Francophobia: Difference between revisions

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'''Francophobia''', or '''anti-French sentiment''' is the hatred of France, the French people, French culture, the French government or the Francophonie. It has existed in various forms around the world for centuries. The phenomenon has been strongest in Britain and Germany, and was often expressed in literature and the popular medium. It also is a major factor in Canadian culture.

Though French history in the broadest sense extends back more than a millennium, its political unity dates back from the reign of Louis XI, who set up the basis of nation-state (rather than a dynastic, transnational entity typical of the late Middle Ages). In the last days of the Ancien Régime, only aristocrats and scholars spoke French in much of the kingdom, as about two-thirds of the population spoke a variety of local languages, often referred to as dialects. Henceforth, Eric Hobsbawm argues that the French nation-state was constituted during the 19th century through conscription, which accounted for interactions between French citizens coming from various regions and the Third Republic's public instruction laws, enacted in the 1880s, probably in parallel with the birth of the European nationalisms.