French bashing

I’ve recently come across the expression ‘French bashing‘. This term is used to describe the exaggeratedly negative views expressed about France and its economy by -mainly- English speaking journalists.

And since the year started, the tradition of French bashing has apparently been re-awoken, and a multitude of negative articles have been published in the US and the UK, prompting outraged and sarcastic responses alike.

So… what are the key ingredients of a a bad article on France? Amongst others, Slate.fr lists a  wrong figure, a reference to the 75% tax or to Sartre and the Eiffel Tower. But if instead of competing in this category you want to keep improving your French, then you’ll might be interested in knowing that Newsweek‘s article ‘The Fall of France‘ has been fully translated by Courrier International.