Anti-French sentiment
The phenomenon has been strongest in Belgium, the United Kingdom and Germany,[citation needed] and was often expressed in literature and the popular medium.
England and France have a long history of conflict, dating from before the Battle of Hastings, when William the Conqueror claimed the English throne.
The time between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and Napoleon's final capitulation in 1815 has been perceived in Britain as a prolonged Franco-British conflict to determine who would be the dominant colonial power (sometimes called the Second Hundred Years' War).
England and later Britain joined continental European states in resisting the rising French imperialism during the reign of Louis XIV and the Napoleonic Wars.
In the 19th century, anti-French sentiment became commonplace in German political discourse even if the deep cultural interrelation between the two could never be blanked out completely.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poked fun at this in his epic Faust I with the verse: Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzen leiden, doch ihre Weine trinkt er gern.
The most prominent symbol of this development is the picture of heads of government François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl holding each other's hands at a ceremony at the military cemetery in Verdun in 1984.
Recently, there have been a few instances of friction between France and the Republic of Ireland over political and economic issues that led to expressions of Irish francophobia.
[6] Francophobia in Ireland rose in the aftermath of a controversial FIFA World Cup playoff game between the two countries, leading to protests outside the French Embassy in Dublin.
[10] On Easter Monday (30 March) 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo, at evening prayer (vespers), a Frenchman harassed a Sicilian woman.
This single event led to the massacre of 4,000 Frenchmen over the course of the next six weeks, and the government of the French-born king Charles I of Anjou lost control of the island.
Nowadays almost all attempts of the French government to influence African countries end up with discontent and growth of anti-French sentiment.
On the morning of July 5, 1962, the day Algeria became independent, seven companies of FLN troops entered the city of Oran when several European settlers fired shots at them.
Moreover, the countries of Mali and Burkina Faso removed French as an official language due to deteriorating relations with France's government.
[20][21] Over the past years, rebellions have occurred not only in Mali, Burkina-Faso and Niger, but also in Chad and Gabon, forcing France to reduce its presence on the continent.
[22] On 6 July 2024, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso also formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a confederation which is anti-French (as well as anti-ECOWAS) in outlook.
During the 1884 Battle of Tamsui, the Chinese took prisoner and beheaded 11 French marines, who were injured, in addition to La Gailissonniere's captain Fontaine and used bamboo poles to display the heads in public to incite anti-French feelings in China.
Timothy Noah of Slate noted that the move was "meant to demonize France for its exasperating refusal to support a war against Iraq".
The congressman James R. Domengeaux, founder of CODOFIL and a prominent advocate for francophone rights, was forced to address these concerns on multiple occasions.
[42] While subsequent years have since proven these fears baseless, such arguments were considered an adequate reason to deny Louisiana's francophones basic political recognition.
[45] Some sovereignist journalists and academics noted that unfavourable depictions of the province by the media increased in the late 1990s after the unsuccessful 1995 Quebec referendum on independence.
There have been sporadic independence demonstrations in French Polynesia, and briefly in the 1980s, a pro-independence insurgency in New Caledonia, led by the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak Socialiste.
[51] Similar anti-French protests occurred in Australia in response to Jacques Chirac's announcement of his intentions to resume French nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1995.
In Sydney, protestors marched with placards stating "Guillotine Chirac", "In Your Back Yard Jacques" and "Ageing Hippies Against the Bomb".
In May 2024, the organization's activities intensified due to attempt of Paris to amend the constitution which would allow migrants who arrived on the island after 1998 to participate in elections and referendums.
Before the war's outbreak, the French government had reluctantly acquiesced to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement and acceptance of Adolf Hitler's various violations of the Versailles Treaty and his demands at Munich in 1938.
French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier was under no illusions about Hitler's ultimate goals and initially opposed Chamberlain's policy and told the British in a late April 1938 meeting that Hitler's real aim was to eventually secure "a domination of the Continent in comparison with which the ambitions of Napoleon were feeble.... Today it is the turn of Czechoslovakia.
Vichy France collaborated with Germany, which included anti-Jewish legislation and other actions, which had a negative effect on the French image abroad.
[65] It is very active in international affairs in locations overseas (such as its continuing participation in Libya, its Pacific nuclear testing in the 1980s, and in interventions in its former African colonies).
In short, De Gaulle advocated for a strong French presence among the great nations and of France's independence from both the United States and the Soviet Union.
