Opinion of France

[windjammer]

Ha. Don't get me started.

[afleitch]

Ha. Don't get me started.

Phil likes to think he's Italian. Which is like me trying to be Irish.

[angus]

Only if you want to quibble over whether the Quasi-War was actually a war.

I've never heard anyone quibbling over that, and I've heard a lot of quibbling.  The XYZ affair we discussed in school, but that resulted in no wars.

If the Quasi-War was not a war, then the last war the US was involved in was World War II.  The Quasi-War was just as much a war as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I & II, and Afghanistan were, complete with a Congressional authorization for the use of force without a formal declaration of war.

Indeed, if news that the Quasi-War had ended had reached these shores sooner, John Adams might well have been reelected, so it is hardly as inconsequential as is often portrayed.

Well, that is correct isn’t it?  There have been five declarations of war by the congress.  The last one was with Japan and ended long before either of us were born.

Here’s my take on the so-called Quasi-War.  Franklin had a decent relationship with l’ancien régime, but after the Terror a new order came about, one in which the Franco-American relations were less cordial, mostly because the Yankees didn’t want to involve themselves in a Franco-British skirmish.  (Washington’s edict against "foreign entanglements" was good advice, but lately seems not to be heeded by the movers and shakers who descend upon his eponymous city to make and enforce our laws.)  Anyway, Washington had already signed a treaty with the Brits by then.  Messieurs X, Y, and Z were sent by France to ask Adams’ minions for some payola, and an official apology, in order to set things right.  France was pretty unstable at the time and needed the money as well as the legitimacy.  Adams' people told X, Y, and Z to get bent.  This really pissed off the roughians who were running the show in France at the time.  They ordered their navy to harass some American ships.  The American navy in turn captured some French ships.  Private ships were involved as well.  In fact, most of the action was merchant vessels, since the U.S. Navy wasn’t really much at the time.  Of course the Brits were delighted with the Francophobia which ensued in the United States.  My understanding is that the naval harassment lasted a couple of years, but casualties were minimal.  Fewer people died in that whole episode than the number of people who will die in the next 60 minutes in US auto accidents.  Call it a skirmish, maybe, but it certainly wasn’t a war.  Certainly neither side declared war, and in any case Napoléon shut the whole thing down shortly after the coup d’état that brought him to power.  Our nations have had a peaceful relationship ever since.  

I know some people spin it as the cause of Adams’ defeat in his failed bid to get re-elected--just like some people claim that it was the fault of Perot that Bush lost in 1992.  Blame the guy with a French name.  How easy is that?  It’s hogwash.  Adams defeated himself.  He was the Al Gore of his time.  Stiff, vindictive, always assuming an air of moral superiority, totally unlikeable, and only nominated because he had previously been vice president under a very popular president.  First, no one liked the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Secondly, states’ rights versus federal power was in fact a central focus of the election.  Thirdly, Hamilton put his weight behind Jefferson.  Sure, they didn’t like each other, but Hamilton really hated Burr.  Virginia’s decision to switch to winner-take-all certainly didn’t hurt Jefferson either.  Mostly, though, Adams lost because the election of 1800 was more or less a rematch of 1796.  It was a do-over.  A chance for the people to right their previous wrongs and elect Jefferson.    

Adams eventually understood that Jefferson was the better man.  After they kissed and made up Adams wrote a nice letter to Jefferson praising his presidency.

"Your character in history may easily be foreseen. Your administration will be quoted by philosophers as a model of profound wisdom; by politicians, as weak, superficial, and shortsighted. Mine, like Pope's woman, will have no character at all."
   --John Adams, July 1813

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

These past few months however, well I've seen a side of France I don't like and it'll take a while for that to pass.

OMG don't tell me... That was disgusting.

What the anti-gay stuff? That was a small minority of the population.

[Zanas]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Errrr, no. I'll grant you the anticlericalism, but supporting a better social state was pretty much what the Third Republic did all the way. You know, free obligatory school, decreasing work shifts, paid leaves, labour inspection, authorizing unions, authorizing strikes, and so on... No ?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Of course the Brits were delighted with the Francophobia which ensued in the United States.  My understanding is that the naval harassment lasted a couple of years, but casualties were minimal.  Fewer people died in that whole episode than the number of people who will die in the next 60 minutes in US auto accidents.  Call it a skirmish, maybe, but it certainly wasn’t a war.

Calling hundreds of merchant ships being captured a harrassment is probably the greatest understatement I'll hear today.

Casualties were in all probability underreported.  After all, it was manly sailors who did the dying and thus were buried at sea.  Also the 20 recorded American dead would be proportionally equivalent to over 1000 today.  Several ships were sunk or captured, including one ship of the United States Navy, which was later recaptured.

As for your take on John Adams and his presidency, I will be charitable and not post it in the thread for absurd posts, tho it certainly could go there.  Adams was two things people on the Internet seldom are: diplomatic and self-effacing, which explains his remarks concerning Jefferson's presidency.  The election of 1800 was close and a successful conclusion to the Quasi-War in time for it to matter would no doubt have been a help, especially in New York.

[Keystone Phil]

Ha. Don't get me started.

Phil likes to think he's Italian. Which is like me trying to be Irish.

Take away my Italian-ness (or lack thereof according to you, for whatever reason) and I've still disliked France.

For the record, I'm under no delusion that I think I'm an actual Italian. My apologies for not being the stereotypical Italian - American though.

[angus]

Of course the Brits were delighted with the Francophobia which ensued in the United States.  My understanding is that the naval harassment lasted a couple of years, but casualties were minimal.  Fewer people died in that whole episode than the number of people who will die in the next 60 minutes in US auto accidents.  Call it a skirmish, maybe, but it certainly wasn’t a war.

Calling hundreds of merchant ships being captured a harrassment is probably the greatest understatement I'll hear today.

Casualties were in all probability underreported.  After all, it was manly sailors who did the dying and thus were buried at sea.  Also the 20 recorded American dead would be proportionally equivalent to over 1000 today.  Several ships were sunk or captured, including one ship of the United States Navy, which was later recaptured.

As for your take on John Adams and his presidency, I will be charitable and not post it in the thread for absurd posts, tho it certainly could go there.  Adams was two things people on the Internet seldom are: diplomatic and self-effacing, which explains his remarks concerning Jefferson's presidency.  The election of 1800 was close and a successful conclusion to the Quasi-War in time for it to matter would no doubt have been a help, especially in New York.

I can't get a break from you today.  

It's like this:  Even the quasi-historians who write Wikipedia articles call it a Quasi-War.  If anyone considered it a war, then it'd be called a war, like the Korean War and the Viet Nam War and the War on Drugs and all those other wars that weren't really wars.  This 1798 war not only wasn't a war, but apparently doesn't even merit getting called a war, but a quasi-war.  Maybe it was named by a frustrated Francophile who had ulterior motives for not going all out and calling it a war.  You can't call everything a war.  Do you call the USS Cole incident a war?  I don't know anyone else who does, even though that also had a double-digit death toll among American sailors.

As for your take on John Adams and his presidency, I will be charitable and not post it in the thread for absurd posts, tho it certainly could go there.  Adams was two things people on the Internet seldom are: diplomatic and self-effacing...

Adams?  He was impetuous.  He was vehement.  He was intensely self-righteous.  He was hardly diplomatic.  If it weren't for Franklin being in Paris we would have had no help from King Louis XVI.  Adams certainly didn't help matters with his snide personality.  It is appropriate to have a discussion about Adams in this thread, because it was Adams who had no qualms about rubbing salt in the open wounds that were the prior French naval failures in the Americas.  Adams also never recognized the great contributions of the French.  He was very open about his feelings toward the French in this regard.  He considered them inconsequential and was entirely of the conviction that America owed France nothing.

I must respectfully disagree with your analysis that the delayed conclusion to the "quasi-war" cost Adams his re-election bid, and about Adams in general.  From all that I have read, it is clear that he was a petty and hateful man.  As Thomas Jefferson succinctly put it, 'He hates Franklin, he hates John Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English."

[windjammer]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Errrr, no. I'll grant you the anticlericalism, but supporting a better social state was pretty much what the Third Republic did all the way. You know, free obligatory school, decreasing work shifts, paid leaves, labour inspection, authorizing unions, authorizing strikes, and so on... No ?

I agree with you on free obligatory school.

But the rest: for the Unions, the Waldeck Rousseau Law was just "vidée de toute substance par le sénat en + de la faire appliquer 2 ans après son passage"
Sunday's rest: "Sous le pretexte qu'elle avait été adoptée sous la Restauration5, la loi de 1814 est abrogée par la loi du 12 juillet 1879 qui supprime l’obligation de repos dominical, à l’exception des fonctionnaires6"
Progressive income taxe: only in 1914.

From 1870 to 1918: the republicans made few things for working class,... if you make a comparison with Bismarck for instance. When they took the power, the radicals were just awful: their pension reform was really really weak, massive repression against workers (Courneuve, you know Clémenceau).


After 1918, yes there was progress. But you know, when you have a socialist revolution in Russia,...

[Antonio the Sixth]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who put an end to a century of political turmoil by forging national consensus around progressive Enlightenment values, building one of the first successful democracies in the world, generalizing public education, building modern infrastructure and ushering economic prosperity.

[windjammer]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who put an end to a century of political turmoil by forging national consensus around progressive Enlightenment values, building one of the first successful democracies in the world, generalizing public education, building modern infrastructure and ushering economic prosperity.

You should read my last message.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So? I don't see how your post contradicts mine.

And sure, France wasn't very advanced regarding social legislation in the late 19th century, but it was still largely better off than other industrial nations at that time (let's talk about Britain's treatment of the workers...). I don't see how you can blame the Third Republic for something that was basically the consensus of the time.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

France is a freedom country, though I am a Anglophile.

[RedSLC]

It looks like a very nice place.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And sure, France wasn't very advanced regarding social legislation in the late 19th century, but it was still largely better off than other industrial nations at that time (let's talk about Britain's treatment of the workers...). I don't see how you can blame the Third Republic for something that was basically the consensus of the time.

If this was the case (and I'd be tempted to dispute it, but anyway) then that would only be because France was not an industrial nation at any point in the 19th century, even if it did have some large industrial districts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, I'm a confirmed (if of an unorthodox type for a Britisher) francophile.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

FF, loved visiting Paris, Lyon and the south in April(or was it May?) of 2005. Very positive influence in the world, politically and culturally. Even economically(despite the whole Euro problem). I never had a problem with the people, all were very welcoming and kind.

Geopolitically and historically, they never messed up the whole colonial thing as badly as the UK did, or how we've screwed the Middle East/Central America up in the past 50 years.

The French language angers me though(Bias: I took German and know a smidge of Italian).


I honestly don't get why so many people hate France, even with the ugly politics of the 2000s.

[politicallefty]

While I really wouldn't want to live in France, I have a mostly positive opinion of the country.

[Zanas]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Errrr, no. I'll grant you the anticlericalism, but supporting a better social state was pretty much what the Third Republic did all the way. You know, free obligatory school, decreasing work shifts, paid leaves, labour inspection, authorizing unions, authorizing strikes, and so on... No ?

I agree with you on free obligatory school.

But the rest: for the Unions, the Waldeck Rousseau Law was just "vidée de toute substance par le sénat en + de la faire appliquer 2 ans après son passage"
Sunday's rest: "Sous le pretexte qu'elle avait été adoptée sous la Restauration5, la loi de 1814 est abrogée par la loi du 12 juillet 1879 qui supprime l’obligation de repos dominical, à l’exception des fonctionnaires6"
Progressive income taxe: only in 1914.

From 1870 to 1918: the republicans made few things for working class,... if you make a comparison with Bismarck for instance. When they took the power, the radicals were just awful: their pension reform was really really weak, massive repression against workers (Courneuve, you know Clémenceau).


After 1918, yes there was progress. But you know, when you have a socialist revolution in Russia,...

[Antonio the Sixth]

And sure, France wasn't very advanced regarding social legislation in the late 19th century, but it was still largely better off than other industrial nations at that time (let's talk about Britain's treatment of the workers...). I don't see how you can blame the Third Republic for something that was basically the consensus of the time.

If this was the case (and I'd be tempted to dispute it, but anyway) then that would only be because France was not an industrial nation at any point in the 19th century, even if it did have some large industrial districts.

Yeah, that sentence definitely came out wrong. I never meant to say France was some kind of exception to the rest of the industrialized world (and you are also right to say that France's industrialization was very limited compared to other countries).

[windjammer]

And for the Third Republic: LOL. It was just realized by franc-maçons, upper-middle, radicals, who wanted to destroy catholiscism instead of supporting a better social state.

Errrr, no. I'll grant you the anticlericalism, but supporting a better social state was pretty much what the Third Republic did all the way. You know, free obligatory school, decreasing work shifts, paid leaves, labour inspection, authorizing unions, authorizing strikes, and so on... No ?

I agree with you on free obligatory school.

But the rest: for the Unions, the Waldeck Rousseau Law was just "vidée de toute substance par le sénat en + de la faire appliquer 2 ans après son passage"
Sunday's rest: "Sous le pretexte qu'elle avait été adoptée sous la Restauration5, la loi de 1814 est abrogée par la loi du 12 juillet 1879 qui supprime l’obligation de repos dominical, à l’exception des fonctionnaires6"
Progressive income taxe: only in 1914.

From 1870 to 1918: the republicans made few things for working class,... if you make a comparison with Bismarck for instance. When they took the power, the radicals were just awful: their pension reform was really really weak, massive repression against workers (Courneuve, you know Clémenceau).


After 1918, yes there was progress. But you know, when you have a socialist revolution in Russia,...

I mean, when you have a communist revolution, you're more willing to make compromise to avoid communism?


And for Tonyo, the IIIe Republic is according to me a mix of anti-clericalism and capitalism. I really hate the radicals. What they created a public school: just to screw catholiscism, certainly no by "altruism".

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Freedom Country. They helped us gain our independence, they're fun to make surrender jokes about, hot chicks that are into fashion like it, hot chicks live there, and the new Pokémon game is based in France. (Though I don't know if I'll buy it or not.)

[Hash]

I have some distaste for the Third Republic because of their authoritarian and quasi-racist policies towards the Breton and other regional languages/cultures (also colonialism, but that's so obvious you don't mention it), but the 1905 law was clearly one of the best laws in French history.