Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.” And that whole stupid thing probably peaked in 2003 with Freedom Fries.
But now?
I honestly wonder if any other nation’s population has their heads on straight as much as the French. The only place in Europe where I have spent much time though is up in Sweden, and the nords seem pretty good at life-ing too.
Well actually…
The french kind of didn’t, the french administration did. The french army had many problems, for the most part because it was not a standing army. These were more or less I’ll equipped military, which where basically overrun by German tanks. However the french army also was in no small part responsible for holding off the germans at Dunkirk and nearly broke down the supply lines of the German Blitzkrieg. They mostly didn’t flee.
On d day the first waves of troops where also a lot of french exile troops stormy into machine gun fire. Also on d day the french resistance sabotaged the railway network and infrastructure in general so good, that the railway system only worked on 30% capacity, some balloons where running out on puncture repair kits and German tank divisions where delayed by up to 2 weeks.
pastermil