Why France?

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I've never been to France, but my older sister lived there for two and a half years in the mid 60's, right when France left NATO.

She lived off base, and was married to a low ranking enlisted man at the start of his USAF career. "Living on the economy" as it was called, in that era was not easy for enlisted personnel, they were not living in luxury by no means.

My sister was heart broken when US personnel had to leave France. She came home to the US, and her husband finished his tour in Britain.
She loved the French people, they had showed her and her small family ( she had a 1 year old girl when she arrived, and had a son while she was there) every kindness and consideration above and beyond anything she's ever experienced since. To her France was more than just a second home.

So every time I hear people deride France, I recall how well they took care of a member of my own family.
 
I agree Tom and if you check the posts, I think it only came about in this thread when degenerate812 started making obscene and inflammatory claims as to how much other countries contributed to the success of the Allies - especially the small, insignificant contribution by the United Kingdom.
 

I agree. I am only joking around due to our friends hostility toward everyone not French.

I have been to France on many occasions (Paris 5 times, Normandy 2 times, Strasbourg countless times, Verdun, Amneville, Marseille to name a few places). I have nothing against the French people, and have never had a bad experience in France.
 
renegate326, as you see here on the forum, France has a bad name in international politics. While I do not claime this is fully justified, it is just the reality. I don't think you can change those views on your own. While I understand that you are proud of your beautiful country I think in this case you'd better accept the status quo and move on. Trying to argue the way you do will bring you nothing but trouble for no gain.
 
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"....I don't think you can change those views on your own...."

But I respect you're rights and courage to give it a try .....

France is a hard country to defend -- literally -- I realized that fact driving from Chas de Gaulle AP to Chartres once. Flat. Armies can/have swept across France. Geography shapes national character (to a degree) more than we might like to admit.

France is a hard country to defend.

MM
 

Hello Michael
I have a different oppinion, having travelled in the Meuse Valley and around Verdun, I'd say that long stretches of French borders are fairly easy to defend.

Juha
 
I suppose it depends on which direction you are coming from as to how easy France is to defend, it wasn't easy to get through the bocage and neither would it be easy to come by sea on the Bay of Biscay or through the Pyrenees or Alps, but unfortunately from Germany the only real obstacles are pretty much just rivers.
 

Exactly. If you have ever driven from Germany through France up to the Channel Coast (Normandy for instance) it is just flat land all the way.
 
Can't comment, Juha, as I am unfamiliar with that territory, but the boccage was man-made, IIRC, in the Middle Ages precisely because there was no other defense ....
 
I think the bocage was planted hundreds of years ago as boundaries and that over the years the hedges that the bocage consist of have just grown and grown gaining thicker trunks which have built up banks beneath them. From what I can remember when a Norman farmer died he divided his land between all his sons rather than just the eldest (as in most countries) and this is why the fields are so small in the Normandy bocage, also back in the old days farmers left fields to fallow and so barriers were needed to keep animals off the crops.
 

That is how also i remember the development of bocage
 
and to add to this. If you are proud of France by all means defend her reputation, but don't try and do it by insulting other nations, its a self defeating tactic.
 

As far as Air France is concerned I don't think so but BA might have made some profits but only few years . The reason for this was the number of business and finance people and celebrities travelling between NY-London was far more than NY-Paris route.
 
FalkeEins said:
wow, this thread is way off topic .. but lets just ask renegate326 how many Rafales have been sold world-wide as at time of writing......?
Click to expand...

Rafale won in India for 126+63 fighters and will most probably win in UAE for 60 fighters soon . It had been selected as the best fighter in Korea in 2002 but ultimatelythe F-15 won.
Also in Switzerland it was ahead of the competition but the Swiss chose the Swedish SAAB because of price. It also was chosen in Brazil but the new president has postponed the decision. But the Rafale will never be able to repeat the success of Mirage fighters during the cold war that's for sure.
 
I have been away so have just seen the thread and read it through from the beginning.

If I can p*ss on the p*ssing contests here: and not to point any fingers but to look at the numbers.

From a population of just over 40 million a similar number of French soldiers died in Europe (about 180,000) as did US soldiers. from a population of about 130 million. Let us remember their joint sacrifice (and not argue over the numbers). Too many whatever the numbers.

My father fought in the BEF in the BofF while my uncle fought the Italians in the south with the Chasseurs Alpine. My father fought the French in Syria as well as Italians in Africa and Germans in Italy and my uncle fought from Normandy to Germany. My mother was both in the french resistance and a temporary US army master sergeant so I have no agenda.

By 1945 the French army was a significant part of the allied push from the west. Not the biggest by far but it saved the US from calling up more young men to fill divisions in europe and at a time when Britain was running out of troops. Thanks to the US arming the French army as they called up conscripts from the liberated population. As a Briton I might have a whinge that the US had the UK pay for their weapons but not the French (ever wondered why all the UK Sherman tanks and US lend lease aeroplanes vanished from UK service by 1946?) It was a major player in western europe and saved the US and UK from part of the cost of garrisoning Germany. By 1946 it was arguably the largest western continental army in Europe and the higher profile as a top table western ally gave the west an extra UN Security Council seat.

All in all France merited a place in Germany as a major power and the west benefitted from it.
 
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