French Response to Google is Microsoft

efp writes "Mark Liberman posted over in the Language Log that, in considering alternatives to Google's library initiative in Europe, French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'. This comes out of talks between the French president, the head of the French National Library and the Minister of Culture, in in part 'building an alter ego to the American project, before thinking of an eventual collaboration with Google, so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness' as they plan to digitize their cultural resources."

Comments

bargaining chip

[kaleco]

'so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness'

It seems to me that it is unlikely that the French government will align themselves with such a symbol of US cultural imperialism. Therefore, I suspect that the implied use of MS as a bargaining chip with google is correct.

Re:bargaining chip

[Rayonic]

> such a symbol of US cultural imperialism

Huh? What culture does Microsoft export? None that I really know of. At least not compared to Disney, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, etc., etc.

Of course, the whole notion of "Cultural Imperialism" is bullshit anyways, at least when it comes to the United States.

"not to negotiate from a position of weakness"

[Qzukk]

When negotiating with Microsoft, is there anyone who can NOT negotiate from a position of weakness?

Proprietary Formats

[doktor-hladnjak]

Perhaps the saddest part about France going to Microsoft for this project is that whatever data is produced is more likely to be locked into some proprietary format. That could be particularly unfortunate, since these cultural resources really belong to all the people of France and should therefore be made as accessible as possible.

Re:Proprietary Formats

[ArsenneLupin]

That could be particularly unfortunate, since these cultural resources really belong to all the people of France

... and beyond! French is not only spoken in France, but also in Canada, large parts of Africa, Belgium, and lots of other places as well.

Shouldn't these other countries also have a say about what happens to the French culture?

The irony

[CrackedButter]

is that the french are very nationalist and I would of thought they would of done something with a European or at least a French software outfit. I thought they were scared of globalisation and were worried about their identity being lost on the world stage. So to cure this fear they choose MS.

Re:The irony

[Anonymous Coward]

France is not anywhere as nationalistic as the United States.

French?

[untouchable]

What's wrong with the french?

French good deeds this year: 2
French bad deeds this year: 5
Le sigh . . . .

Something that would make more sense ..

[RedLaggedTeut]

Something that would make sense would be cooperating with a big canadian software company, since Canadians speak french too.

The rest has been said by others, I've nothing to add.

Re:now there's one more reason to hate france

[neil.pearce]

Hmm. I read your gibberish post, and then examined the opening statement of your last post...

I am a high school history teacher...

I'd be fuckin' scared/annoyed/upset if you taught my children.

You're so stupid, it's almost funny

Re:Do you Americans know...

[flabbergast]

Come on! We're Americans! Do you think we *care* what everyone else thinks?

All joking aside, regardless of my feelings towards the French, which are pretty close to neutral, this does seem contrary to their nationlistic zeal to keep France French. I (like other posters) assumed that the government would come up with its own solution. It seems absurd that France would team up with that oh so American company Microsoft to thwart that other oh so American company Google.

P.S. The US was attacked by terrorists because of numerous things, but name calling is not one of them.
P.P.S. The rest of the world bashes the US. Don't you think we get tired of that?

So how long before the invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

The ammount of xenophobic anti-French FUD we have had here on slashdot over the last few weeks leads me to think its a propaganda drive , seriously people Grow up and drop the racist jokes .

Read the actual article before you comment!!!

[jp8000]

Does someone realize that Chirac never actually talked about partnering with Microsoft??? Not even close?
This post relates to ANOTHER post which translates ANOTHER article in a French newspaper which says that some UNNAMED assistant to Chirac when asked about the possibility of partnering with Microsoft answered "why not?" (which does not seem like a terrible answer..., there is no reason to dismiss anybody before the project is launched...).

Re:Read the actual article before you comment!!!

[Lemmy Caution]

What is truly horrifying about this is that the threads have gone on this long without anyone pointing this out. I really have to bookmark this discussion - whenever I describe the collapse of critical thought among soi-disant "smart" people, particularly in America, I'll paste this link back to them.

Re:Read the actual article before you comment!!!

[Tonytheloony]

Yes, you are of course correct. But any article with the word french in it leads to the ultimate troll unfortunately.
Most people don't care for fact, they prefer canned explanations for what is happening.

Re:Read the actual article before you comment!!!

[bravni]

Mod parent up!

My understanding is that bashing/hating people is a popular sport in the anglo-saxon culture, and now that it is not politically correct to target the Black people/the native American people/etc any more, the French get blasted.

Just because some guy in the government made some vague comment.

Seems like hating the whole American people because of the US government foolishness makes sense then...

Honestly, how dare some of you talk about anti-American sentiment in France when you read some of the comments on this thread. Nobody in France, bare the most extremist people, would be half as insulting as the majority here. And then they might try to base it off actual information...

This is on par with what you'd expect from the Yahoo boards.

Shame on you.

Re:now there's one more reason to hate france

[rokzy]

> if it wasn't their support of terrorists, their ingratiating manner about our saving their asses twice, and the fact that they are as useless as tits on a nun, now i have another reason.

in the words of Simon Pegg:

what a prick.

He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-)

[BerntB]

Being Swedish, I've always thought it was quite strange, this attitude from US and English towards the French.

I've never met anyone from France that was rude and refused to try to speak English -- quite the opposite.

I've heard it argued that Americans go to Paris to "see France" -- and their opinions about the French is more or less similar to the common French opinion about people living in Paris... :-)

It has been a bit frustrating, when the "frogs" don't live up to the image I get from being steeped in the literature of English speaking (or mangling) cultures.

But I'll have to change opinion now. :-(

It do give a bit of perspective at the local politicians. There are worse examples.

Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-)

[Seumas]

I have always had the impression that, when in France, French people are typically rude and snotty toward Americans.

However, all of the French people I've dealt with at work and otherwise (in person) have been extremely nice people. Then again, I've never found any group of people from any place in the world that, in general, struck me as stupid, stubborn, snobbish or anything else. There may have been an individual or two that did - but no more so than any general population.

I think most people adhere to this stereotype of French people simply because it's what they hear on Fox News, talk radio and other random people - with no experience of their own.

I would probably feel uncomfortable and out of place in France - but I have no doubt that I'd find the people themselves easy to deal with - just as I've found them easy to deal with when they visit my country.

Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-)

[coopseruantalon]

Chirac is not that popular. The only reason he is still president is to avoid corruption charges. Besides the people of France had him and Le Penn to choose from. Talk about the lesser of two evils. "Le Raciste ou la criminelle" Excuse my French :-) I can understand why Chirac says he thinks they have a lot in common, they are both criminals...

Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-)

[dartmongrel]

Well the situation isn't improving in Canada, either. All kinds of fun new laws are happening here!:)
I think that what we're seing is the gradual degradation of civilization; we are approaching a time of great change, the ultimate domination of humanity by a brainless corporate-style world governement. Business interests feed the channels of power (through money) in the world now. The gradual "dumbing down" of the mob/populace ensure the continuation of an upward feeding, parasitic capitalism.
My vote's with the REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-)

[swillden]

But when Americans are arrogant, it's excusable--they're from the most powerful country in the world. France, on the other hand; what has France contributed to the world that makes them so special?

They were the most important country in the western world, for a good long time. They may not always have been the most powerful, but they were the cultural center of Europe. Even when the sun never set on the British Empire, cultured Britons studied French, sat on French furniture, drank French wine and generally revered all things French (except perhaps the French themselves).

That sense of cultural superiority dies hard, probably because it is so comfortable to think of yourself as coming from a superior people. At least a part of current middle-eastern frustration arises from the fact that people there are accustomed to thinking of themselves as a powerful, influential culture -- which they were when the Europeans were arguably near savages. Chinese also have a long-standing sense of superiority, derived from thousands of years of civilization, that often puts them subtly (or not so subtly) at odds with the current young upstart superpower. Greeks tend to have a high opinion of the relative value of their culture based on the heights they reached 2-3000 years ago. I haven't really noticed the same effect among Italians; maybe they don't really think of themselves as the same people as the Romans? They're quite proud of their history, granted, but don't seem to draw any personal superiority from it. Maybe I just haven't met the right Italians :-)

For that matter, I think that if we Americans honestly analyze our own position in the world, we have to conclude that we're in decline now, and not in as powerful a position as we pretend to be (though we're clearly in a pre-eminent position). It's just so nice to think of yourself as superior that in spite of both the silliness of the notion and the fact that it may not be true, people hold onto it.

Re:Great French Decisions Throughout History

[k2r]

There's even more:
1778 signing treaties of alliance with America, agreeing on staying at war until America was independend. To abandoned by their allies later on.

Re:now there's one more reason to hate france

[WIAKywbfatw]

No wonder most Americans have such a distorted view of world history if this is how an American high school history teacher thinks.

Seriously, in that one sentence you've demonstrated that you're so clueless about history that you're a danger in the classroom. I have to agree with the other poster that I'd be very worried if you were teaching my kids.

Re:Fuck you, France...

[Zakabog]

Posting as AC to preserve my karma from the hordes of French pussies who'd rather mod me down than step up and fight...

So basically what you're saying is you're too much of a pussy to risk your karma because you're afraid someone might mod you down in disagreement?

"Run to Bill, he'll protect us!" Now there's an idea. Jeeze, France, explain to us how your country has actually been relevant for 30 years...

They're not running to Bill, when asked if they'd select Google's competitor, Microsoft, the president's advisor said "Why not?" Not "Yeah, we've already signed a contract", just "Why not?" if any other company was mentioned it would have had the same response.

Re:Do you Americans know...

[Ohreally_factor]

You know what else is ironic? How closely his intermediate goals match up with the intermediate goals of the neocons. What the US is doing is certainly destabilizing the status quo in the Middle East, and loosening the grip of the House of Saud (albeit slowly). It's in the long term goals and of course the ideological differences that make Osama and the neocons imcompatible (and yet strangely complimentary*)

*Would the neocons have been able to advance their agenda as far as they have without an Osama? I doubt it.

Where there's smoke there's fire

[SuperKendall]

The thing is that places do acquire reputations for a reason.

I'm not saying everyone in France is rude, I'm saying that on average in France you are going to find more people who are seemingly rude (seemingly is key, more in a second) to you than perhaps if you travelled elsewhere.

I have a few friends who have travelled to France (including outlying regions beyond paris) and the only one who enjoyed the experience is someone whose wife spoke fluent French.

This effect is aggravated by the "seemingly rude" point - there are some things people do in other cultures that strike Americans as rude. Part of that for my friends was some sort of service issue at restaurants, I forget the detail but some seemingly inconsequential thing they wanted was looked on in outrage by the waiter. Perhaps he also viewed the request as rude, but the response basically discolored my friends opinion of restaurants in France.

My own example along those lines is from a trip to Barcelona - myself and a few friends (two of which spoke Spanish pretty well) went into a toy store to browse. Now there was this cool thing in the window that I wanted to buy, so I took it from the display to take up to the cash register -well let me tell you the owner of the store flipped out! He was yelling and cursing at me like I had just set fire to his dog. Even after we explained calmly that I had not meant to offend he was incredibly angry and demanded we leave the store that instant! Well no toy is worth an altercation but to this day none of us can figure out what set him off to that degree. While it did not make me think of all Spaniards as lunatics, it certainly made me think a little bit inside that shopkeepers there were on something of a power trip with little respect for customers.

So reputations of other countries being difficult may stem from the degree of cultural differences between two countries. And to some extent, I have to say that given that the reputation is correct as far as the average person goes. Even though the behavior there might not really be rude, to the traveller it might seem that way and really that's the same thing as far as the traveller is concerned!

Re:Where there's smoke there's fire

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they're rude to you. You are fucking animals without any culture beyond your pathetic "American Dream" and dollar worship. All europeans know that, but the french deserves recognition for treating you like the asswipes you are. Just read articles like this on Slashdot to get a good glance into the mind of the average American. A display of dangerously igorant and brainwashed minds.

Ah.. glorious will be the day when I stand on a battlefield shoulder to shoulder with my european brothers from France, face to face with the dirtiest, most vile animal that has ever lived.. the American.

Re:Where there's smoke there's fire

[Lauwenmark]

The thing is that places do acquire reputations for a reason.


The problem is that too often, the reputation is founded on false rumors and very limited experience. That's what - both in French and English - leads to Clichés: caricatural descriptions.


I have a few friends who have travelled to France (including outlying regions beyond paris) and the only one who enjoyed the experience is someone whose wife spoke fluent French.


First, it is harder to enjoy a trip in a foreign country when you don't speak its language. It may sound weird to you, but the vast majority of humans do not speak or even understand English. The French popular culture relies heavily on spoken language, so it is hard to enjoy it if you don't understand it.

Moreover, there has been a strong Anti-Americanism sentiment in France (and more generally in Western Europe) since the start of the war in Iraq, mirroring the Anti-French sentiment in the US. It could have played a role in the bad experience as well.

Finally, even French citizens recognize that some Parisians are maybe a little too proud of themselves - but that's not a problem specific to Paris or France and certainly cannot be generalized to all the Frenchs.


This effect is aggravated by the "seemingly rude" point - there are some things people do in other cultures that strike Americans as rude. Part of that for my friends was some sort of service issue at restaurants, I forget the detail but some seemingly inconsequential thing they wanted was looked on in outrage by the waiter. Perhaps he also viewed the request as rude, but the response basically discolored my friends opinion of restaurants in France.


When travelling to a foreign country, you have to accept its customs and habits. If you step on them, you'll definitely turn people angry or annoyed. If you make a mistake and offend somebody, apologizing solves it in most cases. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn't see a lot of american tourists caring much about the local behavior in restaurants, hotels or museums.


(...)
While it did not make me think of all Spaniards as lunatics, it certainly made me think a little bit inside that shopkeepers there were on something of a power trip with little respect for customers.


Never *ever* touch the window display in a shop in Western Europe. That's a *major* mistake. For the shop keeper, it is about as offensive as taking a item exposed in a museum "to better see it" or to touch a XIVth century painting with your fingers "to check what kind of pigment it is". For him, that would be about the same if you threw a stone on his shop's display window.

Your experience is definitely one of "cultural gap", not a "those people are unfriendly" one. Don't expect the shop keeper to have any respect for a customer who obviously had none for him !


So reputations of other countries being difficult may stem from the degree of cultural differences between two countries. And to some extent, I have to say that given that the reputation is correct as far as the average person goes. Even though the behavior there might not really be rude, to the traveller it might seem that way and really that's the same thing as far as the traveller is concerned!


I definitely disagree with your conclusion. *Everybody* in *every* foreign culture will be annoyed, offended or angry when you stomp on their customs. The vast majority of people (at least in Spain and France, which I know pretty well) are very friendly and will be open and helpful - as long as you don't behave as some kind of barbarian from their point of view.

Before taking conclusions about the friendliness in foreign countries, always think about your own behavior first: did the inhabitants find it offensive ? Did you ask them first when you were uncertain on what was the proper thing to do ? Did you present apologises in the formal way used by the inhabitants ? In most cases, you'll find it very instructive and it will help you to enjoy your future trips much more than any "Those guys are unfriendly" kind of Cliché.

Re:Yup, lots of similarities

[bluephone]

" Oh my god. At this very moment I'm so ashamed of being french."

Maybe you could explain to me, honestly, why France seems to feel the need to reinvent EVERYTHING and give it a French spin? It's as though nothing is good enough unless there's an accented character in the name. This is just another perfect example, although I'm stunned they'd partner with MS, as that's just another US giant. I'd expect them to go with some French company.

Basically, why must France do things differently just for the reason of being different? If there's a valid reason, that's one thing, but JUST to be different, that's just obnoxious and a waste of resources.

Re:France surrendering?

[anno1a]

If memory serves right they didn't surrender the last time when a superior power tried to convince them to help invade Iraq illegally.

Re:Yup, lots of similarities

[jdgeorge]

They are both filthy stinkin rich, hate google, and dream of a new world order?

On one hand, the first item in that list is a documented fact. On the other hand, the comment is, as a whole, a troll. Curiously, most of the posts that follow are even less interested in the facts.

It is interesting how unapologetically ignorant so many my fellow US citizens are willing to be when they:

1. Didn't realize that the Slashdot summary misrepresented the nature of Chirac's comment, because they
2. Obviously didn't read the linked article, and
3. Have the opportunity to hurl invective at the most popular target of insecure American white trash.

American journalism, thy name is Slashdot.

Re:France surrendering?

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

Heh. France screwed itself over by not being able to cope with blitz tactics, and relying on a fortified line which was bypassed by going through Benelux (remind anyone of WW1?)

France had abyssimal air power compared to the Germans. They could have killed Nazi Germany while it was in the early stages of re arming, but they chose not to. They paid the price for forcing the treaty of Versailles on Germany, with all its reperations, which kept the Democratic Wiemar Republic (sp?) so weak that it was easily overtaken by the National Socialists.

The League of Nations was a joke. It was even more impotent than the present UN. Having the US in it would not have changed that.

Re:You could say three other reasons.

[A beautiful mind]

Sure. So it's all the fault of lefties...bah. Tree huggin' hippies, damn them all.

Seriously, i'm really suprised how can you have a such ignorant world view. I could tell hours and hours for you about the US shipping weapons and supplies first both to nazi Germany and the british and french. Then because of basically the germans got cut off, the USA transferred goods mainly to Britain and France. Of course it got a bit dangerous because of german submarines, and also it would have sucked if all that investment would have been lost, so USA ignored the japan plans about Pearl Harbor, it gave them a perfect cause to join the war. They continued to ship weapons, goods to Britain and after the 'Allies' won the war, a nice american guy formulated the Daves plan, so that they could (the usa) get back their money invested. If you're so ignorant to pretend that this was about fighting against the evil or that sort of things, you're most certainly not objective enough to teach children. People should learn from history not to step into the same shite again, not turn it into a fairy tale.