Frenchies in Bali — The Gazette of Unsavory Tales

Everything in these chronicles are based on true events.

This is not a journal about positivity for we’ve already got too many of those already — this is a blog dedicated to narrate the contemptuous attitudes of the French, the ones living in Bali and most precisely the ones I’ve come in contact with.

Unapologetically anon and remorselessly in English (for these people aren’t exactly known as a good English-speaking lot — very tattily substandard conversational abilities, deplorably inadequate vocabs and that also goes for their Indonesian language skills in most cases), The Gazette is a harbinger of bad news. Feel free to guess who the heroes and heroines among the total 10,000 or so living on the island (many of them doing so illegally).

The French are a fickle folk. ’Tis true.

There are many things I love about France. The food, the culture, the nature, the landscape… and the savoir-vivre. However, there are many things I also despise. For example, the tendency they have, when abroad, to exhibit an Andrew-Tate-like arrogance. Especially when they are in third-world countries, they tend to think they’re on terre conquise so their behaviors are borderline imperialist — considering themselves (even though being ordinarily average Joes and Janes when in France for most of them) superior beings better than these poor locals — heck, better than everyone, in truth!

In 95% of the cases, they also don’t even bother to learn any languages apart their own — not English, and even less the local lingo. This fact about the French’s abilities to speak other languages being absolutely abysmal always gets me torn in half: either they are total Chauvins or they are complete airheads, which of these is true I guess I will never know. So many of them spend their whole retirement lives in Bali without understanding a single word of Indonesian let alone Balinese, uttering broken pieces of indecipherable English words at most to their house helpers, maids, pool-men and gardeners.

Then, their mentality of always envying others they must have been entirely descended from Cain, and their hating and criticizing everything — most of all talking bad about their own compatriots. Always harboring negativity and projecting them unto everything: the government sucks, the president is an ass, France is full of unwanted immigrants and S cards (“fiche S”) living off citizen social security aids and benefits, yadda yadda yadda. They love to bitch about their own so-called close friends, maintaining a two-faced hypocritical approach when it comes to relationships. And their parsimonious, penny-pinching Scroogelike existence, always wanting to bargain beyond the acceptable limits, always wanting to scrape even to the last penny, paying the least possible, shamelessly benefiting from everything and using everyone as the vehicular means to their own egotistical pleasure.

Oh yeah, the French are that bad. Most of them, the specimens found in the urban dwellings of Bali. Almost extinct are the ones also doubling as decent human beings.

As in my half a decade living in Bali I’ve encountered so many toxic French people, whose attitudes are so asininely abhorrent I was always in constant amazement of how low below could these people go (and the answer is: always lower and lower), my shrink told me it was time to channel all of these into writings. At least, then I could pour into words what happened and keep the mementoes for later. And who knows? Maybe one of the French will stumble upon these stories and by reading them, the stories can serve these French an introspection to the betterment of their own characters (although I doubt any French would even admit their wrongdoings let alone being repentant).

I hope you’ll enjoy reading these stories as much as I did writing them.

XO, XO, the French in Bali Gazette

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