Back in '83, the ship I was on went on a North Atlantic/Med cruise.  After we pulled out of Portsmouth, England, we headed for Egypt.  My Grandmother died while we were in the Med, I took emergency leave, got heloed to Sicily, and flew out on a MAC.
 
After Egypt the ship was due to port in Toulon, France.  When I rejoined the ship after leave I asked my shipmates about the ports I had missed.
When I asked about Toulon, the response was universal.  Dejection and outright disgust.

Turns out, this is what happened.  When a Navy ship pulls into port, those crewmembers not on duty assemble on the main deck, in formation, dress uniform of the day.  As the ship was approaching dock, a large crowd, 200 or so, was noticed to be there to welcome the ship.  This is not unusual, when another ship I was on ported in Sydney, we received a great welcome, media coverage, the whole nine yards.

This was no welcome.  On the shore the French rabble were yelling, [b]"NAZIS!NAZIS! GO HOME!  YOU DIRTY YANKS! GO HOME![/b] and similar greetings.  Only 20 or 30 of the crewmen  (alcoholics?) out of a crew of over 500 went ashore on liberty.  The ship did not stay as long as planned and pulled out early.
I was not there to see this, but if they were lying there were more than 500 liers, and they all had their story straight.

In the words of the immortal Al Bundy, "It is wrong to be French."

Back in 83?  What makes you bring it up now?

Yeah, the French are great aren't they?  They'll never forgive us for saving their ass twice in one century.

Your welcoming committee there were probably the local communists.  The locals probably would be rude and disdainful, but not outright hostile.

It`s funny but all I ever heard was how f`uped the french are. I was in Paris and Metz and the beaches. I was treated very nice, I even got laid. The English on the other hand wanted to fight as soon as they heard my accent. And fight we did. F the Brits. I was interviewed recently by a french tv crew for 2nd ammen rights, they treated me nicely.
The French have some of the most beautiful women in the world.
Frank Zappa had a few things to say about the French

My dad was on shore leave in france back in the late 60's early 70's and a gang of 14 year old french kids beat the crap out of him and his buddy.

I was treated well in south France.  They held a 4th of July parade, complete with floats and statues of Washington and Jefferson, fireworks, et cetera in Cannes.

The fact that anti-American rabble assembled at the port shouldn't mean much.  The French don't like anybody's military, even their own.

everytime we save a country they turn around and shit on us

My American friend was walking down the street in VA and got jumped by three American kids.  It happens everywhere.

i find french women v.v. sexy, english women have a completely different attitude to sex then most american women.  i like english women, i like them alot.

steve

True, True

I hate the French as much as the next guy, but they did help us stick it to the British during the revolution.

Yeah, yeah, and they gave us the Statue of Liberty.  But what have they done for us LATELY?

Especially the French. They get their asses kicked nearly every time they get into a scrap.

My experience was the same as Rich314's.  The French were great, but the Brits thought they were waaaay too good for us.

I never saw any decent looking women in either place though.

If we mention WWI & WWII & now the war for independence lets not for get Vietnam.  Legionare Pussies.  

French Technology sucks & so do the women. I too love the French ladies - soo soo sexy.

The French aren't that bad. Jean Reno be cool. Jean-Michel Bayle spanked our asses bigtime in SX and MX. And French commandos blowed up that Green Peace ship. Now if they could only figure out how to design decent guns, motorcycles, and cars...

I was in France for three weeks in '91 working at EuroDisney before it opened.  There were French, Brits, Germans, etc. all over the place.  The French, overall, were pleasant and helpful, but there were a few real a**holes.  The Brits were lots of fun, and CONSTANTLY disparaged the "Froggies". [:D]  I didn't get to work with the Germans.  I, personally didn't meet a single Frenchman or woman who was unpleasant, but I did hear a few first-hand stories.

The point is, however, every country has a**holes, even ours.  If you'll remember, ours has Jane Fonda?

You have to know how to play the game. The company I work for is French, so I'm always meeting with Frenchmen. We also have offices in England, so I deal with those guys a lot too. When the French guys are in town, one of us finds a reason to gripe about the British, something like "Those English soccer fans are real idiots, what do you tink?". Boom! All of the sudden the French guys are buying us beers. When the English guys come over, someone will say, "Man, you guys saved France so many times I'm surprised they can show their faces in Europe. And their women have hairly legs!". Boom! Limey guys are buying us beers.

[b]That's what I figured too, but it still pissed me off.  If I remember right, around that time the Army was trying out a new battle helmet, and they looked a lot like the 40's era German helmets.  This was contoversial with some, I believe that demonstration may have been related to the helmet issue.  But, we were not Army.  Whatever happened to that helmet design?[/b]  

If you're on your way to Paris, be warned that the Parisians treat everybody like shit, including each other.  While they will be certain to toss in "Amaricain" every once in a while, don't sweat it.  They have to toss in something.  If you were German they'd toss in "bosch" or "schleu" (however it's spelled).

The upside is that you may act equally rudely in return, and everything is OK; in fact, they kind of expect it.  Not doing so is a sign of weakness.  Just don't criticize them for being French, but for being Parisian.  Bringing up the WWII thing will get you nowhere, you'll sound just like the Griswolds.  They have only heard it about 1000 times, and true or not, it's really lost any force over there.

Go buy a little book called "Nasty French" or something like it.  It has shitloads of disparaging phrases that make learning French fun, and that will defuse a nasty situation a lot of times.

And, don't forget that once you learn to act as they expect people to, they can be seriously decent people.  One time I was at the Louvre, witing to get a picture of a couple of Rodins.  Everytime the shot was *almost* clear, some tourists would blunder in and ruin my shot.  After about 10 minutes of my waiting politely, a security guard came up and asked my if I needed help.  I said yes and he cleared everybody out right then for as long as I needed to take about 5 shots.  I was dressed like shit, and looked about 150% American, so he knew I was a tourist.  The deal was that I was polite, I didn't shove my way around, and I spoke some French, and that's all it takes.

I cannot stress enough that you need to learn as much French as you can.  Since you will never be able to learn enough to satisfy the French, hell, even they can't, and they know that, whatever you have will do so long as they think that you are trying.

How are you going to Italy?  If you're driving, it's about 10 hrs to the Italian border driving straight through.  The farther south you get, the more they like Americans, BTW.

Good points, Cible.  I had thought about learning some insulting words in French, for a special occasion.  Also, luckily my wife speaks French and Italian.
We are renting a car.  Don't look forward to paying the petro prices.

I've noticed big city people all over the world are rude.  Parisians, Romans, New Yorkers, Hong Kong.....people from small towns around Alaska say people from Anchorage (pop. 250,000) are rude.  Maybe that's all there is to legendary French rudeness.

My friend who's 18 just went to Europe, spent about 2 weeks in Paris.  He said Parisians were the nicest, friendliest folks he met and they loved speaking English.  So now I don't know what to think.

Most people suck.  The denser you pack 'em, the more they suck.  That's all you need to know.  

Big deal. JMB didn't stick around to see just how good he really was. Perhaps he realized there was some good talent coming up.

About the French commandos blowing up the Greenpeace ship. How good could they be if everybody knew it was them who did it? Hell, anybody can blow something up. It takes talent to disguise it as an accident or not be fingered for the deed.

The French think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius.  That speaks volumes about the country doesn't it?!

DaMan  

French everyone should know:

enculer (an-ku-la) - f*ck you.
putain (pu-ta) - f*ck off.
fils de pute (fes-da-put) - SOB.
conneries (con-re) - BS.