>In Paris if an intellectual coughs it makes the front cover

>>8485903
He meant:

>please pay attention to my autistic anglo-kike analytic trash like you do to the charismatic cool kids who actually have something to say that relates to people's lives

French culture has been and still is a masturbatory insular fest that freely ignores what's going on in the rest of the world. They rarely 'export culture' and they don't 'import culture'. Thus, there's little news to report since it's not a big nation, so every fart has to be published.

Chloé Thomas is on the front page of Le Monde today, ever heard of her?

>>8485936
>they don't import or export culture
But that's not true at all. Don't forget at the the turn of the 20th century Paris was the biggest cultural center in the world, and French had been a lingua franca in the whole of europe ever since Napoleon. French intellectuals and artists have had a huge influnce on the humanities and the arts.
>Voltaire
>Bougereau
>Duchamp
>Ionesco
>Proust
>Durkheim
>Derrida
>Camus
>Sartre
Then when the attention shifted to america, they drew inspiration from them and developed distinctive styles in the new mediums that appeared around them, notably Cinema and the Graphic Novel, which they became a master of. France is the biggest importator of Anime and Manga, and Franco-Belgian comics are in turn known throughout the french speaking world beyond. Here in french canada at least, stuff like Asterix, The Smurfs, Spirou, Tintin are huge. They also have huge Electronic and Hip Hop scenes. French Electro was one of the major influences in dance music worldwide from like 2004 to 2012. The influence of people like Daft Punk, Justice and Mr.Oizo on major names in american music like Skrillex, Wolfgang Gartner, Boys Noize etc. is huge.

Chomsky is poking fun at the self important attittude of french people, which is a thing, but to deny that france has been one of the centers of culture throughout the renaissance, enlightenment and modern era, or that they've been deaf to what's going on around them, is contrarian bullshit.

>>8485903
Because the French are charlatans.

>>8485936
French culture values intellectuals much more highly than the anglosphere, hence their frequent appearances in mainstream French journalism. Chomsky's comment is a classic case of the fox and the grapes

>>8486785
>In Quebec if a Francophobe coughs it makes the front page of /lit/

>>8486785
>ever sice Napoleon
French had been the language of royal courts throughout Europe long before.

Vive le roi.

>>8486785
>Chomsky is poking fun at the self important attittude of french people, which is a thing

Iirc Chomsky made this comment while discussing "anti-intellectualism" in America, where the opinions of public intellectuals carry less weight than in continental Europe. He thought this was a good thing, commenting that he and Sartre had both signed a letter denouncing the Vietnam War; in France, it was a big deal that Sartre had signed the letter, but nobody in the US cared that Chomsky signed it. He said just looking to public intellectuals for opinions and reasoning isn't necessarily a good thing, and that people should be capable of making their mind up on their own without someone who is perceived as smart making it up for them.

Of course, this is ironic because most Chomsky fans just parrot what he says and name-drop him regularly.