I used to hate French People
I used to hate French people. As a young denizen of the internet, I spent time in circles that enjoyed ragging on the country and its citizens, and those sentiments festered into my own twisted anger at people I’d never even met. I jeered in history classes, bullied internet strangers, hell, once I bought a $6.95 flag just to burn it in my yard and spit on the ashes. You’d be forgiven for thinking a Frenchman baguette-shanked my childhood dog, the way I spoke of these people.
One family trip showed me otherwise. The moment I stepped off the train in Lyon-Part-Dieu, I was inescapably immersed in a world of kindness and generosity. Goodness me, every coffee house patron, every polyglot museum tour guide, even (especially) the old farmer grandparents who sat us down for dinner in their own home. I get misty thinking of them, how warm they were to a family of strangers with a misguided teenager in tow. I had been taught to hate this name, this concept of a people, and the whole nation of human beings I directed my ire at still took me in with open arms. It took three days to prove everything I thought I’d known for the last five years wrong.
To French people, I deeply apologize. I regret how much of my life I’ve devoted to baseless hatred of your beautiful, grand, welcoming country. My tirades were insensitive and disrespectful, coming from a place of willful misunderstanding, and for all that, I am sorry. And in coming to this awareness, I’ve been incredibly privileged to learn so much more about myself, and about you all, and that has taken me to a very special place of understanding. If there is one lesson about the human condition to take from this editorial, let it be this:
Parisians fucking suck.
I’m sorry I ever sullied the name of France with those motherfuckers. On that trip I had the great misfortune of taking “just one afternoon stop, because we have to” in Paris. From about three hours there, I discarded my misguided, directionless hate for a revitalized and healthily educated one. They are unfathomably rude, disrespectful of all other lifeforms, and all guilty of never having given up that French aristocracy they obviously dearly miss. I’m so proud for having grown up, for having found the true people who deserve my ire. Old Farmer Gérard, may your days be peaceful. Everyone else, let’s party like it’s 1789.