What is your major dislikey of France ?

[alittlebitfrench]

I don’t think this question has been asked on French forums before 🤔

The things that bug me the most at the moment.

1) Right hand priority….I reckon it should be left hand priority. Or maybe have both at the same time to spice life up a bit. You can’t have one without the other. It racist against ambidextrous trans who have no arms.

2) Lorries that indicate left at a roundabout but they want to go straight on. Or people in general that just can’t be arsẽd to indicate at all. You just have to guess where they are going.

3) The new woman on TF1 lunchtime news. She does my head in. 

4) French Schooling….it is crãp and dangerous.

5) I wanted to say Napoleon…but he is from Italien decency and was born in Corsica. Not sure where the French bit comes from. Bit like Johney Halliday. 

And you ?

Edited December 14, 2023 by alittlebitfrench

[ssomon]

My major dislikey about France is the almost complete absence of courtesy on the roads.

Our town is a Siamese twin with the town to the west. A main road runs through both, and there is no gap between the two.

The next town recently decided to have Priorité â droite, and put up large yellow signs advising of this at all the entries to the town, but no-one has put up yellow diamond signs (whatever they are called) at the exits.

So drivers going east think there is PâD in our town, slow down and can't understand why we don't drive out in front of them, and drivers going west try to mow us down when we drive out in front of them (or attempt to).

In both cases they tend to have a mini fit, screaming, sounding their horn, and gesticulating like possessed monkeys.

Edited December 14, 2023 by ssomon
correction

[Noisette]

Well what a coincidence! I was only pondering this question yesterday 😁   Apart from the obvious appalling customer service, which doesn't seem to have changed much over the years, I can't and never will appreciate French humour (tel quel) or music.  There are a few exceptions, but on the whole, French comedians and writers can't hold a candle to the humour that I grew up with.  I've been asking various French friends and acquaintances since 2002 for recommendations but they all go very quiet after suggesting Coluche, Desproges or Raymond Devos 😐  It's not so much disliking as just not appreciating,  and thanking Heaven that there's some saving  grace to having been born English.

[Gardian]

I would say the insularity of the French, at least down here in the south.

They tend to view ‘Angleterre’ as being akin to Mars.

When asked how are you getting back to Mars, you say from a Channel port such as Caen or Roscoff and the eyes cloud over !

And there’s absolutely zero understanding of the England + Scotland + Wales = Gt Britain situation ....... and then add NI and you get the United Kingdom !!!   Mark you, most Brits couldn’t explain that either. For most of the French, its all ‘Angleterre’ and who can blame them for that?

Actually, none of the above does anything more than amuse rather than annoy me.

 

[ssomon]

28 minutes ago, Gardian said:

I

 

 

 

[ssomon]

I was in a car repair shop yesterday and a guy there asked me whereabouts in Scotland I was from.

He had seemed to have been scared off by indignant Scots who he had asked where in England they were from, so was taking a safer course.

If Scots want to be different, why do they continue speaking English?

Answer: because that's the only language they know.

 

 

[Loiseau]

1 hour ago, Gardian said:

 

…And there’s absolutely zero understanding of the England + Scotland + Wales = Gt Britain situation ....... and then add NI and you get the United Kingdom !!!   Mark you, most Brits couldn’t explain that either. For most of the French, its all ‘Angleterre’ and who can blame them for that?

 

 

i expect the Dutch feel the same when we keep referring to their country as Holland!

[alittlebitfrench]

7 hours ago, ssomon said:

I was in a car repair shop yesterday and a guy there asked me whereabouts in Scotland I was from.

He had seemed to have been scared off by indignant Scots who he had asked where in England they were from, so was taking a safer course.

If Scots want to be different, why do they continue speaking English?

Answer: because that's the only language they know.

 

 

To be fair, the French love the Scottish and Scotland. When we went to Scotland a month or so back I would say the French represented the largest number of foreign tourists. Why Ryanair has cut the Poitiers Edinburgh route is beyond me.
 

But they also love the UK in general. Only French politicians don’t like the UK. 

Half of the people around here speek some level of English. And they want to speak English as well. Which is cool. Everyone seems to have a relative working or living to the UK.

 

[alittlebitfrench]

9 hours ago, Noisette said:

Well what a coincidence! I was only pondering this question yesterday 😁   Apart from the obvious appalling customer service, which doesn't seem to have changed much over the years, I can't and never will appreciate French humour (tel quel) or music.  There are a few exceptions, but on the whole, French comedians and writers can't hold a candle to the humour that I grew up with.  I've been asking various French friends and acquaintances since 2002 for recommendations but they all go very quiet after suggesting Coluche, Desproges or Raymond Devos 😐  It's not so much disliking as just not appreciating,  and thanking Heaven that there's some saving  grace to having been born English.

Antoine de Caunes or Jean Dujardin ?

[Lehaut]

We have just started as "bénévoles" in an British/French association here in Nantes.  Our group are the "advanced English speakers".  To be fair, this is the best group of English speakers we have met in France.  As we are a British family (Scots and English) I put this question to them i.e. why always "les anglais".  The chartered accountant in the group gave the best answer we have come across so far.  It is, he explained, because France has always been at war against the English (in an historical context).  The Scots they have always we friends with.  So their focus has been/is on perfidious Albion.

As to the "annoying question".  I cannot understand the reason why, in French supermarkets, people walk alongside their trollies, pulling them along (rather then behind them) thus taking up twice the width in the already narrow aisle.  Also, in some supermarkets, the tendency to set up the air system that dumps the stale air from the fish counter directly in the entrance.  At our local Intermarche I have to hold my breath as we walk in.  Same in the Leclec in Carcassonne.

[menthe]

12 hours ago, Gardian said:

I would say the insularity of the French, at least down here in the south.

They tend to view ‘Angleterre’ as being akin to Mars.

When asked how are you getting back to Mars, you say from a Channel port such as Caen or Roscoff and the eyes cloud over !

And there’s absolutely zero understanding of the England + Scotland + Wales = Gt Britain situation ....... and then add NI and you get the United Kingdom !!!   Mark you, most Brits couldn’t explain that either. For most of the French, its all ‘Angleterre’ and who can blame them for that?

Actually, none of the above does anything more than amuse rather than annoy me.

 

Gardian, you can imagine then the level of disbelief when we say we are not from England but from Wales.  Still it's only non rugby fans that don't know le Pays de Galles😝  The rugby loving ones, many of those here in the south west, then usually follow by how do you think Wales is playing?

At this point, I give an embarrassed sigh and say hélas not as well as les Bleus.

But like you, I am amused and highly entertained rather than irritated.

[ssomon]

2 hours ago, Lehaut said:

Also, in some supermarkets, the tendency to set up the air system that dumps the stale air from the fish counter directly in the entrance.  At our local Intermarche I have to hold my breath as we walk in.  Same in the Leclec in Carcassonne.

The Intermarché in Sigean is another. The odour pervades the fruit and veg section as well.

[betise]

Where do I start?  The 85% crap TV, awful comedies or tele reality, transmitting episodes of series in the wrong order, thank god for Arte!  The lack of courtesy on the roads, step boldly onto that zebra crossing, ignore those glued to your bumper.  The obsession with la rentrée. Christmas decorations that stay up until Spring. No plates for breakfast!

But really they are only small annoyances, which I accept with (I hope) grace, as this is my chosen country, where for me the good outweighs the bad.

And anywhere else may well be the same, with just as many dislikeys.

[alittlebitfrench]

1 hour ago, betise said:

 No plates for breakfast!

 

You hit the nail on the head.

Why do the French insist on eating breakfast with no plates.

Its fecíking dumb. You have to hover up afterwards. You have to hover up everywhere. Hard baguette crumbs go everywhere.

Plate = no hovering. It is that simple.

My Oh eats breakfast without a plate. It does my head in. Its stupid….for the sake of a blòody plate.

Right hand priorities and eating breakfast without a plate is just…..plain stupid. There is no logic.

I wonder if they eat breakfast in South Kensington without a plate. Lol.

 

[anotherbanana]

My Belgian family use a kind of small board which is mélaminé for their breakfast; just as good as a plate.

[Noisette]

9 hours ago, alittlebitfrench said:

Antoine de Caunes or Jean Dujardin ?

Now you come to mention it, I remember a programme from many years ago with Antoine...Eurotrash, was it?  Slightly more sophisticated than Benny Hill and Mr Bean 😁  The other one, does he do anything other than films?

[alittlebitfrench]

1 hour ago, Noisette said:

Now you come to mention it, I remember a programme from many years ago with Antoine...Eurotrash, was it?  Slightly more sophisticated than Benny Hill and Mr Bean 😁  The other one, does he do anything other than films?

Jesus nuts….and you have French nationality. 😂

The test is not that stringent then 😀

 

[Noisette]

I did a good job of faking enthousiasm for Jacques Brel 😂

[Loiseau]

Though perhaps you needn't have bothered,  as isn’t he Belgian?

[Noisette]

Reminds me of the CD of 'typical French music'  that our dearest friends in Paris made for me some years ago....

Johnny (of course), Isabelle Boulay, Manu Chao, Cali, Piaf (mmmm limite).....I believe that Florent Pagny is French, though 🤣

[alittlebitfrench]

16 hours ago, Noisette said:

I did a good job of faking enthousiasm for Jacques Brel 😂

We have his cd box set….never opened. Lol

[alittlebitfrench]

3 hours ago, Noisette said:

Reminds me of the CD of 'typical French music'  that our dearest friends in Paris made for me some years ago....

Johnny (of course), Isabelle Boulay, Manu Chao, Cali, Piaf (mmmm limite).....I believe that Florent Pagny is French, though 🤣

Now nuts…in your recent posts you are basically saying you don’t like French humour and don’t like French music.

You are perfectly integrated 😃

What I think is funny is that Brits who move France pretend they like this stuff. Forcing themselves to listen and like Patrick Bruel…whereas they would probably prefer to listen to Oasis or Blur. 

Edited December 16, 2023 by alittlebitfrench

[DaveLister]

Jean Michel Jarre, Daft Punk, Stinky Toys.

Sometimes you don't have to pretend. 🎸

[Noisette]

7 hours ago, alittlebitfrench said:

Now nuts…in your recent posts you are basically saying you don’t like French humour and don’t like French music.

You are perfectly integrated 😃

What I think is funny is that Brits who move France pretend they like this stuff. Forcing themselves to listen and like Patrick Bruel…whereas they would probably prefer to listen to Oasis or Blur. 

No I'm not! I'm basically and very diplomatically saying that I prefer English humour and English and American (oh the shame..) music 😁  Although, since I've been listening to a Russian radio station I have discovered some very good German and Swiss groups.  Listen to yourself making these sweeping generalisations! 😁  Some Brits do genuinely like chanson française. Good for them!  I think Dave Lister has hit the nail on the head.....I'm completely out-of-date with current stuff of any nationality. That's what comes of not reproducing 😉

[alittlebitfrench]

You know I am just généralising out loud.😅

Most music you hear around hear blaring out of cars at full blast is some kind of middle eastern /Afican French rap. Which is fair enough. Heavy on the ears though and impossible to translate from French into French.

Culturally France is now diverse as the UK.

French cusine is basically sushi, pizza, kabab and burger and chips. And foie gras at xmas which nobody eats.

The France I moved to in the 90’s does not really exist anymore.  Which makes the French citizen test quite pointless now IMHO. Most French kids these days would not be able to answer the questions. Likewise with the English one. 
 

The questions don’t relate to life today. Even the language.