Very interesting debate for me, considering I live six months a year in New York and six months in Paris, and I am not French nor American. I've always been amused by this phenomenon.
Let's see some of these points:
Point 1) They often think differently. Fact is usually most of the world think like them, not like americans. Matter of fact, if you would ask randomly who's always doing things differently than other people, most people wouls say the British, not the Frenchs. Stanrting from still using the silly pound/gallon/miles system everybody else but a few anglophone countries has abandoned for a reason.
Point 2) Hypocrisy is the base of all politics in all countries. This one really doesn't fit in this list.
Point 3) Kinda true. I feel white Frenchs are often more racist than many New Yorkers. I don't know many people from different parts of the country. Some people here in the US do tell me racism is still a big issue in many areas, but I have no direct experience with that.
Point 4) Laughable. Frenchs are by definition Libertines. In fact, most of the reason why French people make fun of Americans is because of their puritanism. You should also consider that French-produced culture is probably the most important in the world together with the German and british, depending on the subject/period. French artists, literati, philosophers, scientists and economists just shaped the world as we know it and a way that makes western culture and civilization unthinkable without those inputs.
Point 5) True, but this has no effect on the life of American people, does it? French people like those policies, voted the people who envisioned them... so if it's good for them I have no problem with it. Let any country decide for their own domestic fiscal policies.
While I disagree with many of France's economic policies I might however note that it's partly because of those policies that people enjoy life so much more down there than here in the US. You can't get everything at the same time. But you'd be surprised how many people in Europe wouldn't give up their 35-hours-a-week jobs for a million dollars contract requiring you the 90-hours-a-week schedules many financial analysts are doing here in New York.
Point 6) Quote:
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
American men hate the fact the Frenchmen are better lovers and more sexually attractive to women.
This must be true, based on the fact that usually American males dislike French guys, but I never heard American females having any issue with them. The opposite is actually also true. Almost every american guy I know who travelled to Paris has at least 50 times told me about how sexy French girls were, while complaining about guys. Kinda funny.
As a sidenote, I would remark how the thousands of young american college girls spending a semester in Paris are usually quite vocal about the amount of action they are getting.
Now some other metropolitan myths I have noticed and should be debunked:
French people often consider Americans gross and uneducated. Many French people think so. It's basically a cultural issue. European in general fail to consider somebody educated unless he/she is competent on subject often perceived as less important in the US. Many people I know in Paris would consider a Physics Ph.D gross if he had no clue about art history or literature. Cultural specialization is so much more extreem in the United States academic world.
French people are unpolite. I have to say, often true. Especially Parisians. It's probably the only place in the world where people selling you stuff treat you badly while doing business with you. And I mean even shopgirls, bartenders and waitresses. Some people think this is charming, I personally don't and hate this.
French people are arrogant. Again I hate to say this, but yes, they often are. Again mostly Parisians.
French and Americans use double-standards. Cross-accusations here. I might say everybody in the world does it, but it's interesting nobody ever recognize it.