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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
The French has the benefit of a long (and often highly successful) tradition in the following areas (with only a few examples):
- Literature (Rabelais, Balzac, Flaubert, Proust, Camus, Hugo, Baudelaire, Montaigne... (this is the shortlist))
- Philosophy (Tocqueville, Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, etc.)
- Art (Claude Monet, The Louvre, etc.)
- Music (Berlioz, Bizet, Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Satie, Daft Punk)
- Cuisine (they invented the following: crème brûlée, hollandaise sauce, crème fraîche, coq au vin)
- Military (The Normans rocked the Britons' world, and they took out their king because they didn't like the idea of monarchy anymore)
- Language (...nearly 50% of the English language is derived from French, thanks mainly to the Normans)
The French also brought the following to the world: - The Statue of Liberty
- Braille
- The diesel engine
- The Eiffel Tower
- Stethoscopes
- Hot air balloons
- Digital calculators
- Pasteurization
- Parachutes
- The sewing machine
- Bikinis!
The sense of sophistication comes out of a society of innovation and cultural richness... over a very long history. But it really is about perspective, though: What have they done lately? |
And champagne! Can't forget that....
Ives St Laurent, Coco Chanel, Gerard Gepardieu....
We gave them....EuroDisney
Diplomatically, they haven't done squat lately, but they are still the center of the fashion world(newbie models usually are sent to Paris to get their feet wet before embarking on their careers here), there's still Cannes and the Riviera, for example-France is a status symbol with a rich history and they have intention of letting go of that, I'd say, even with all the negative press they've gotten in recent years.