Even if we have to stop calling them “Cheese-eating surrender monkeys”1, we still have all the other stereotypes to fall back on:
The myth of the great Gallic unwashed seems to have travelled back to the US after the second world war with GIs shocked to discover that a still largely rural population with scant access to hot and cold running water should, after four years of German occupation, not always consider irreproachable personal hygiene an overriding priority.
It is, unfortunately, sustained by the odd wayward statistic. According to one 1998 survey only 47% of French people take a daily bath or shower, against 80% of Dutch and Danes. Worse, France’s own health education council calculated that if those 47% were being honest, the country’s annual soap consumption should be 2.2lb a head, whereas it happened to be 1.3lb.
Another 1998 report found that only 60% of French men and 75% of French women pulled on clean underwear every morning.
Another reason to avoid France.
Comment by Publius — March 25, 2011 @ 09:46
And Quebec.
You know why the French eat snails and frogs? Snails and frogs have no sense of smell — all other food runs away before it can be caught.
Comment by Lickmuffin — March 25, 2011 @ 12:00