What does it mean to be French?

I lived in New York. There are hundreds of thousands of francophones living there, including many French people. You can hear the language spoken at every street corner, and there are quite a few schools and high schools in the city offering bi-lingual (English-French) education.

OMG! You're French! All this time, I thought you were just a regular guy.

:-)

Does "regular" exclude "French" now?

How long are you waiting at a street corner to hear someone speak French? You might hear it if you are on Fifth Ave; a big shopping street; however, NYC is greater than one upscale shopping street. Spanish is what one hears mostly in NYC, in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, or some Asian language, or possibly Russian. French? Tourists?

And, when did you live in NYC. You must mean Manhattan.

The people that speak French in NYC are living in a world that might include European summer vacations. But, that is not the NYC of eight million people.

Yes, I mean Manhattan.

Not quite true. They have already reproduced and the young shall inherit.

We are the Brits.You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Y'know, some of the geezers may be out there romancing young chambermaids..

Was that rich guy at a hotel in NYC a year or two ago french or british? I don't remember (I'm old you know). Anyway, elderly men of many lands still possibly have live sperm at their behest. It's the beckoning they might have trouble with.

Do you mean Strauss-Kahn, Osso?

He was a Frenchist. Top guy at the IMF at the time, who likes the women, whether they like it or not, it would seem.

The retirees moving down to France are usually spending a lot of money when they get there, repairing the semi derelict houses that they buy.
If you travel through rural France, you will see many empty, unloved old farmhouses and many ruins that are past repair.
Once the Brits, Germans and Dutch have had a go, they usually end up with new roofs, new septic tanks, rewired, re-painted and surrounded by cottage gardens.
Many French builders are getting a good living out of outsiders buying and renovating tired old French wrecks.
All of the French young are moving to the Cities, and their countryside is dying. The artisan bakers and various food producers in these parts of France are over the moon that us foreigners arrive and buy their stuff.

French bread is rhe best in the world, imo. Within a day or two of starting my holidays down there, a half mile walk each way at 7am every day for a Campagne loaf and a bag of croissant is a highly enjoyable chore.

Hungry now.

Yes. Just about as I finished typing I remembered the name Dominique, his go along wife. I slightly remembered the IMF but I'm too much a finance dummkopf to connect that to UK or France. I'm positive I'd like France or at least subsections of it, sort of how I like Italy - Italy is dear to me and I know great wads of bad about it. Same with the U.S, England, Mexico, and so on.

Fine breadmaker that I keep attempting to be, I've yet to make baguettes, much less pain de campagne.

Hahaha! Could you please explain this?

I am Czech! Does that make me regular or irregular?

Try adding fiber to your diet if you want to be regular.

If you dream of Bourgogne, and baguette, and small farmhouses... you are already French without even knowing it...

... and lazy@ss life style, avoiding responsibilities, uninterested in society's issues followed by barking about revolution which will solve it all ...

For someone who is enjoying the hospitality of the French, and maybe making full use of their welfare generosity, you show a great talent for being an ingrate, bumfluff.

If you do not like your situation, you can always go back to the Czech republic, where people and society are obviously superior, in your mind.

The French people, especially the rural French people, are friendly and helpful, I find. They have strong family bonds and usually manage to strike a good life balance when it comes to work and home.

The French and the English have had the same love/hate relationship for hundreds of years, and although we nearly always end up having a verbal or written tennis match, when we sit down at the same dinner table it is amazing what friendship and laughter ensues.

To have an unfunny, adolescent, ingrate Czech posting tripe on here about the country that has upgraded his life and taken him in, does wrankle somewhat, even with a Brit.

Be nice and learn about the people around you, before jumping into a 21st Century thread with your 1970's soviet style humour.

The most interesting tennis matches happened indeed between 1337 and 1453

I didn't mention the physical, Walt.

I think we may be past that, nowadays.

I know. But do you know that the name of quite a few French towns/villages is English? Hastingues for instance. And Monpazier was known as la perle d'Angleterre - the pearl of England.

6 nations tournament notwithstanding... :-)

boy... I have never seen such a pile of horse poo in one post. Are you drunk???

anyway, I have no quarrel here with anyone or any nation here. And I am sure people know it.

Just mentioning the last ones ...