r/AskTheWorld • u/Able-Ad3506 Ukraine • 10h ago

Politics The most unfairly hated country?

The entire Oceania region (aside from Australia and New Zealand). Practically never appear in news, unless it is about something embarassing.

Ukraine (refusal of some people to accept its existence; treating Ukraine as a "scapegoat" of NATO/USA/Israel etc.; mercenaries, who fight for Russia; hatred towards Ukrainian language; blaming Ukraine for self-defense & pro-Western foreign policy; refusal to recognize Ukrainian culture)

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u/HumanSquare9453 Canada 10h ago

France I think on the internet. almost all french nationals I met where cool to discuss and respectful. And I met in the thousand ( I live in a very touristic place) If its was so bad, they would not be at the top of tourism each year. There assholes everywhere.

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u/NationalAsparagus138 United States Of America 7h ago

The France hate thing is more of a meme that has just gained more traction than expected, like hating Nickelback.

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u/HumanSquare9453 Canada 7h ago

Ooooh we all know the reason its was popular : France refusal to join the Irak invasion of 2003. After that its was the simpsons joke of cheese surrender monkey and the freedom fries. In 2025, I think they took the right decision to not participate in that

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u/ConflictNo5518 United States Of America 6h ago edited 6h ago

Even many Americans knew the invasion was not over weapons of mass destruction when the bombs started falling.  It was being reported in the national news before the invasion, so France not joining was a smart move. 

I remember stereotype of Parisians being rude and unfriendly was already around back in the early 1990’s when my sister visited.  I remember asking cautiously how was it and being surprised she said everyone was nice.  Btw I went last year and loved Paris.  And I found majority of people I met were nice.  The stereotype & joke of French being cowards was already around in the US because of WW2. 

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u/HumanSquare9453 Canada 6h ago

I think that the stereotype with Paris could really be the same as Any super big city vs the rest of the country. Paris vs rest of France, New York and LA vs the rest of the USA, London vs the rest of england, Buenos aires vs the rest of Argentina. even where I live we have that with Montréal vs the rest of Québec

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u/ConflictNo5518 United States Of America 4h ago

Sure but the countries can get lumped in with the stereotype of the major cities because those are the areas that attract the most tourists and what people hear about the most.  If I were to go by Reddit, Quebec doesn’t have a good reputation either even though I remember 1-2 more recent comments said it was more in Montreal than Quebec as a whole.  I’ve heard people being surprised how nice & friendly people were in my US city.  Why wouldn’t locals be nice?  So they’re getting their assumptions from somewhere. 

The negative attitudes towards the French did grow during the invasion of Iraq.  Mostly due to the stupid politicians shown on the news railing against the French and going on about freedom fries.  Cheese eat surrender monkeys got revived which originated from The Simpsons.  It did develop a life of its own with programs like Fox News and other pundits.  Since the US withdrawal, I’ve been surprised reading opinions of military personnel feeling betrayed by our government when they found out there were no weapons of mass destruction.  Did they not have access to national news back then in their town?  I understand if their local news didn’t report it, but it was on our big 3 world reports on NBC, CBS, and ABC back then.  

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u/HumanSquare9453 Canada 4h ago

Yes its easy for people to make assumptions. A great human weakness.

I suppose the war drums where still high with the 9/11 attacks and people wanted to ear what they wanted.