Viva La France: A Vicious Nation Of Idiots

There is a very revealing story in The Daily Mail about Jerome Kerviel (above) the Frenchman who recently lost five billion Euros, threw the world into recession, and then walked away after he put the big hurt on the Western World's finances. It seems that, in his own country, he's being called "the Che Guevara of France", and "a modern-day Robin Hood", because he "dared to make a mockery of the greedy fat-cats who control the all powerful markets, and almost got away with it."

Well. Let me be the first to say brav-oh:

Notice there's not a word about all the innocent people he's hurt; all the lives he's destroyed; all the futures he's washed away, or the careers he's torn asunder. No, in France, it's all about them and their stupid, Left-wing, anti-capitalist ideology. "[Kerviel] is the toast of bars in Middle France, where he is held to embody the social catastrophe that they fear will ensue should the French abandon a Gallic lifestyle to adopt the frenetic, profits-driven model of British and American capitalism." Get it? He's being loved and admired for being a "social catastrophe" - for everybody else!!!

O-Kay, well done (as American Idol's Simon Cowell would say): As far as I'm concerned, France is officially The Land of Losers.

I say this because, having stayed in France several times, it hasn't escaped my attention that - in parts of America at least - there seems to be a major disconnect when it comes to seeing France for what it is: A vicious nation of idiots. A place where the people (not all, mind you, but enough) are so common - and commonly dysfunctional - they can't help but act like total fuck-ups to feel "revolutionary".

For instance, compare the way most of America sees France (exemplified by Dennis Boyles's "Vile France: Fear, Duplicity, Cowardice and Cheese") to the world The New York Times portrays in their review of the new André Téchiné movie, "The Witnesses"(below):

To The Times, this is a film that's "casually sensual", taking place in a "liberated wonderland with few boundaries," but where "living,...comfortably requires that you wear sophisticated psychological armor." Why? Because, while a mother is ignoring her baby's cries, her husband is having a secret affair with an HIV positive youth who is emotionally exploiting the wife's friend, "a homely, middle-aged gay doctor," so the younger man can learn how to behave around the rich.

This set-up, Dear Readers, is the social landscape The Times refers to as "paradise".

It reminds me - perfectly - of the situation I found when staying in France: As my wife, Karine Brunck, and I went from house to house, she'd reveal to me who her cousin, or her brother, was sleeping with on the side. (Always an employee of some kind.) At the time, my ex made these comments with derision - she was traveling with her American husband, remember - but, once she was over there alone, she, too, eventually succumbed to committing adultery with a sleazy, immoral, NewAge homeopathic "doctor", Robert Wohlfahrt, who heightened the tension of her mother's death - and, thus, made his "bedside manner" indispensable - by forcing his cancer patient (who was dutifully drinking his "magic water") to endure months of excruciating pain before he euthanized her and began sleeping with her married daughter. (All together now: Yuck.)

Yes, you have to be wearing some "sophisticated psychological armor" to wrap your mind around all that, I'm telling you. Is it any wonder why, when the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy (above) decided to start a post-divorce relationship (after splitting from his own adulterously unstable wife) he said he wanted it out in the open to stop France's "deplorable tradition" of "hypocrisy and lies"?

Really, when the topic is France (and the smoke and mirrors of "sophistication" is swept away) there aren't too many areas of life where the average American isn't left mouth agape and pointing, like we're witnessing a disturbed monkey in the zoo, fiddling with it's own feces. Americans hear of their "superior" medical care but - in a country where 75% of the population relies on homeopathy - how much credence can you seriously give that?

The French are always on America about race but all you have to do is look here, here, and here, and you can see that's a Gallic pot calling the American kettle black - especially when it comes to Jews. (Hell, I'm black, and I'd much rather live in the U.S..)

The French have a 35 hour work week, but they still have to do 40 hours of work (a secret Americans have never been let in on) and, though French vacations are longer than ours, there are so many Greens, Trotskyists, Marxists, Maoists, and freaks, who gives a damn? Even their vacations are boring.

San Francisco calls itself The Paris of the West, but that's only because it's as backwards as France is, with a mayor who couldn't resist porking his best friend's wife. (Think about it: First Gavin Newsom (above) "stood up for matrimony" by allowing gays to marry, and then he shows how much respect he has for the institution by jumping a married woman's bones - and a drunk one at that.). And - using French logic - the people gave him a 75% approval rating, and a second term, though he had no other accomplishments to speak of, unless you can call a sky-high murder rate an accomplishment. Which, I'm sure, many San Franciscans would, but only because they're competing with the Frogs on who can be the most delusional.

And rude. San Franciscans are rude, but the French are so rude they get sick of themselves, because, they know, there's nothing to support it. Sure, they're always claiming to be better than somebody, but can you name a recent hit song from France? Any major talent of any kind? Sports figures? Why, America even beats them at making wine!!! Meanwhile, they'll turn up their nose at the slightest provocation, like someone other than a Frenchman would bother to fart in their general direction. They are a people out of their minds.

And, as the episode with Jerome Kerviel proves, their delusions pose a danger to us all.

UPDATE:

I found The New Yorker's review of "The Witnesses" and, while taking note of the film's "open sensuality", it pretty much blares the same outlook:

A "sophisticated" and "narcissistic" people who "are determined to show that, whatever disaster happens, nothing really gets to them."

In other words, the French - personally and as a people - can be the singular cause of another's distress, and the heartless bastards will still be concerned only for themselves.

Proceed at your own risk.