Jingoism

It seems I underestimated the differences between Europe and the Anglosphere when it comes to nationalism. This is a little ironic given that the word chauvinism is due to a Frenchman. (My guess is that the Vichy Régime just exhausted any nationalist pride they might have had left. Now they stick to pride in their food and fashion, which is far less dangerous.)

Recently France's minister for immigration, Eric Besson, was chatting to a journalist about a range of issues and made this comment:

Je pense par exemple qu'il serait bon -- aux Etats-Unis c'est banal, en France ça reste parfois compliqué -- que tous les jeunes Français aient une fois dans l'année l'occasion de chanter la Marseillaise

Apparently this is true, their national anthem is almost never sung in school. They learn it once when they do the French Revolution but it's not sung every school assembly like in Australia. Once a year certainly doesn't sound like an overkill to me.

After I asked Cîndy about this, she went on to tell me about one time in high school when it seemed appropriate and a student requested that they sing "the Marseillaise" in class. Her teacher said, 'No, let's sing something else. How about "the Internationale"?' That put me in mind of Billy Bragg at first but then I remembered that it was originally a French song. So we sang the first verse through in French and English then I said to Cîndy, 'One time when we're with a group of Americans I'm going to ask you to tell them what song your teacher taught them. I'll be standing nearby to pick their jaws up off the floor for them!'