It's probably a combination of things.Volf99 said:
Firstly, a lot of Euro countries have a self-deprecating attitude. Here in the UK, we cheerfully admit that our weather is crap, our national football team is crap (the individual Premier League teams are good, but they consistently amount to less than the sum of their individual players when playing as England), and we can't play rugby or cricket for toffee (two games we invented).
Second, there's resentment towards the people who are percieved as being responsible for ballsing up the country in the first place. Again, the UK: the politicians are inept and dishonest, police are lazy and racist, the bureaucrats have too much power, NHS hospitals are cramped and dirty, bankers are fat-faced buffoons, and the taxman is a universally hated bogeyman who freezes pay, takes away disability benefits and increases VAT during a recession. A lot of British people have an attitude toward government that goes something along the lines of "line them up against a wall and shoot the whole ruddy lot". And don't get me started on the imbeciles who make a hobby of digging holes in the roads and filling them in again over the course of 5 months (when they're not standing around drinking tea, very slowly).
And lastly, I've noticed a lot of Escapists have quite a far-left attitude towards their own countries which, in their minds, equates "patriotism" = "nationalism/racism/HITLER KILLED 6 MILLION JEWS HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING ASFDWAFSFSFDSRAAAARGH", which is quite sad, and which you wouldn't find in countries with equally chequered recent histories such as the US, China and Japan. It's bizarre really, but self-loathing and national shame has almost become a European hobby.
