Wilhelm I Takes Over France Art German Empire Meme Perfect Animes Dont Exist

The Anglophone stereotype that French republic sucks at state of war and surrenders at the drib of a lid... and needs the Anglophone countries to save them!

It is unknown when exactly this stereotype first arose. France was England'southward, and later the United Kingdom's, oldest and most frequent enemy, which certainly contributed to a negative view of the French in general in the Anglosphere from the Centre Ages onwards. The term itself was coined past author Ken Keeler on an episode of The Simpsons in 1995. This trope is also and then widespread considering information technology jibes with that other major negative stereotype Anglophones have about the French — that they're effeminate.

Generally speaking, the concept that contributes to the perception of this trope was how swiftly France was overrun by German forces in World State of war Two, and from the 1940s to the 1970s were subject to several disasters in their military campaigns, losing large colonial wars in Indochina (to a much weaker force than the Americans faced years later) and Algeria, besides as being strong-armed into withdrawing from Egypt. Of form, the truth is always more than complicated. Historically, France has been the prominent battleground of merely about every major European war, and they lost more than men in combat during Globe War I than whatsoever other nation except Russia and Germany, while being the strongest Allied army for most of it. Then, of course, at that place's the Revolutionary and Napoleonic flow — from the 1790s to 1815, French republic became a military powerhouse, culminating in the French Empire, nether a sure Napoléon Bonaparte, controlling a big swathe of Western Europe and turning Italy and Kingdom of spain into client states, requiring anybody else in Europe to team upwardly to take a take chances of beating them. The idea of France always surrendering might fifty-fifty exist Newer Than They Retrieve, perhaps only beginning with how quick they surrendered to Nazi Federal republic of germany during World State of war II.

It shot back to prominence peculiarly in the US in 2003 when French republic refused to support the invasion of Republic of iraq. While many other major nations as well voted against it, France for whatever reason came in for a particularly acidic response from American conservatives.

Contrast Gauls With Grenades and Legion of Lost Souls. See also La Résistance.

---

Examples

    open up/shut all folders

    Advertising

• At some locations for Jimmy John's, a sandwich chain in the United states, one of the signs inside reads, "Bread So French It Must Be Liberated!" ◊
• A 1998 commercial for Miller High Life ^note though considering that while a jar of mayonnaise is featured prominently instead of that particular beer; one could be forgiven for existence dislocated has the narrator open by saying "It'south hard to respect a country that had to be bailed out of 2 large ones in one century"; though he does give French republic a backhanded compliment on inventing mayonnaise.

    Anime & Manga

• Hetalia: Axis Powers: Sort of a Zig-Zagging Trope for France, depending on the time period. England even refers to him by the trope name in the dub.
• In the dub of Lupin III: Part Two, Zenigata makes this reference.

  Zenigata: A glass of cheap fermented grapes, breadstuff you can intermission your teeth on, and they call this "eating". No wonder they can't win a state of war! {laughs}

• The original Code Geass: Akito the Exiled followed this trope Upwards to Eleven (along with promoting stereotypical French snobbishness) with the entire European bandage (exterior West-0). Then the dub, by applying actual French accents to said characters, made information technology that much worse.

    Comic Books

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Antoine D'Coolette. In the first four years of the Archie Comics Sonic serial, he was the very epitome of this trope. Until he cruel in dear with Bunnie Rabbot and took several levels in badass. It got to the signal where his sometime ways were just something he tin can wait dorsum and laugh at himself over. Afterwards the Cosmic Retcon, these traits were actually retconned also, to the signal where becomes more of a Cowardly Lion, willing to put his personal fears bated to protect everything and everyone he loves.
  • In some kind of unexpected subversion, Sonic himself seems to be French or of French descent, since his family all have French forenames: Bernadette (Mother), Jules (Father) and Charles (Uncle). That and his middle name is Maurice.
• In ane Simpsons comic, Hank Scorpio was able to conquer French republic with nix more than a cheese-melting laser. Note that the Laser was actually just able to cook cheese and nothing else.
  • There's another Simpsons comic where Bart and Nelson are walking through a museum exhibit on "The Military History of le French". All it contained were statues of French knights, Napoléon Bonaparte, and French Regular army soldiers waving white flags.
• Parodied and mocked in Garth Ennis' The Boys. Ane of the gang, Frenchie (who also averts the French Wiggle trope) is accosted in a bar by an American boozehound who mocks Frenchie for France'due south give up in World War 2 and how he should be grateful to the Americans for rescuing him. Frenchie turns around and asks him if that guy even knows the divisions and generals who actually fought in the Boxing of France and did the actual liberating, making fun of Americans for living in reflected glory without knowing the names of the existent heroes.
• Ultimate Helm America'southward "SURRENDER??!! You retrieve this letter on my caput stands for France?" This is probably the single about well-known anything that ever occurred in the Ultimate universe.
  • Averted past the Captain America of main continuity during the Winter Soldier arc. While in Paris, he reminisces on fighting alongside the French Resistance, and expresses his deep respect for the French people; while their government surrendered, they never stopped fighting dorsum. (Possible a Take That! to the Ultimate example above.)
  • Besides inverted by 1 of Captain America'due south main recurring foes, Batroc the Leaper — though he's (generally) evil, and ofttimes treated comically, he'southward consistently brave to the point of recklessness, and considered i of the few normal humans on the planet who can keep Cap at bay.
  • Ultimate Cap later ended up in a French SHIELD base of operations, with two soldiers who accept issue with his prejudices. A few seconds after, he slips his cuffs, disarms the soldiers, subdues a third, and one of the tough-talking soldiers tries to surrender. This was supposed to be hypocritical and ironic, but this version of Cap eats heavily-armed platoons for breakfast, much less three normal guys. Surrendering is a perfectly sensible choice.
• Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's run on X-Forcefulness had the championship squad'south onetime managing director try and create a new superhero grouping based around various absurd Captain Ethnics including a French fellow member who appeared to exist an actual monkey whose mutant power was knowing exactly the right moment to surrender (and whose codename was really Give up Monkey). The team's backers actually call the director out on what ridiculous stereotypes all the superheroes are. The French monkey showed up in a later on story line and was revealed to be an American agent with the task of creating anti-French sentiment merely he went native because of his beloved of cheese and wine.
• In 1 Punisher storyline that involved, amidst other things, an illegal black-ops functioning selling arms including nukes and the render of the Russian who has breasts now thanks to the hormonal treatments that were function of the process that revived him subsequently Frank decapitated him, there is one French air strength colonel who is treated similar crap throughout the storyline. Nearly anybody he meets on Grand Nixon Island says that they "hate the French" though they don't requite any concrete reasons; they just hate them. To exist off-white, anybody who says this is a bad guy. Also, the French officer is the only other major character to survive other than Frank, and Frank even lets him get out with the credit for bringing down the operation, i.e., dropping a French nuke on Thou Nixon Island and killing all the aforementioned French-hating bad guys, including their boss General Kreigkopf. He ends upward becoming known as a hero and gets promoted to general.
• Pointed out in Warren Ellis' Crécy that the French at the time were the Badass Army and the English were this trope (speculated to be parsnip eating surrender monkeys). This comic is virtually The Heavily Outnumbered English Army giving France one of the most one-sided Adjourn Stomp Battles in History (guess who lost). With Annoying Arrows (annoying as they kill the fuck out of then many light-headed French kniggits that they eliminate the concept of knighthood).

  William of Stonham: Only these French, the ones running the country and riding after the states, are not the cheese-eating surrender monkeys you lot know. These are the real French, roughshod bastards with an inbred sense of entitlement to whatever they see. They've been a frightening, unsafe presence in Europe for hundreds of years. I mean, at that place's a reason why so many English towns have French names.

• Bucky of Get Fuzzy is known to give rants to this effect.
  • Other characters become their shots in besides:

    Rob: Off he ran, faster than a French border baby-sit with new track shoes and a coupon for cigarettes.

• An Arlo and Janis comic discussing the origins of Cinco de Mayo ended with a shot at the French. The adjacent day, Jimmy Johnson apologized for it on his blog.

  Janis: The French regular army?
  Arlo: I said it'south a pocket-sized vacation.

• The whole "Freedom Fries" debate is spoofed in a FoxTrot strip where Andy asks Paige how her French homework is coming along. Paige responds by just saying "Alibi me??" Andy repeats the question, and gets the aforementioned response once again. Then she facepalms herself as she realizes what Paige meant:

  Andy: Don't tell me y'all 've bought into this nonsense also...
  Paige: My Freedom homework is coming along just fine!

• From the pages of Batman Annual, when Bruce Wayne tells the head of the Police Nationale that he wants to gear up up a Batman in Paris, he responds thus:

  Police Chief: An American billionaire wishes to set upwardly a private franchise of masked vigilantes in the land of...What was the term? "Cheese-Eating Give up Monkeys"?

• In Fables, the Big Bad Wolf talks smack about the French:

  Cinderella: Not overly fond of the French, are we?
  Bigby Wolf: I'm not fond of anyone who makes ingratitude a betoken of national pride. And then again, they're not so much a nation as an unwashed rabble, glued together past an overabundance of cheeses.

• Justice League of America: Invoked past Guy Gardner's response to a French Full general's request for help in "Wonder Woman and Justice League America".

  Guy: It sounds like yous desire us to do your job for you. It figures, yous being French and all.

• The Teen Titans villain Warp gets a lot of mockery over his nationality:
  • In Joker's Terminal Laugh:

    Joker: That'll do with the strong-arm stuff, Frenchie. Afterward 2 world wars, everybody knows that you guys are all talk and no action.

  • And again in the Infinite Crisis: Villains United special:

    Dr. Psycho: At present, you lot're certain you tin exercise this, aye? We're talking about World's molten cadre here, non out to the bistro for croissant and a quick surrender.

• Alt★Hero: Invoked and defied past Jean-Michel Durand. When Captain Europa'due south appearance causes some of the Paris protesters to lose heart, Durand tells them it's fourth dimension the French fought back instead of fleeing all the time. Despite being physically outmatched, he faces and beats the Captain, inspiring the nationalists to rout their Antifa opposition.

    Fan Works

• Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Abridged: Parodied. Polenareff is intent on defying this trope, but Kakyoin is a lot less concerned with living up to National Stereotypes and more than concerned with the ii assassins coming after them.

  Polnareff: Non! I am French! We NEVER surrender!
  Kakyoin: Yes, and I'm Japanese, and then I've never flown over Pearl Harbor— Nosotros GOTTA GET THE F(bleep) OUTTA Hither!

• In author A.A. Pessimal's Discworld series, allusions are fabricated to Discworld history and the sheer number of times "Quirm" has had to, er, arrive at understandings and accomodations with its larger and more martially expansive neighbours in "Überwald" and its allies. these take necessarily involved a certain collaborative component. Merely to make the analogy clearer, the action of the Discworld, both in catechism and in Pessimal's fanfiction, covers the years 1990-2010. The last time Quirm had to get in at a common understanding with Uberwald was in the Discworld time period 1940-44....
• Erika the Radical zig-zags this trope in the 2nd 'flavor'. The French-themed schools of BC Freedom-Maginot issues a articulation challenge to the German-themed Kuromorimine, which prompts relentless jokes near this trope from the the latter'south team members and engineers. A small, only significant number of French Alliance troops even defect to Kuromorimine to settle personal scores, substantially recreating the Vichy-Free French split. During the lucifer all the same, Kuromorimine proceeds to swallow their words when the French Alliance puts up a very stiff resistance during the match, with sudden circumstances forcing Erika to order a retreat, the first in recent Kuromorimine history.
• Hagrid and the Skoolgurlz calls the trope out by name when the band goes to Paris.
• Origin Story: Subsequently a diplomatic incident involving the illegal abort of a French ambassador (namely, a Ben Grimm that admittedly refused to exist part of the Civil State of war and moved to France, and upon his render to the U.Due south. had his diplomatic immunity disregarded by SHIELD and thus was put in jail for being an unregistered super), President George W. Bush specifically points out that while they might joke about how the French are weak sisters, everyone knows that the truth is that a war betwixt France and the United States would most likely end up in a Pyrrhic Victory for the US.
• Mass Effect: Human Revolution, being written past a French Canadian, lampoons this several times:
  • Alluded to and promptly subverted in chapter 28.

    Samara had been told this item breed of human — a Frenchman — tended to cave in under threat of violence,so she attempted to threaten him into letting her through. What Samara didn't know was that Robert St-Germain, before getting involved in the eating place business, was a member of the Foreign Legion, having served in the Algerian Wastes and Huffman isle, and was neither impressed with her threats nor her tasteless cleavage (facts that he was more than happy to inform her about).

  • Too mentioned in affiliate 34 from Taggart, a Scot.

    But bloody hell if Taggart was going to surrender to an overgrown frog. It'd be worse and so surrendering to the French, he thought.

  • Besides mentioned during the space boxing over Noveria. Everyone in orbit, salvage the Normandy, joins in to fight the geth assail. Emphasis is given to the fact that the French are up there fighting as well while the Alliance'south Normandy is stuck following the AIA's blackout protocols.
• Soul Eater: Troubled Souls: Claudia Moncharmin is incapable of gainsay and prefers not to get her hands muddy, not that Caius actually minds early on, and is quite bluntly all talk and no action. Similar a lot of things, this is Played for Drama.

    Films — Animation

• In Flushed Away, LeFrog calls his henchfrogs to activity. They throw their arms up and yell, "Nosotros surrender!", to LeFrog'due south dismay.
• Valiant: The mice of La Résistance are under-funded, ill-equipped and in some cases stark raving mad, simply their skill and courage are never questioned. Also, one would expect that cheese-eating jokes would be easy enough to shoe-horn in, given that the characters are mice, but no, not a i is made.

    Films — Live Action

• Ocean'due south Eleven: "They got enough armed personnel to occupy Paris!... OK, bad example."
• Johnny English contains a off-white corporeality of French bashing, considering the main villain of the movie is French. At i point a British radio host asks his listeners to telephone call him and say what they like about the French. He doesn't receive a unmarried phone telephone call.

  "In my opinion, the but thing the French should exist allowed to host is an invasion."

• Shown in Casablanca, as the metropolis of Casablanca is part of Vichy France and cooperating with the Nazis. Averted at the end when Captain Louis Renault decides he will be Neutral No Longer, symbolically throws a bottle of Vichy water into the trash and suggests to Rick that they go out Casablanca and join the Free French at Brazzaville.
  • The French also show their Heroic Resolve by defiantly singing "La Marseillaise" and drowning out the Germans in the bar.
• From Pirates of the Caribbean area: The Curse of the Black Pearl:

  Pintel: Parley? Damn to the depths whatever muttonhead thought upward parley!
  Helm Jack: That would be the French.

• From We Were Soldiers:

  Full general in Hallway: We wouldn't exist in that location if they hadn't already beaten the French Army.
  Maj. Full general Henry Kinnard: French Army? What's that?

  • The moving-picture show opens with a French unit during the Indochina State of war ambushed by Vietminh troops, though information technology'southward overwhelmed through surprise and sheer numbers rather than any lack of courage. The Vietminh commander orders his soldiers not to take prisoners so no more French will be sent.
• The Patriot: Technically inverted with Major Jean Villeneuve (a composite graphic symbol representing, among others, the Marquis de La Fayette) fighting alongside the Americans (interestingly he shares a final name with the French admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, who lost the Battle of Trafalgar, although this may not have been intentional). That existence said, the revolutionaries bemoan the lack of French assistance throughout the moving picture, though French forces show up with the very stop of the pic and help them win the Battle of Yorktown.
• In Mars Attacks!, the French President joyfully calls the American President to announce that he has signed a peace treaty to end the war. The American President is forced to heed to his dying screams.
• In G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the President of the The states actually Zartan in disguise forces the major world powers to carelessness nuclear weaponry. When he triggers their missiles simultaneously, France's representative is first to disarm their warheads albeit just doing information technology after they attempted to leave first in cloy until the President threatened to launch. He's also the last to launch them. In this example, we tin debate he's only the less willing to accept a nuclear disaster.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Inverted, where the English knights depend heavily on the strategy "RUN Away!"
• The Sorrow and the Pity: The Trope Maker is discussed. Information technology is noted that France was the only one of the several countries that Hitler conquered to make a formal peace with Nazi Germany. While all of the other countries in Hitler's Europe had governments-in-exile in London, France did non. This left de Gaulle and the Free French in an awkward position and undercut their ability to contribute to the the anti-Nazi war effort.
• Dunkirk features both aversions and a subversion. The French soldiers aren't given much screen time, but they're shown property the line in the prologue as Tommy escapes to the beach and Commander Bolton mentions several times that the soldiers and tanks are keeping the Germans from getting into the urban center. The subversion comes when "Gibson" is revealed to be a French soldier impersonating a Brit. Save for Tommy, the British soldiers who got inside the trawler consider him as a coward for taking the wearing apparel and identity of a dead soldier, but the truth is, he's just as desperate to leave the beach as they are, and British soldiers are embarked in priority over French ones. "Gibson" also saved the grouping's life the dark before when the ship they embarked on was sunken by a torpedo, opening them the door every bit they were trapped inside and drowning.
• The Battle of Algiers averts it for nigh part and justifies it when information technology happens. The leaders of the FLN know that they can't defeat the French by playing nice. In turn, Colonel Philippe Mathieu recognises that the rebels' brutality serves a strategic purpose and responds with brutal tactics of his ain. Although the French do give up on Algiers, it is not until subsequently the rebellion in the cities has been defeated and a terrible price in blood has been extracted.
• Catch Me If You Can: Inverted. The French police actually seem very gung-ho nigh shooting Abagnale on sight. In fact, the French in general accept a sense of national pride at least every bit intense equally the American one. As such, they're pretty incensed that an American Con Man like Frank thinks cipher of stealing their coin and embarrassing them.

    Jokes

Proceed in mind that this section just archives jokes related to this trope as other people tell them, and should NOT be used for arguing nigh how right or incorrect they are.

• The British often refer to the French army as "the finest army in the globe in time of peace".
• Sort of inverted (or maybe a double one?) by this 1.
• An one-time joke: "Why are at that place trees along the Champs-Elysees?" "Because the Nazis similar walking in the shade."
• Some other joke:

  Q: How many Frenchmen does information technology accept to defend Paris?
  A: We don't know, they've never tried.

• Old joke: An ad for a French rifle in the paper. Never fired, once dropped.
• Another joke: If you're British, raise your hand. If yous're French, raise ii hands.
• Similarly: If the French had a Statue of Freedom, it would have both hands upwardly. ^note The Statue of Freedom was actually donated to the US past French republic in 1875, designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and was on par with the French national symbol Marianne, a personification of French Republican ethics.
• The 3 rules for French victory: one) be led by a non-Frenchman, 2) be led past a woman, 3) fight yourself.
• Why won't the French practice "The Wave" at soccer games? It'southward a tactic reserved only for times of war.
• Why does every army need a French flag? In case they want to surrender.
• France's response to German language Reunification? They built speed bumps to ho-hum down the panzers.
• How do you confuse a French soldier? Give him a rifle and ask him to shoot it.
• Why does France have a Foreign Legion? They could not discover any Frenchmen to fight.
• A British officeholder and a French officer are talking afterwards 1 of their 18th century wars. The Frenchman asks "So, why do you British habiliment those ridiculous red coats? We tin encounter you coming from a mile abroad in those things". The Briton replies "Well, it's for morale, yous see. Whenever our men get shot, the people around them can't run into the blood, because it blends into the fabric". The Frenchman stops, thinks for a second, and says "Vivid! From now on, the French Army'south uniform will include brown pants!"
• French battle tanks take four gears: opposite, reverse, opposite, and forward in case they get attacked from behind.
• Why do the French install mirrors in their tanks? So that they can watch the battle when they run away.
• Disneyland Paris had to exist shut down recently. Why? Because when the fireworks went off, all the French ran out in the streets and surrendered.
• An elderly British gentleman visits France on holiday and is immediately asked to plow over his passport. He admits that he doesn't have it with him. Bemused, the French man backside the counter asks him: "Monsieur, have you lot been to France earlier?" "Yes," the old Brit replies. A smirk develops on the Frenchman's face. "And you did not bring your passport then?" He shakes his caput "There was nobody around to give it to." "Incommunicable! The British have ever had to show their passports when entering France!" The old man takes a long, hard look at the Frenchman before quietly telling him, "Well, the last time I was here, I came ashore on Gilt Embankment in June 1944, and I couldn't find whatever fucking Frenchmen to show it to."
• A boy was upstairs playing on his computer when his grandad came into the room and saturday down on the bed. "What are you doing?" asked the granddad. "You're 18 years old and wasting your life! When I was 18 I went to Paris, I went to the Moulin Rouge, drank all night, had my fashion with the dancers, pissed on the barman and left without paying! At present that is how to take a good fourth dimension!" A week later, the gramps comes to visit again. He finds the male child still in his room, but with a broken arm in plaster, two black optics and missing all his forepart teeth. "What happened?", he asked. "Oh granddad!", replied the male child. "I did what you did! I went to Paris, went to the Moulin Rouge, drank all dark, had my fashion with the dancers, pissed all over the barman, and he beat the crap out of me!" "Oh dearest!", replied the granddad. "Who did yous go with?" "Just some friends, why? Who did yous become with?" "Oh!" replied the grandad. "The 3rd Panzer Division."
• Blackpool is targeting French tourists. The Elysee Palace has issued an unconditional surrender.
• Parkour-the French art of running away.
• Now that the French have started committing troops to Iraq, they can get on with the business of introducing their new flag. Information technology'south a white cross on a white background (this references the Merchant Flag of the Kingdom of French republic, a white cross on a blue field). ^notation The French navy once used a plain white ensign.
• A song sung to the melody of "Frère Jacques" ^notation Aka "Are Y'all Sleeping?" by British war machine cadets invoking much older defeats than most of these:
• If history is Written by the Winners, why is there French history?

    Literature

• The Onion's book "Our Dumb Century" discusses the French in its World War 2 articles: They surrender after a "Valiant Ten-Infinitesimal Struggle," then afterward Pearl Harbor, then again after Nagasaki.
  • In fact, pretty much every war that's mentioned in the book includes a headline somewhere on the page reading "France Surrenders." Even if France isn't involved.
• This stereotype is often cited by sarcastic Harry Potter fans who note the discrepancy between Fleur Delacour'south reputation and credentials and her actual on-screen functioning. Cleolinda Jones lampshades hers in the Movies in Xv Minutes summary of Goblet of Fire.

  Obligatory French joke: And the French champion has surrendered her egg right out from under the Welsh Green!

• One of Dave Barry's books mentioned that his and so-toddler son had somehow amassed enough toy guns to conquer a toy nation the size of France. "Come to think of it, he probably could have conquered the real France."
  • He stings both French republic and Italian republic in the WWII section of Dave Barry Slept Here, describing France's defeat at the end of an ballsy 35-minute battle, during which the Italian ground forces "penetrated nearly 2 hundred feet into southern French republic before their truck broke down."
• Complaints about the French were so common during the time United states troops were stationed there in World State of war II that this pamphlet was written.
• To quote Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc:

  "When have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the French flag, have won a arid fight or two a few years back, but I am speaking of French ones. Since 8 m English-men nearly annihilated 60 m Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt, French courage has been paralysed. And so it is a common proverb today, that if you lot confront l French soldiers with five English ones, the French will run."

• In John Ringo works mentioning the French, at times he has kind words to say virtually their soldiers (similar the ones that kicked ass in the expeditionary forces of the Legacy of the Aldenata), merely never about their political leadership.
• This trope is explicitly defied by the French in Earth War Z, with disastrous results. The French felt that, afterward nearly a century of military machine humiliations (Earth War Two, Indochina, Algeria), they needed to win a triumphant victory against the zombies in order to restore the nation's laurels, and sent waves of soldiers into the Parisian catacombs to impale the quarter-million zombies down there. The reclamation of Paris was ane of the bloodiest battles of the Zombie War.
  • The other mutual target of this trope, the Italians, get less page-time, but they obviously managed to hold most of northern Italy and kept enough of their infrastructure to exist able to export nutrient and weapons (the air rifles the French use are explicitly of Italian make).
• Invoked explicitly in Tucker Max'southward book I Promise They Serve Beer in Hell

  "You fucking cheese-eating surrender monkey. I idea someone stunk effectually here. And so if I start speaking High german can I button you around and have all your stuff? Those hairy fucking stink-bags would be speaking Kraut right at present if it wasn't for the states, and they aren't the to the lowest degree scrap appreciative. I hope they all fucking dice, and your frog-sympathizing ass with them."

• Downplayed in Horatio Hornblower. The French are oft portrayed as less competent than British (which they were; likewise many of the officers of the one-time Bourbon navy were decapitated) but not every bit less brave.
• Played with in the Mitch Rapp series past Vince Flynn. While the French intelligence service often is mentioned equally a valuable ally to the chief characters several times throughout the serial, in Consent to Kill, a grapheme (albeit a German villain) laments the decline of France and attributes this to the nation'due south supposedly withering martial abilities.
• Played straight in one sense, but simultaneously Inverted in the Larry Bond book Cauldron, where the French forth with the Germans are the bad guys in a militant Franco-Germanic economic pact out to take over Europe. There are hardly French characters who get any sympathy, with the bulk either mustache-twirling evil or just staggeringly incompetent, with the entire French military control (that is, anyone from a Lieutenant on-up) playing The Neidermeyer who fail nearly every military activeness they're involved in, especially after America and England get involved. This is in sharp contrast to the Germans, who are portrayed much more sympathetically and are more often than not depicted every bit fantabulous and effective soldiers saddled with making up for the incompetence of their French partners, significant it's the Americans and English beating them to a pulp and the Germans who take to come up and endeavor to salvage them.

  2 things were disastrously clear, though. Showtime, the damned French were browbeaten and were retreating fast. And second, Montagne and his underlings expected the 19th Panzergrenadier to relieve their salary—again.

• Earth Without End: Subverted with an English character who goes off to France to fight in the Hundred Year's War. When he comes back subsequently a successful campaign, his family unit gleefully engages in some trash talk about French courage and martial valor. But he immediately cuts that off and points out that the French he fought were as equally dauntless as the English language and fought ferociously — he attributes the success of the English to superior weapons and tactics.
• Discordia: Averted. When one of the aliens convinces the French people to reenact the French Revolution and bring back the guillotine, the surviving public officials flee to Germany. The French and so threaten Deutschland to paw over the officials, pointing out that, dissimilar Deutschland, France is a nuclear ability.

    Alive-Activity TV

• Ane episode of Spin City focused on the Mayor trying to become Paris to be New York's sis city.

  Paul: Sir, do you really think y'all can accept Paris?
  Mayor: Why not? Information technology'due south just been washed by anybody who'south ever tried.

• Al Bundy liked to make jokes like these on Married... with Children, for instance noting how another character ran away "like a Frenchman from a cap gun."
• When the actor Ed O'Neill later on starred in the 2003 update of Dragnet, he was investigating a murder, and interviewing a latina maid. Her boss (who was having an affair with her) said, "You wouldn't be interviewing her if she was French!". Sgt. Friday replied, "Well, I have a thing near the French."
• Jeremy Clarkson, 1 of the presenters of Top Gear is given to using the phrase "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" when he refers to the French. He'll as well modify the phrase when appropriate; eastward.thou., during the Val Thorens ice race the other drivers were "cheese-eating sideways monkeys."
• Unhappily Ever Subsequently: Mr. Floppy lists all the countries he'd similar to nuke. Jack asks, "Can nosotros kaboom France?" Floppy: "Nosotros don't have to — France will surrender with a telephone call."
• In i episode from the final season of That '70s Show, Red and Kitty, having decided to move to Florida, are showing the house to a bunch of different families. Kitty mentions that a family with the last name Dubois is coming to view the house. Cerise, in his typical way, complains about information technology.

  Red: Dubois? Kitty, I don't want Germans moving in here!
  Kitty: I think they're French.
  Red: Aye, and if they purchase this house, they'll requite it to the first German who knocks on the door!

• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Captain Picard, despite Not Even Bothering with the Accent, tells Troi "Indicate the following in all languages and on all frequencies: 'We surrender.'" In the pilot episode "Meet at Farpoint", no less. In fairness, this was his first meet with Q. Picard is depicted as quite unwilling to give up in virtually any reasonable circumstance.
  • Aggressively averted in Yesterday'southward Enterprise, where an alternate timeline version of Picard leaps over a railing in the middle of a losing battle to personally take control of the tactical station. Then he delivers one of the nearly badass lines in all of Star Expedition:

    Klingon Commander: Federation ship, surrender and prepare to be boarded.
    Picard: (darkly) That'll be the twenty-four hour period.

  • Inverted in Star Trek: Kickoff Contact, where Captain Picard is the only member of Enterprise'due south crew who doesn't want to destroy his ship to forbid a Borg victory. He gives some other of the well-nigh badass—if slightly delusional—lines in Trek:
    • Then, when he gets called on it by Lily, he comes down from his delusion, activates the self-destruct timer... and then stays on board while everyone else leaves so he tin rescue Data.
• Star Trek: Picard: Picard again. Early in flavour 2, when a Borg queen transports aboard the Stargazer and begins to assimilate the entire fleet (which has been enhanced with Borg tech), Picard uses his reinstated admiral credentials to activate self-destruct. He only survives because Q intervenes and transports him and his assembly to an alternate universe.
• 'Allo 'Allo!, the legendary sitcom, is all about the French resistance and how cowardly Rene, the main "hero", is, and mentions the French surrendering approximately once per two episodes. A majority of the French bandage, nonetheless, don't fit the trope.
• The Black Adder series makes a few off-hand reference to this, just none quite as prominent as in Blackadder: Back & Forth when the titular character travels through time to the Battle of Waterloo and has Napoleon portrayed as being strategically-inept, with some other French soldier essentially stating that all of England's stereotypes of the French are quite truthful. Though apparently without The Duke of Wellington leading the Brits, the French would take won, at least according to this series.
• Mike of Spaced once attempted a one-man invasion of Paris with a stolen Chieftain tank. He but failed because he decided to finish off at Euro Disney on the manner.
• Completely inverted in The Walking Dead. According to Dr. Jenner, the guy in the CDC bunker in the first flavor finale, France was not only the last country to fall to the zombies, only the French scientists kept working on a cure for The Virus until the end while the American CDC scientists abandoned their work and ran for the hills.
• The Borgias subverts this to its fullest extent past presenting the French ground forces as a pack of bloodthirsty, highly skilled warriors who've recently invented some extremely grisly war machines. The warfare among Italian cities, based largely on condottieri mercenaries, had an element of playacting as mercenary soldiers did their best to not suffer casualties so that they could collect their pay and get home to spend it. The French forces under Charles 8 that intervened in Italy at the terminate of 15th century, on the other manus, were a tough, warlike, and hard-fighting army supported by revolutionary arms equipment and tactics.
• In 1990, Saturday Night Live'due south "Weekend Update" followed upwardly the news that Germany was reunifying with the line, "Believe me, a lot of countries are very nervous virtually this. French republic, for example, offered to surrender."
• Hilariously parodied past QI, in which a panelist calls Americans 'Burger eating invasion monkeys'. Naturally, given the nature of QI, the bear witness pointed out the rather impressive military history French republic actually has contrary to the stereotype.
• Subverted in Father Ted. Male parent Jack, who is undoubtedly non a coward, always stands for La Marseillaise and demands everyone else exercise then too.
• The West Wing
  • In "Beginning", the penultimate episode of Season 4, Wes, a member of the Secret Service detail, is existence transferred to France, and everyone teases him nigh how cushy the job will exist; Admiral Fitzwallace even tells him to watch out for all of the dangerous mimes.
  • There are other references throughout the series, such as when the White House negotiates with the French regime for the return of a painting to its rightful owner and a British character notes that French republic "promptly surrendered". Another fourth dimension, President Bartlet is virtually to go to war in Africa and is denied access to French airspace, so he tells Leo to "tell those poncy hairdressers I'm going to shove a loaf of bread up their ass!"
• Inverted in Deadliest Warrior. French warriors are always described and depicted equally extremely badass, especially the French Musketeers who are described as crazy, fancy Chick Magnet medieval special forces, and back up their description past destroying their Ming Warrior opponents by 670-230 in the simulation. Not to mention Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte, who, respectively, defeats William the Conqueror, and loses confronting George Washington past a margin so close that whatsoever sane homo would call it a tie. The French Strange Legion are also shown equally awesome, even though the Gurkhas boot their asses. It also doesn't count every bit the French Foreign Legion is an Army of Thieves and Whores made of men from all over the world; one of the experts brought in who was a onetime Legionnaire is an Australian.
• An honourable mention should go to the BBC documentary The World at State of war from 1973. 23 episodes covered the entire bridge of Globe State of war 2, and episode three was titled France Falls. This trope might as well be the title of that episode, because the narrative does picayune to hibernate the lousy French planning, the lack of unity before the war, or anything else. One scene shows annal footage of the many m French soldiers plainly walking away from the trenches, effectively surrendering. Because this series was a British product, the trope came in with force.

    New Media

    Radio

• Dour Expectations: France is portrayed as a country of jerks, whose surprisingly well-dressed anti-British lynch mobs tin can be driven off by i man firing a musket into the air, if just temporarily.

  The Scarlet Pimple: French people startle easily, but they'll before long exist back.

    Stand-Up Comedy

• In ventriloquist Jeff Dunham's Halloween Special, Minding the Monsters, this is invoked past Peanut, who is dressed as a Batman-blazon superhero for Halloween and who, at one indicate, mentions several other superheroes he either likes or dislikes:

  Peanut: Sometimes he [Captain America] teams upward with the fearsome fighter from France!
  Jeff: What does he do?
  Peanut: Just bitch, waits for help, and then surrenders.

• Dylan Moran referenced the trope by proper noun while discussing the stereotypes people have of diverse countries during his show Monster.

  Moran: "They (Americans) were very, very anti-French. They built up on this image of the weak... Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys was the phrase... which is kinda good, you know."

    Theatre

• Ruddigore suggested an early Stealth Parody of this trope with Richard'southward body of water shanty. The French were offended, just the British tars of the vocal do their Patriotic Fervour by retreating from a French frigate without firing dorsum at information technology because "she's merely a poor Parley-voo" and fighting information technology would be "like hittin' of a gal." Of form, that the French take them outmaneuvered, outgunned and outclassed in terms of skill has nothing to do with annihilation.
• The alliance betwixt Scotland and France is discussed in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice betwixt Nerissa and Portia:

  Nerissa: What think yous of the Scottish lord, his neighbor? ^notation England's neighbor.
  Portia: That he hath a neighborly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I recollect the Frenchman became his surety and sealed nether for another.

    Traditional Games

• Subverted in Dystopian Wars: despite having been reduced to a shadow of its former glory over the last several decades of the game's Backstory, the République of France is non just still a Major Power, but is currently fully dedicated to regaining said former celebrity, by force if need be.

    Video Games

• The Simpsons Game has a level where Bart and Homer take to collect white flags in a French hamlet during Earth War Two. The villagers, of course, do nothing only run away from them, and a PA says things similar "Brand sure your flag is white, not fair or eggshell or creme" and "By surrendering now, we will encourage our allies to fight even harder". The game is as well the Trope Namer.
• Disgaea two: Cursed Memories: Tink has a French accent (at least in the US dub). He is also a womanizing Dirty Coward... and a frog. ^note The French having caused the nickname of "Frogs" for eating them.
• Armed and Dangerous: Ane cutscene has Rexus using his Jedi Heed Trick powers to cause 2 mooks to surrender past convincing them they were French.
• Squad Fortress ii: Zig-zagged. The Spy course is stereotypically French with an outrageous accent, and his "Run into The" video portrays the RED Spy as a Magnificent Bastard who seduced the BLU Spotter'southward mother and single-handedly eliminated just about every fellow member of the BLU team. Near of the other classes' domination and revenge taunts insult him for existence a sneaky coward whose only skill is Chronic Backstabbing Disorder — which accurately, if insultingly, summarizes how you're supposed to play the Spy. However, only the Soldier invokes the trope directly: some of his lines refer to the Spy as a 'rifle dropping coward' and white flags.
• Control & Conquer: Red Warning 2:
  • Inverted in the Soviet Entrada; the French leadership are first amongst the Europeans to rally with the Americans confronting the Soviets. The Soviets are able to wreck Paris with a small forcefulness but that occurs because their armies were defending their borders. The Allied campaign also inverts it — while the European Council stays out of the initial fighting, this is because the Soviets are threatening to use their nukes on their countries, and information technology is the French representative that is the get-go to assure the US President they are not indifferent to the plight of the U.s., and offers to take command of the operation to neutralize the primary nuclear arsenal on the Soviet border. Given that in this universe Hitler became Ret-Gone thank you to Einstein and Globe War ii was butterflied away, the more hawkish attitude of the French is justified enough in a game rather on the silly finish of the Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness.
  • Multiplayer lampshades this trope. If a role player hits the function keys F1-F10 while playing, a country-specific voiceover volition ask allies for help or will taunt the enemy. F6 sends a taunt calling on the opposing player(southward) to surrender. If playing equally France, the voice-over says "Give up! No, I don't mean I surrender, I hateful you surrender!"
• Phone call Of Duty 3: Corporal Keith remarks that the French are merely good at "kissin' and surrenderin'" and Major Ingram calls the French Resistance an "oxymoron". The game itself completely averts this trope. The British SAS fight alongside French resistance members who are very capable and mettlesome themselves and save the lives of the British soldiers several times.
• Pain is virtually launching a ragdoll into various urban and natural landscapes and watching him and his surround pay the toll for your sadism. Firing your ragdoll at or even most the mime in the default metropolis expanse prompts him to run away, arms raised, while screaming "I surrender! I surrender!"
• Odium: Thiery Trantigne is a coward, to the point where he screams in panic how they're all going to dice even when facing the most pathetic of monsters. He also once expresses disgust at the idea of risking his life for a teammate.
• The Sims iii: 1 of the books yous tin can buy in the French holiday town is "The White Flag of Victory".
• Pokémon Black and White: Serperior is based off a serpent and a French king. Its offensive stats are boilerplate, but information technology has high Speed and Defensive stats. In its normal form, it performs an adequate task providing support for the team and annoying the opponent. When it comes from the Dream World, however, it becomes amazing, turning into a virtually unstoppable Lightning Bruiser because its Special Attack doubles from using a 140-base of operations ability STAB move. Overall, Serperior is a subversion of this trope.
• Globe of Tanks: Look a lot of jokes virtually this if French tanks are on the field in the kickoff of the battle, that is before the bodily battle happens. After this it's subverted to some degree: the later French tanks are some of the fastest on field and thus the kickoff to appoint enemies, often presently enough those didn't look burn and are nowhere near cover, not to mention they tin can dish out a lot of damage in short fourth dimension, killing you before you lot can even say cheese, but lacking armor for their speed and firepower, they will surrender fast if y'all so much as bespeak your gun at them.
• Punch-Out!!: Glass Joe both plays this trope straight and inverts it. Played straight because he has a record of one win and 99 losses. Inverted in that despite his record, he refuses to surrender (retire), and he'll gladly go through a fight until his inevitable defeat. This too applies to his pupil, Gabby Jay, who has the exact same tape as him. His only victory was against Glass Joe.
• Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords: You will be called this trope by proper name if you don't decline some other empire'southward attempts to extort coin from you.
• Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle: Inverted. When the protagonist, who is disguised as a Frenchman, meets an army colonel, the colonel starts lecturing him on how many great generals French republic had: Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Don Quixote...
• Hearts of Iron:
  • Hearts of Iron II covers Globe War 2, where, as noted in the trope description, France surrendered to the Germans early in the war. Consequently, France is typically steamrolled past Germany in curt lodge.
  • Hearts of Iron III: France is normally defeated by Germany within a few weeks, every bit they lack the industrial capacity, leadership, and manpower to stand up to Germany without a skilled player taking the reigns. In the 1940 kickoff, they don't fifty-fifty accept medium armor divisions.
• Tropico 5: 1 of the inquiry options is "White Flag". Your advisor specifically mentions that you stole information technology from the French, as it was their only military invention of any importance. The French version is an inversion: the flavour text got changed to this. ^annotation Warning, Presidente, I received a message from the game's translators. They refuse to translate "grotesque clichés most our country's so-chosen armed services cowardice." They sent united states ii student tariff'due south tickets for the Galerie des Batailles, a minimap to Verdun, and a Marshall de Lattre fan-art. They served in the 152th Infantry Regiment.

    Webcomics

• Scandinavia and the Earth: Kingdom of denmark, viewing the moon through a telescope, sees the the lord's day-bleached American flag on the surface and, thinking it'south a white 'surrender' flag, asks Sweden when France visited the moon. Link.
• This commutation in Waterworks:

  Slick: God damn, you lot seriously need to larn how to utilise that thing.
  Slick: At this charge per unit you'd be better off surrendering.
  Slick: Hell, on a commencement impression that would seem like the simply thing you're good at.
  * beat*
  José: I'M NOT FRENCH!
  * Beat*
  Slick: What?
  José: Nothing.

    Web Original

• Alternate History Hub discusses this trope in the video "What if France didn't Surrender in World War II?" Cody explains that France had not recovered from World War I fifty-fifty by the fourth dimension Nazi Germany invaded. If they didn't give up when they did (as in, almost immediately), it likely would have resulted in retribution from Germany. This could've taken the form of a massively retaliatory sacking of Paris which would've likely incurred untold losses of architecture and art, not to mention the resulting human toll. Cody based this on what Nazi Federal republic of germany ended upward doing to Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which saw near the unabridged city destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of civilians executed in reprisal. The swift surrender also permitted the preservation of La Résistance.
• Brought upwards in Unskippable for the opening cutscene of Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, where modern twenty-four hour period Paris gets attacked by some kind of overwhelming invading monster forcefulness, killing hundreds. Played with when the boys say something forth the lines of

  "I'd make a France surrendering joke here, but I'g not sure anyone else would do any better."

• From Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG:
• According to Benzaie, this is true. The Nostalgia Critic really calls him a "surrender monkey" during the ball.
  • Wine and Cheese, Give up to the Nazis!
• Tiberium ecstasy is a C&C Tiberian Dawn parody. Nod takes over French republic. Counts of the stereotypes:
  • Approximate what, they surrendered once more (next mission location was France, and it was not under GDI territory)
  • The role where it shows videos of things, information technology shows an APC driver surrendering, and one of the GDI (suspected) soldiers saw that the apc had guns. They ran away after the APC driver surrendered.
  • The primary team that was supposed to get money went to a town, and wanted to get coin from a church building. The french person was lying about money, after one of them suggested to fire the french person, the concluding words for the unfortunate person was, "I Give up."
  • Some other french person went and shot the Nod soldiers, and ran later the flame trooper found out the person was shooting.
• In the fanfiction Egg Belly, our favourite couple — Konoka and Setsuna — get out for dinner at Mahora Town's French restaurant. Ku Fei sneaks in to get a picture, steals the waiter's uniform and moustache, gets discovered, and — in the words of the author — "'Uh... time for me to be French again... I give up!'" wailed Ku Fei, turning near in the finest tradition of the French military machine and dashing for an alternate escape route- i.e. the window."
• The Polandball serial of comics, beingness full of National Stereotypes, has this every bit a Running Gag, though its level of historical accurateness means the trope is also often subverted.
• From episode seven of Super Mario Bros The Parody Series:

  French Submarine Helm: I have to employ my land's military tactic. I surrender!

• The website Albino Blacksheep has the Complete Military History of France.
• Croaky: The article 22 Shocking Statistics that change how you encounter the world attacks the existent-globe basis for this trope, and shows that in the terminal 2000 years, France has won more than than twice as many major wars as they have lost, and they don't consume as much cheese equally Greece. Nonetheless, this runs into Creative License – History as it includes armed forces victories from before France came into existence as a nation-country. Italian republic'due south armed forces history looks alot more impressive if you lot count the ancient Romans.

• World War II: Deconstructed every bit the Real Life situation of the War was much more circuitous than the "simply dropped once" stereotypes and parodies. The Beleaguered Bureaucrat nature of the overlapping Centrolineal command structure contrasted with the German dictatorship is only 1 amid many of the details the show tackles to illustrate the reasons for the Fall of France and combat post-war misconceptions about the effectiveness of the Maginot Line and French response to the invasion.
• Alerts to Terror Threats in 2011 Europe, attributed to John Cleese, contains the following paragraph:

  The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hibernate." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rising was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag manufactory, effectively paralyzing the country's military machine adequacy.

    Spider web Video

• Brought upwards by Steve Irwin confronting Jacques Cousteau in their titular episode of Ballsy Rap Battles of History.

  Steve Irwin: Now encompass your french nature and quietly surrender.

• Forgotten Weapons: Ian, who is an avowed Francophile, has gone to peachy pains to disabuse people of the notion, including buying a Chauchat for the the sole purpose of proving that information technology is nowhere near as wretched a weapon as most people think.
• JonTron gets a dig in at France for this, along with a dig at Germany for starting wars, during his play of Valiant Hearts:

  Narration: The German empire declares war on Russia.
  Jontron: Hah! And so what else is new?
  Narration: France is preparing for conflict.
  Jontron: Okay, now that's new.

    Western Animation

• The Simpsons:
  • The Trope Namer is Groundskeeper Willie in 1995 with the episode Circular Springfield. Having been forced to sub every bit a French teacher, the brief snippet of his "lesson" plays out as follows:

    "Bonjourrrrrrrrr, ya cheese-eating surrender monkeys!"

  • After the ix/eleven attacks it was peculiarly popular among American conservatives and conservative media outlets.
  • Fifty-fifty though this trope is mainly about American and English attitudes towards the French, the phrase was originally uttered by a graphic symbol from Scotland, a country with a c.1100-1603 tradition of allying with the French against the English (before they decided to form a country with them), and addressed to a form consisting of Americans.
  • In his appearance in the cartoon, Scorpio asks Homer whether he should use his massive Death Ray to wipe out France or Italian republic, and when Homer makes his decision, Scorpio quips, "Nobody ever says Italy."
  • In the story of Joan of Arc, Homer remarks "Victory? We're French! We don't even have a discussion for it!!" ^note The English language give-and-take "victory" actually comes from the French "victoire."
  • Subverted in "Treehouse of Horror 8": when Mayor Quimby insults the French they declare war on Springfield, and destroy information technology with a Neutron Bomb. Along with everything else.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) animation series did not final long enough for Antoine to develop out of this trope. Years after, as part of a review of both Sonic cartoon shows, The Nostalgia Critic viciously lampshaded this for all it was worth:

  Antoine: I am hating to exist... oh, how you say... such a worry-worm, but this place, information technology's non good for our health. We get home, yes?
  Critic: (mocking French accent) In fact, why don't we just give up? 'Cause that's all we French know how to practice, correct? Give up, make love, and be unbelievably snooty. At present, where's my French beret, piano accordion, twirly mustache and striped shirt? (Beat) Jerry Lewis.

  • Now as to what happens to him in the comic, on the other hand...
• Due south Park:
  • The episode "Fatbeard": "They're French, and so they surrendered immediately." The fact that they surrendered to a 9-year-old with a plastic lightsabre is damning even past the standards of this trope.
  • It was an "United nations Lightsabre Terrible!"

• The Fairly OddParents had a loving couple from France being hit past a h2o balloon due to Timmy'southward terrible aim. Their response? "We give up!"
• In an episode of Earthworm Jim, Bob the Goldfish builds a De-evolution Ray, and decides to examination it starting time on the Planet of Easily-Frightened People:

  Easily-frightened people: Nosotros give up! Please don't hurt united states!
  Bob the Goldfish: Yous people give upwards quicker than the French!

• The Critic: When a food fight breaks out at the Un Schoolhouse, a devious food projectile accidentally hits the French table, and the french kids immediately surrender, despite non even taking function in the fight.

---

faulknerdifid1960.blogspot.com

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys