You know, I complain about France as much as the next person, but I think I've finally put my finger on what it is about the country that makes me want to slap it around, and no, it's not their much-touted spinelessness or their bullheaded selfishness or even their escargot. Nope, I hate France because France is a big fat whiner.
Perhaps I am more sensitive to the whining because having an almost three-year-old around the house increases the whining exposure exponentially, but even so, my observations aren't wrong. Think of Europe as a grade school playground: The old Eastern bloc countries are the poor foreign kids who hang out together because no one else will talk to them; Germany is the proto-football jock who gets off on giving the little kids wedgies; Portugal and Spain are the pretty girls that Germany likes to tease and that the poor kids are afraid to talk to; Italy is the class clown with ADD and some other behavioral issues; Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands are the average kids who like to play kickball; and France is the skinny rich kid with no athletic ability and an inexplicable sense of entitlement.
Now let's pretend that the kids decide, at the behest of the Nordic folk, to play kickball. France doesn't want to play, because France knows it will be picked last, so France proceeds to whine to the teacher (I think of England as the teacher--a stern school-marm on playground duty who is out of favor with the administration because she really doesn't understand why she can't administer a good paddling to that pesky Italy, dammit), who is unmoved. So France proceeds to try and piss all over everyone else's parade, crying foul and trying to change the rules of the game so that France can get on base. Finally, the Eastern bloc kids go up to Germany and offer to beat up France if Germany promises to lay off of Hungary for a week or two. Germany agrees, France gets a bloody nose, and England forces everyone to write 100 sentences about how it's wrong to beat up France (although England secretly thinks the brat had it coming).
Think I've had too much coffee this morning? Read this article, in which Germany and Hungary are laying the smack down on the French 35-hour work week in the name of financial solvency. And what is the French answer to Hungary's offer? Well, the Finance Minister calls it "a form of extortion that would be unthinkable over here". Yep, because another country would like to better its economy, and in order to remain competitive SOME of the French will have to work a 36 hour week. Quel horror!
I'm with old school-marm England on this one. Somebody needs a good paddling, and it ain't Italy.
Posted by Big Arm Woman at July 20, 2004 09:07 AM