Australians seem to conduct an ongoing love/hate relationship with the French, according to research at the University of Queensland's Romance Languages Department.
Professor Peter Cryle, head of the department, said the study had been looking at Australian attitudes towards the French before, during and since the last round of nuclear testing which finished at Mururoa in January 1996.
He said Australians harboured certain preconceptions and prejudices about the French. These lay dormant most of the time but once aroused were quickly converted into displays of vehement anti-French sentiment.
Nuclear testing in the Pacific was the trigger for Australians to parade their usually hidden prejudices and perceptions of French stereotypes.
Professor Cryle has found the Francophile (the person with a fondness for all things French) and the exact opposite, the Francophobe, often turned out to be the same person.
"For example, at the time of the nuclear testing, some people were pouring champagne down the gutter as a protest against the French action.
"However, these were largely the Francophiles whose love of all things French prompted them to go out and buy French champagne in the first place.
"Similarly, people were quick to label the French as arrogant. However, there is a fine line between that and one of the characteristics many people admire in the French,
what we call savoir faire, a mix of cultural self-confidence and flair."
Professor Cryle, working with colleagues in Sydney and just outside Paris, has been studying media reports of reactions to the nuclear testing, looking at the intensity and longevity of the feelings expressed.
Though feelings certainly ran strong at times, Professor Cryle said things returned to normal relatively quickly, driven mainly by the pragmatic necessities of business and trade between the two countries.
"A lot of the elements of Francophobia are imported from England. There is a long English tradition of disparaging the French, probably going back hundreds of years," Professor Cryle said.
However, Australians had also developed their own post-colonial attitudes and to a large extent had come to identify with many of the good things associated with France and Italy.
One manifestation of this, which is also being included in Professor Cryle's research, is the use of ?Frenchness' in television advertising as a way of legitimising and extolling Australian products.
To date he has about 45 such advertisements on file, promoting everything from tomatoes and soft drinks to cosmetics, coffee and cream cakes.
"This advertising is based on an image of France that is more important than the reality. It's founded on stereotypes of such things as French food, fashion and romance. These stereotypes are both positive and negative though commercial interests exploit the positive."
Professor Cryle said he noted with interest during the height of anti-French feeling how one previously obviously ?French' advertisement was transparently doctored to try to make it look Italian.
Professor Cryle said the research should help people understand how much the ideas of others were part of their own culture.
"It should lead us to reflect on our own values. Ultimately this study is likely to tell us more about Australians and their culture than about the French," he said.
For further information, contact Professor Peter Cryle (telephone 52270).
