In the episode, budget cuts at Springfield Elementary School force the janitor Groundskeeper Willie to be used as a French teacher. Expressing his disdain for the French, he exclaims to his class: "Bonjourrrrr, you cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys." The quote, particularly the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", has since entered wider use. It was used particularly in the run-up to the war in Iraq, having been popularized by the conservative "National Review" journalist Jonah Goldberg, to describe European and especially French opposition to military action. A piece in "The Guardian" noted that the phrase was "made acceptable in official diplomatic channels around the globe". Ben Macintyre has written that the phrase is "perhaps the most famous" of the show's coinages and since Goldberg's usage it "has gone on to become a journalistic cliché".