Pardon my French

Is the French language more polite than Hiberno-English? Fine Gael MEP, John Cushnahan, went to see the Irish movie, I Went Down in Brussels last week. Looking at the French subtitles, he was surprised to find that the best they could do with a tirade of traditional exclamation ending with "B*****ks!" was a rather wimpish "Mon Dieu!" and that the French speakers were informed that one character said "tu es un joueur de footbal", when in English he had described him as a "head-the-ball".