When pompous France lost the football World Cup

Sometimes ago I was taking a quiz on France culture and social life with my colleagues. One funny question was:

"Who hit Materazzi during the final match of the football world cup in 2006?"

Evidently any Frenchy knew the answer: Zinedine "Zizou" Zidane! They all remembered their champion but my question is now why they did remember it. The answer is simple to me.

Because of his unintelligent behaviour.

In fact, we all for surely know that he won't be remembered for his wit, even if being considered by most as a football genius. And this is for several reasons, not last the fact that he made his team loose. Not that France had ever had any chance of winning, of course! Italy had shown itself as being the strongest team by far in all of the previous matches. And France had suffered a lot, with their team, composed mainly by old and worn players (average age was over 30), getting to the final phase by sheer luck.

The Azzurri should have already won the 2002 World Cup, but hideous political infringement on the match against the host nation (Korea) disfavoured them (through evident referee corruption).

But in 2006 Italy was going to prove much more determined to get on the highest step of the podium. Simply look at the following not exhaustive list to get convinced:

• Best Player: Fabio Cannavaro
• Best Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Buffon
• One of the best defending team
• One of the best attacks where ten different players scored a goal
• Every one of the 22 players playing in the team was Italian and playing in the Italian football league (it was the only team not to have players playing with abroad clubs). And this is important because we are talking of national football and not of private club-level football
• Defeated Germany (the host nation) 2 - 0 despite playing in Dortmund
• Defeated France even if the Blatter/Platini couple was trying to stop the Azzurri by using their political power (Have you ever asked why did Blatter was astonishingly not present to give Italy the World Cup during the winning ceremony?)
• Showed the world that this Zizou guy was nothing more than a pompously violent and patchy person who did not hesitate to physically attack an opponent players if nervous. On this subject most of us could ask why he was rewarded with the Best Player prize. Wasn't that act an instigation to violence? Weren't FIFA managers thinking to those candid youngsters who were peacefully watching the game? How could they react seeing that someone who was sent out for violent conduct was still being rewarded by the apparently corrupted FIFA guys?

In any case there are no real reasons to deny the fact that Italy deserved to win.

And I agree with Materazzi staying calm (we all know it, Materazzi - 193 cm and 92 kg - could have easily spanked that little Zidane, had he wanted) and writing that "The 100 things I could have said to Zidane" book to make fun of him and offering the proceeds to charity.

Materazzi had won. Italy had won. Four crowns where now on the head of this incredible Italian team. Everybody was happy. But France. France was jealous. They have always been jealous of Italian Serie A and of the international level Italian football clubs were playing at. As someone said, England had invented football and Italy had perfected it. And not Zidane, but Francesco Totti, thanks to his incommensurable football skills, was going to get the place of best player of the recent years.

But, still today, haughty, inflated and pretentious French still tend to insist on the fact that they deserved to win and that Zidane (as you can read on most of the French forums) should have been even more violent toward Materazzi. What a grim reality... but we Italians love having fun and making jokes. So do you know what Italians used to say after winning the world cup final to make the moment less gloomy? They said, while savouring bottles of Italian spumante: "France, give us the Mona Lisa back!"

But pompous France will not accept giving back what had been stolen because that Louvre museum would then be no more interesting to anyone.

The Carla Bruni’s affair and French presidential habits

Let’s start from the end…

As you may or may not know, the president of the French republic has recently married the Italian top model, singer and songwriter Carla Bruni.

Most of the french people I know have been shocked by seeing their newly-elected president getting married with a morally-questionable person such as this italian lady who is known to have been sentimentally involved with at least ten famous people (Mike Jagger, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump among others). French people were disconcerted! How could their wonderful president marry such a low-profile polyandryc woman? Didn't he know that Carla was marring him just because she was eager for power? Couldn't he find a french wife instead of paying her a trip to Luxor whit french money?

I was astonished.

Most of the frenchies seemed to forget the context they were living in.

I am talking about monogamy.
I am talking about power.
And I am talking about nationality.

Let's if you can follow.
Monogamywise, they were forgetting that their wonderful president had already been married twice before knowing Carla. His formerly wife (Cécilia) had been married before and Sarkozy himself had attended the ceremony! She had two sons from this very first marriage. And his first husband had three wives and eight children from four different women. Sarkozy at the time had already had two children from is first marriage too, and was going to have one from Cécilia. What we have now is seven weddings, six divorces and thirteen children... Who was talking about Carla being polyandryc?
Powerwise, do the French really think that all of the previous marriages weren't sometimes sprung from political convenience? How lame...
Nationalitywise, why do the French have a problem with the First Lady being italian? Isn't their president himself of franco-greek-hungarian origins? Or are they still suffering the pain of the way they were humiliated by Italy during the world cup soccer final? Is that Materazzi name still burning in their memories? And, above and beyond all other consideration, when they will stop being so nationalist?

Anyhow, what I have to say is that in Italy the president of the republic is intended to represent national unity rather than a particular political tendency. He is someone who is rarely seen on TV and we rarely hear of. He does intervene just in case of real problems with the government and we like him for this reason. In France the president is on every sensational gossip-filled newspaper or TV-show twice a day. People do not respect him as a representative of their country. They tend to jeer of him and there is no town in France where you can't find critics on him scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on public walls. I personally find this horrible way of denigrating the President very typical of this country where everyone has apparently the right to criticize anyone else. Like if respecting someone's personal life was not anymore necessary.

But now Frenchies have to grin and bear an italian First Lady. I am having fun!

The MONT BLANC conspiracy

I am glad to start this site by undermining the French firm belief that the Mont Blanc (4810 meters) is in France. What you should know is that French tend to sell to the world the fact that the summit of the Europe's highest peak is in in France. Which is false!

In fact, the convention of March 7, 1861 between France and Sardinia recognizes that, the border between France and Italy passes exactly on the top of the Mont Blanc, and therefore makes it both French and Italian. Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the south east ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.

Even funnier, the geographical maps of the I.G.N (Institut geographique National de France) show the Mont Blanc peak as being wholly on French territory, which is untrue. Italians, on their side, are much more reliable and honest: on their maps the border passes exactly on the top of Mont Blanc.

So, did you know that Monsieur Mieulet lied when drawing his map in 1865?

As far as I have been able to see, people from the Club Alpin Français - CAF - refuse to accept the truth. Some months ago I was looking at a giant french relief map of the Alps in a bookstore and standing by me there was a pompous french mountain guide parading in a CAF t-shirt. When I noticed that the summit of the Mont Blanc was shown as being inside the french border (which was in contrast with what I had learned at school) I had a surprised expression. We started to talk about it and soon he jeered at me like if I was a poor stupid guy who did not know anything about mountains, borders and France's superiority over the rest of the world...