Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as “chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless”. However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.
For the Germans, the French are “pretentious, offhand and frivolous”. The Dutch describe them as “agitated, talkative and shallow.” The Spanish see them as “cold, distant, vain and impolite” and the Portuguese as “preaching”. In Italy they come across as “snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed” and the Greeks find them “not very with it, egocentric bons vivants”.
Interestingly, the Swedes consider them “disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty”.
But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.