Their own best friends -- the French

It seems that they are not immune from everyone else's favorite sport. From Reuters/UK:

French said to outpace Americans in French-bashing
The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.

The survey of six nations, carried out for the International Herald Tribune daily and France 24 TV station, said 44 percent of French people thought badly of themselves against 38 percent of U.S. respondents who had a negative view of the French.

Only 14 percent of Germans, 25 percent of Italians, 29 percent of Spaniards and 33 percent of Britons had a negative view of the French, according to the Harris/Novatris poll, which questioned more than 1,000 people in each country.

And why are they not popular in the US?

Relations between France and the United States plunged following Paris's fierce opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Thursday's poll said 74 percent of Americans said whoever wins the second round of France's presidential election on May 6 should try to improve relations with the United States.

Wonder if that had something to do with the French selling Iraq their Sparrow anti-tank rockets well after the United Nations put an embargo on weapons sales to Iraq. That and the large French oil company Total Fina Elf being one of the major exporters of Iraqi oil...