Стефан Кларк - 1000 Years of Annoying the French

For others, though, it opened the way to making some serious money. With radio stations obliged to programme prime-time French music, producers were able to create a whole new generation of French-language imitators of Anglo-American styles. These days, some of them even go so far as recording most of the song in cod English, to make it sound authentic, and then adding a few words in French so that it fits the quota.

Some compliance seems to be purely symbolic. Advertising slogans have to be translated into French even when it is totally unnecessary. If, for example, a French food company wants to advertise a new American-style cookie and comes up with the slogan ‘It’s all good’, every single French person who sees the advertising billboard will understand what they are reading, but there will always be an asterisk after the slogan and a tiny translation at the foot of the poster – ‘C’est tout bon’. Coincidentally (or not), on posters for the Paris Métro, the translation will often be blocked out by the seats in front of the billboards.

It can get even more absurd. Because French is a less graphic language than English, and decency laws apply only to French words, if a French rapper brings out an album entitled Fuck You, Motherfuckers! (which is a real possibility), the advertising posters will almost certainly feature a line explaining rather confusingly that this means ‘I have sex with you, all you people who have sex with your mothers!’

The law is being ignored more and more, especially as more and more international chains of shops arrive in France. No one, for example, has forced Gap to provide a translation of its brand and add the (slightly obscene) word trou on their shopfronts.

Occasionally, however, French-language campaigners call everyone to order.

As recently as 2006, an American-owned company called GE Healthcare was taken to court for not translating certain in-house documents into French, and thereby discriminating against non-English-speaking workers. The company insisted that the documents were generally intended for its Anglophone employees, but a group of unions and other workers’ organizations sued GE Healthcare, and the court subsequently ordered the firm to translate its in-house software, training manuals and all health and safety instructions into French, and pay the plaintiffs 580,000 euros, plus 20,000 euros per day for non-compliance.

The moral is obvious. If you want to make some easy euros, simply go to France and complain to a lawyer that you are suffering from panic attacks because you don’t understand the name of any international high-street brand. Qu’est-ce que c’est, un Starbuck?

You can freedom kiss my ass

The exception française – France’s right to see the world differently – is mainly applied to culture and language at home, and rarely troubles the English-speaking world. But when it was applied to Iraq in 2003, it caused a veritable lava flow of Francophobia.

By refusing to send troops to knock out Saddam Hussein’s fabled weapons of mass destruction, France opened itself up to attacks worse than anything The Sun had managed in the 1980s and 1990s. This time, American conservatives were the biggest culprits, and turned the patriotism that the Bush administration had successfully whipped up to support its invasion into a loathing so strong that France was actually seen as an enemy as fiendish as Saddam. There were even bumper stickers saying, ‘Iraq First, France Next!’

Telling anti-French jokes became a favourite American pastime – ‘Raise your right hand if you like the French … Raise both hands if you are French’ – and the level of ill feeling in some sections of the media was truly visceral. I went to the States to promote my novel A Year in the Merde in 2005, and even as late as that, a radio presenter told me that my book wasn’t anti-French enough 2and that ‘those uncivilized Froggies are just like stone-age men, aren’t they?’ When I didn’t agree, the interview was ended.

And it wasn’t only the loony fringe of the media that indulged in the language of hatred. Farcical Francophobia was bubbling away just below the surface in serious American political circles, just as it had been in Britain during The Sun ’s campaigns. General Norman Schwartzkopf, hero of the first Gulf War, said that ‘going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion’. And the cafeterias in three office buildings used by the House of Representatives famously changed the ‘French fries’ on their menus to ‘Freedom fries’, prompting a rash of copycat name-changes like Freedom toast, Freedom pancakes and even Freedom kissing.

Whatever France’s reasons for staying out of Iraq – oil contracts with Saddam that they didn’t want to lose, or a fear that the invasion would turn Arab countries against the West – they seem to have been proved wise in the long run. And France also won a couple of key victories.

When the French Embassy in Washington was informed of the ‘Freedom fries’ menu change, a spokeswoman called Nathalie Loisau replied, ‘We are at a very serious moment, dealing with very serious issues and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes.’ A putdown worthy of Larry David.

And American servicemen may not have known it, but many of them were eating real French French fries. The catering company Sodexo, which has been faithfully serving meals to the US Navy for years, is French-owned.

French industry rules the world

The Sodexo canteens are typical of the discreet way in which France, despite its claims that the Anglo-Saxons are taking over the world, is, well, taking over the world. Wherever you live, there is a high likelihood that the nearest oil refinery, nuclear power station, bus stop, advertising billboard and high-speed train will be French, whereas we usually assume that it is only the hypermarket – and most of the mineral water and cheese inside it – that came from France.

French-owned companies run bus and regional train services in many of America’s biggest cities, and supply water, electricity and gas to huge swathes of Britain. To give just two examples: France’s EDF entered the UK energy market in only 2002 and is already the country’s biggest electricity generator and distributor. Its full name is, of course, Electricité de France, but see how many clicks it takes you on the company’s British website, www.edfenergy.com, to find that out. And Veolia, which used to have the rather less discreet name of la Compagnie générale des eaux, has diversified from water supply and, after entering the US transport market in 2001, now controls transport networks in Atlanta, Las Vegas, LA, Miami, New Orleans and San Diego, amongst others.

In fact, the French are the best globalizers in the world, even if they refuse to say so because they think the word is too English. They call globalization mondialisation , and if you ask the average French person what this means, he or she will cite McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Gap and Starbucks, and accuse the Anglo-Saxons of trying to control the world economy. They will be surprised when you begin matching them name for name, with Carrefour, Perrier, Chanel, Danone, l’Oréal, Louis Vuitton, Occitane and Renault, for example, as well as all their big Champagne, fashion and perfume brands. Many French people just don’t realize how spectacularly successful their country is.

And this mondialisation is important for more than just global economic reasons – it is also vital for the French business community’s psyche.

Without naming any names, for obvious legal reasons, what a French company can do when it buys its way into a non-French market is go as wild as a salesman on a conference in Las Vegas. It can cheerfully get up to all the mischief that a liberalized country will permit but France forbids – it can, for example, impose price increases that would be illegal in France’s protected economy and working practices that would cause a national strike.