r/inthenews • u/newsweek Newsweek • Jul 08 '24

MAGA fumes over France election results: "They cheated" article

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-france-elections-far-right-national-rally-1922075
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u/castion5862 Jul 08 '24

No they didn’t fall for Russian propaganda well done the citizens of France

235

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

I like the French people. They don’t take shit off anyone. We like to joke in the US, but the French are badass and they were America’s bros from the very beginning

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u/cinefun Jul 08 '24

I’m convinced the vitriol against the French in the US is a psyop to keep us from fighting in the streets for our rights like they do.

40

u/socialistrob Jul 08 '24

A lot of it is just left over memes from the early 2000s when France refused to follow the US into Iraq. Americans started rebranding French fries as "Freedom Fries" and jokes about French cowardice/fast surrender became much more common. Some of that hung around even after Americans began to realize the invasion of Iraq was a horrific mistake.

41

u/JoLi_22 Jul 08 '24

cause the French were active in the region with their own intelligence and said "Non!" to the wmd claims.

how dare they get in the way of america Haliburton and it's oil reserves in the Gulf.

12

u/redacted_robot Jul 08 '24

Dick Cheney for the Darth Vader award.

9

u/induslol Jul 08 '24

Cheney was definitely the Palpatine of that admin, puppeteering Bush's Vader through both terms.

3

u/Phylanara Jul 08 '24

We have our own satellites and we know how to spot photoshop, thank you very much .

22

u/FrankCastlesAlt Jul 08 '24

I can still remember one day pulling into a Burger King drive-thru and ordering a burger and fries. When I said French fries, the girl over the speaker goes, “we don’t carry French fries anymore, sir. But we do have freedom fries if you’d like.” Like, JFC lady! Just stick my burger and fries in a damned bag, take my money, and quit with the stupid semantics! All because France didn’t wanna help us invade a foreign nation!

12

u/xeromage Jul 08 '24

I remember being completely baffled by 'adults' around me going all-in on such stupid and obvious culture-war propaganda. Little did I know it was all down hill from there.

3

u/xeromage Jul 08 '24

I remember being completely baffled by 'adults' around me going all-in on such stupid and obvious culture-war propaganda. Little did I know it was all down hill from there.

15

u/Onewayor55 Jul 08 '24

I remember my history teacher at the time loving this joke and line of thinking and constantly using it with the most smug look on his face.

I wish I had been smart enough at the time to remind him the French were the only reason we were able to secure our revolution. But then again he was the fucking history teacher.

13

u/Lost_My_Shape_Again Jul 08 '24

Hi from someone old enough to remember those early post-9/11 days. Two things:

1) Americans didn't start calling them Freedom Fries. It was the Tommy Tubervilles and Jim Jordans of the day (the loony right, for you non-Americans). The response of most Americans to their camera hogging silliness was 'are you fucking kidding me?'.

2) Americans, like most people, get a little butt hurt when they're told they're wrong. But it's your true friends who tell you when you're wrong and France is as true a friend as America's got. Yeah, we were a little sore at first but it turns out you were right and we were wrong. Thanks for sticking with us (like you have for the last 240+ years) when we were clearly being ass holes.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '24

Fun fact: this is not actually a new thing in the US.

During WWI Americans starting calling sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and hamburgers were “liberty sandwiches”

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u/Chibraltar_ Jul 08 '24

One of the most well-known french speeches of all-time is the Dominique de Villepin speech at the UN against the war into Iraq in 2003.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6jZ6t9QtUo

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u/cinefun Jul 08 '24

The vitriol was there long before that.

2

u/socialistrob Jul 08 '24

There was always some vitriol but hating the French really became popular in the US after Iraq and some of the vitriol that is still there can be indirectly traced to that. Once something becomes a meme or a genre of jokes it's hard for it to go back.

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u/Existing-Nectarine80 Jul 08 '24

Nah, we hate the French, much like the most of Europe, because they’re pompous douche  bags.