix is indeed unforgivable; and I would have put Absinthe in, but research led me to discover it originated from Switzerland! Something Orson Welles forgot to add to the cuckoo clock!
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:56 am -
500 years of democracy has to be good for something…
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:31 pm -
Maybe not Asterix, then, but certainly Moebius (Jean Giraud). And Albert Brenet. And Sempe. And many other artists.
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:24 am -
Shouldn’t that be ************ rather than ?!?!?!?!?!?
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:24 am -
July 14, 2015 at 10:34 am -
Charles Hernu. Christine Cabon. Roland Verge. Gérard Andries. Louis-Pierre Dillais. Dominique Prieur. Alain Mafart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior -
July 14, 2015 at 11:19 am -
There have not been many moments of Total Contentment dans la Vie Dwarf but one of them was sitting early morning outside a cafe on the Gobelin, that ‘sunshine’ thing the French have already making the erotic dancer of the smoke from my ‘mais’ polarized blue. Despite only being LeSparrowsfart the temperature was already ‘Daily Mail HEATWAVE’ level (this Dwarf only comes alive at 25+ C). I sat with a perfect cup of Café Crème watching Parisians do whatever it is they do hurrying to Le Job, with a roll of Euros in my front jean’s pocket wide enough to provoke admiring , even lustful, glances the day before as we walked along with Paris Gay Pride, money I hadn’t come by legally and didn’t have to spend. Best of all there was a waiting girlfriend back at la Hotel, a girlfriend who adored me and my , as she put it being Parisian herself, my “coupe triste”.
So yes, I quite like France…not too keen on the French but no one is…not even the French (NB never refer to a Parisian Girl as ‘French’, Parisians despise the French almost as much as Brits do).
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:27 am -
Presumably after celebrating Bastille Day they follow up with Reign of Terror Day and get their knitting out in preparation for the Napoleonic Devastation of Europe Day… Thank God for Mother Russia…
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:32 am -
Is there a German Occupation of Paris Day?
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:41 am -
Occupation? I thought the French cut a deal and headed south to warmer climes.
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:58 am -
Ah, but I could be referring to 1871!
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:06 pm -
That was Prussia. And the French started that one too.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:23 pm -
Indeed, causing Napoleon III to seek refuge here and to be buried somewhere in Hampshire (I think).
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:54 pm -
You are correct. Nap 3rd’s father was NB’s younger brother, married to Hortense, daughter of Josephine by her 1st marriage. They were kicked out of the Netherlands, and went to Switzerland, although the Swiss were worried by Bonapartism and also made him unwelcome. So, the little family departed for England where they lived somewhere like Orpington. Nap 3rd went to France as an adult, and after various machinations was elected Emperor. He was eventually deposed after the Franco-Prussian War, and came to live in England again. Nap 3rd didn’t last long, but his wife Eugenie (daughter of a Spanish aristo) bought an estate in Farnborough (Hants) – there is another Farnborough in Kent, I believe. Anyway, she bought an estate, the grand house of which has been a posh girls’ school since the old lady died in 1921. She also had a miniature of Notre Dame built in the grounds, and endowed an order of French Monks to maintain it. They are still there (not the originals of course) and specialise in bookbinding (!) and singing plain chant in the church at Farnborough Abbey. The Prince Imperial went to Sandhurst which is conveniently close, and the Empress Eugenie begged Queen Victoria to let him go with the British Army to fight somewhere, the choices in 1879 being Afghanistan or South Africa against the Zulus. Anyway, he went to SA and was killed there. These three were interred in replicas of Nap 1st’s sarcophagus in Les Invalides in the crypt below the chapel, the floor of which also has the marble compass rose design.
Nap 3rd’s urgent need to get to France was used as a plot device in a Hornblower short story – by then Hornblower was very elderly and didn’t believe the man’s claim to be Napoleon (surely mad), delayed by a landslip on the railway.
Enough?
-
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
It’s often said that if you ask a French General how many soldiers it takes to defend Paris, he will shrug his Gallic shoulders and say “Don’t know, guv, we’ve never tried”.
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:59 pm -
You’d be surprised. See the paintings by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, although I prefer his Defence of Rorke’s Drift.
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:53 pm -
Not so: they held out for four months against the Hun during the siege of Paris in 1870-71 (also notable for the first air mail service, by balloon).
Plus, I’d like to nominate Mylene Farmer to Petunia’s list (OK, Canadiene, but Francophone and can fill the Stade de France.)
-
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:33 am -
celebrating Bastille Day
You have to admire a revolution led by a journalist armed to the teeth (what happened to ‘le pen is mightier than le sword’ thing?), dressed in a cap made of leaves and rejoicing in the silly name “Lucy Simply Camomile’ or something equally gallic.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:29 am -
It’s definitely a capital city arrogance (re Parisians). Edna O’Brien once said Dubliners regarded other Irishmen (and women) as subhuman, especially those from Ulster.
-
July 14, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
“Yes, fifteen years of living in France teaches a man to hate. Fifteen
years of wearing perfume, fifteen years of eating frogs, fifteen years of
saying “Pardon” and all because of you”– Phillip of Burgundy to Prince Edmund in Blackadder the First.
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 11:36 am -
Best thing to come out of France ? The ferry to Dover, obviously.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
Pet, how about a post “Mon Dieu! Sacre Bleurgh! The Absolutely Worse thing EVER to come out of France”?
I nominate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulay2FvUEd8
WARNING: This video really needs one of those after-voice overs about ‘if you been effected by..’.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:14 pm -
That’s easy. Socialism.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:18 pm -
Hideous indeed; but once she grew up (i.e. became ‘legal’), she looked rather tasty.
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:19 pm -
Mr Depp thought so….and who are we to argue avec him?
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 12:35 pm -
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, without whom we might not have chips to pour vinegar on.
-
July 14, 2015 at 1:02 pm -
“It is claimed that fries originated in Belgium, and that the ongoing dispute between the French and Belgians about where they were invented is highly contentious, with both countries claiming ownership.”
Let’s hope the French don’t start a war over that as well…
-
July 14, 2015 at 2:35 pm -
Would anyone notice if they did ?
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:29 pm -
They can keep their “fries”, I’ll stick to good old English chips – and any road up, they wouldn’t have their bleedin’ “fries” if an Englishman hadn’t brought back spuds first!
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:20 pm -
and any road up, they wouldn’t have their bleedin’ “fries” if an Englishman hadn’t brought back spuds first!
Au contraire mon ami, it was a Spaniard some 2 decades before Drake or Harriot. Like so much of the history we learnt at school, more apocryphal than factual.
-
-
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 1:37 pm -
Eric Cantona
-
July 14, 2015 at 7:53 pm -
Pah ! Jean-Pierre Rives. Rugby God (and sculptor!)
-
July 14, 2015 at 8:01 pm -
And on today of all days, Bernard Hinault, winner of 5 TdF, the iconic , chemically unassisted Frenchman. They don’t make ’em like that any more !
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
I’ll top you all – my maternal great-great-great-great grandparents, who left Rouen with a basket of eggs and never looked back.
-
July 14, 2015 at 3:27 pm -
Well….you can’t blame them……
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:23 pm -
who left Rouen with a basket of eggs
Which contrary to EU Subsidy regulations they subsequently illegally imported into Britain, thus demonstrating that even back then French farmers were…
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:40 pm -
On the ball!
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 2:22 pm -
Not being Andrew Roberts, I’m certainly no fan of Boney – or of that Stalin/Mao promoting red dwarf Sartre. I’d substitute them for Flaubert and the comparatively harmless literary nutter Alfred Jarry.
Sheila B Devotion was as hottie when I was alive –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuMNApRuWHo -
July 14, 2015 at 3:43 pm -
I’d include Henri-Georges Clouzot, director of films like Wages of Fear and Les Diabolique.
Also highly recommended is the documentary about his unfinished film L’Enfer which contains stunning experimental footage.Boileau and Narcejac, the writers of the book on which Les Diablolique was based, as well as the source material for Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Franju’s Eyes Without a Face also deserve a mention. As does Franju himself, who also made Judex.
Among the actors Jean Gabin, Simone Signoret and Jeanne Moreau at least have to be in with a shout.
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:13 pm -
Certainly agree with Voltaire… after all, where would we be today without the battery ?
I did wonder, though, why you only mention one of the Cocteau twins ?
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:16 pm -
If your vibrator’s running on a battery by Voltaire, you’re in for a major disappointment – Alessandro Volta’s version offers more satisfaction, literally.
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:48 pm -
I may not agree with your point but I will defend to the death your right to make it !
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 8:12 pm
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:33 pm -
I’d like to nominate two Georges, Simenon and Brassens, obviously the first gave us Maigret and the second was quite an influence on dear old Jake Thackray.
-
July 14, 2015 at 4:37 pm -
Sorry Alex, but Simenon comes in very useful whenever anyone demands a list of famous Belgians.
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:14 pm -
In fact, Georges Simenon is usually the only real human on the very short list of famous Belgians, the others being the rather more fictional Tin Tin and Hercule Poirot.
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:59 pm -
We can now add Herman van Rompouy to the list. Though since he’s retired, maybe we should delete him as well….
-
July 14, 2015 at 9:05 pm -
django reinhardt
-
July 15, 2015 at 2:03 am -
If you include the area which became Belgium you also get Rene Magritte, Bruegel the Elder, Jacques Brel, Plastic Bertrand, Audrey Hepburn, Herge, Rubens, Van Dyck and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
If anyone is keen on stylish horror/fantasy films I’d recommend Daughters of Darkness and Malpertuis by Belgian filmmaker Harry Kumel.
-
July 15, 2015 at 7:29 am -
There’s also Danny (or was it Dani?). He’s the hugely fat coach-driver I once spent an evening at a bar with, in Paris. He was Belgian and explained all about the Flemings and the Walloons to me – the existence of whom I had no idea of. The funny thing is that I have no idea now which one he was – only that he was Belgian, and he certainly was not little.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:09 pm -
Belgian, French, all the same to me. LOL
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:09 pm -
And we should not forget Ferdinand Foch:
“My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation is excellent. I shall attack…”
But not all would agree….
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:22 pm -
Air – a decent electronica group. And Joan of Arc, probably one of the best French military leaders.
-
July 14, 2015 at 7:35 pm -
Joan of Arc
Who, as we all know now thanks to that nice Mr.Fry, was not French at all but rather a girl from the duchy of Bar…a Bar Girl…which meant something different back then I assume.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 5:39 pm -
What happened to all the great photographers ?
Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Willy Ronis, … -
July 14, 2015 at 5:47 pm -
Yuou have Jacques Tati, but not Max Linder, who started it all.
-
July 14, 2015 at 6:02 pm -
Antoine Saint Exupery: not for Le Petit Prince, but his adult books describing his life as a pilot in the heroic dawn of aviation, who disappeared over the Mediterranean in WW2 while flying for the free French and who inspired a generation of airmen.
To echo Robert Edwards: Charles Martel without whom we’d be living in Islamic Dark Ages.
Balzac, Zola, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Bonnard, Matisse…-
July 14, 2015 at 9:02 pm -
Most definitely Charles Martel(and his army) though we seem to have forgotten his efforts (lessons have not been learned).
-
July 15, 2015 at 2:24 pm -
I haven’t! (see above).
I’m also developing a high regard for the formidable Christine Lagarde…
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 7:10 pm -
Despite some of my more dismissive comments above, I’m actually a francophile too. From my first experience on a school exchange, I’ve loved ‘les filles’, the range of scenery, the cuisine, the mellifluous language, the ambience, the whole experience of the place in all ones senses – as individuals, I’ve even met some wonderful French folk all around that country.
But collectively as a nation, they’re desperately anal, so far up themselves they could revisit that morning’s baguette while it’s still colonic work-in-progress.
It would be interesting to launch the same question on “Les Bras De Raton Laveur”, the cross-channel sister-site, asking the French to list all the beneficial things they’d imported from Britain – chances are they’d struggle to get to the starting 50, or maybe even just a Top 10.-
July 14, 2015 at 7:26 pm -
or maybe even just a Top 10.
You could bet that those british documentaries about life in the fair county of Midsomer or Baker Street would be in any foreign Top Ten list….and je m appelle Bond, Schames, Bond. A fancy they share with all their European neighbours .
-
July 14, 2015 at 7:50 pm -
Not to mention Le Weekend, and several other phrases imported from Les Anglais. I know some French people are a bit uppity about their language being diluted by imported foreign words, but I think we should have a bit more laissez-faire about these things.
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 8:22 pm -
I once came to the conclusion that the French are like the English without any sense of humility. Mind you, they probably say the same about us.
-
July 15, 2015 at 6:15 am -
Personally, I think we are more like Italians.
-
-
-
July 14, 2015 at 10:56 pm -
I’m sure Daguerre ought to be in there somewhere, never mind those other photographers mentioned, and personally I prefer Jean Anouilh to Satre. Then there’s Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Barthes, Foucault. (Surely one post-modernist ought to get in there?) And what about Vercingetorix? And Audrey Tatou? And Molière? As you say, once you start …
-
July 15, 2015 at 1:38 pm -
De Sade…? De Beauvoir…? Foucault…? Sartre…?
So much for all the eye-rolling from Blocked Dwarf the other day in response to one of my more barbed posts. He reliably informed me that there are hardly ANY peadoes in this hangout. The above reads like a PIE Amazon wishlist.
Honestly – since the landlady has been on sickleave, this place has lurched somewhat to the (loony) left of the Goldsmiths Gender/Queer Studies faculty.
What about Baudelaire? Bastiat? Luc Besson / Jean Reno? Jacques Brel?
-
July 15, 2015 at 3:37 pm -
Jacques Brel was Belgian. Perhaps you didn’t know that because you’re not a Marxist Paedo like us lot.
-
July 15, 2015 at 3:47 pm -
Don’t you dare call me a Marxist.
-
-
{ 98 comments… read them below or add one }