Merde!
I was watching a program on PBS tonight about "Anti-Americans." It seems the French have begun openly/actively "hating" America and Americans to the point where school children believe 60% of American children are incapable of correctly learning their ABC's.
A roundtable discussion (it wasn't clear just "who" these Frenchmen represented -- the cultural ministry, for example, or the automobile industry?) centered on the participants' absolute disdain for the Americanism "airbag" becoming commonplace in French culture...in advertising, etc. One suggested a law should be passed forbidding its usage. Another suggested a vociferous advertising campaign "ridiculing" the term (because, he said, the bag fills up with "gas", not "air") and importuning the French public to embrace their "own" term for the airbag:
Are you ready for this term?
Are you sure?
Here it is (and don't say you weren't warned):
coussin gonflable!
That's right. You are reading it correctly.
By no means should anyone refer to an airbag as an airbag...it must be referred to as a coussin gonflable.
Of course, the entire show was not about the French. It centered on the French mission of bringing to the world -- but most importantly Europe -- fine wine, fine cheese, fine food, and a hatred of Americans. This mission as several French participants confirmed, was to ensure that Americans are viewed with absolute disdain throughout Europe.
Particular attention is being paid to Poland where Americans are near-mythic heroes to the populace. As one Pole put it (succinctly, I might add), "Of course America is our hero. If something bad happens, the French won't come. We know this because they've got that tradition. The English? They care only for themselves. The Americans respond every time. We love the Americans."
(I suggest that everyone consider vacations in Poland).
And whenever, wherever you see a sign, en français, that has the term coussin gonflable, point to it and shout "AIRBAG", and then laugh your ass off!
