Yeah the normans invaded from the south which is probably what you're thinking of, but that doesn't mean that the southern english are similar to the french any more than the average english person. Textbooks on human geography, southern england (not a whole, parts of it) had a uniquely French Atmosphere retained from the days of the norman nobility, opposed to the more Saxon background of Northumbria. From New England, some of the most educated people on earth, are afflicted with map blindness.