A new study published in France this week suggests that even as Britain prepares to host the Olympic Games that London snatched from under Paris's nose back in 2006, its countrymen still can't bring themselves to be nice about the French.
The countries' not-always-friendly rivalry stretches back centuries, but many would expect that in an age where more Britons visit France than any other country, the 'entente cordiale' would be doing better than ever.
Unfortunately, it seems that's not the case -- research published this week in the French L'Express magazine showed that just 54 percent of Britons describe France as a country that they like.
The study was conducted in December 2011 by TNS Sofres for RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya and shows that of 11 major countries, Britain was the one least likely to get excited about its continental cousins, scoring even lower than the famously Franco-phobic Americans (65 percent of whom managed to admit to liking France).
When asked whether they would like to travel to France for a variety of reasons, Britons gave a similarly lackluster response, with 35 percent saying they'd visit to live there, and an even lower proportion saying they would like to work or study in the country.
To be fair, Europe isn't a huge place and back in December an EU summit highlighted how uncomfortable Britain was with its neighbous treading on its toes, resulting in a public spat between leaders David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy which could have skewed the results.
Indeed, it appears that the further away respondents lived from France, the more they liked the sound of it -- 82 percent of Brazilians said they liked France, along with 81 percent of Indians.
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