To put in my few cents, it mostly seems to be that Americans tend to believe the French to be snobbish, which has been my personal experience with the French. Their culture breeds distinct clique-ishness with their policies to protect the origin of their language and all. That isn't a bad thing on it's own, understand me... It's just one of many things.
Also, in NE U.S., we deal a lot with Quebec natives... or the dreaded French-Candian. Due to requirements that any product sold retail in their province must, by law, be printed in French (along with English) and other things such as the general snobbishness of many Quebecians, Americans tend to just disregard the French altogether on many occasions.
Also, the helping them through WWI and WWII, and getting not much back (don't even start on the Statue of Liberty) hasn't helped.
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