A New Cold War between Paris and Washington

“Ils sont fous ces Américains,” those Americans are crazy. It’s the title of the latest book published in France concerning its relations with the bulky partner across the Atlantic. Several years ago, Phillipe Roger’s “The American Enemy” was published; before World War II French intellectuals were informed by touchy pamphlets like “The American Abomination” or “The American Cancer.” Dealing blows to the cowboys is a literary genre that has a long tradition in Paris. For Jean François Revel, French historian and academic, it was “An anti-American obsession” (also the title of a successful book).

With respect to other nations, French anti-Americanism has a peculiar characteristic — it is completely bipartisan. In Italy or in Germany it is normally the left that scorns “yankee imperialism.” In Paris, the left and right speak with a single voice. And so to see Dominique Strauss-Khan dragged to the courthouse complete with handcuffs and scruffy stubble like a common criminal was too much for the radical Le Monde and the regional daily paper Le Républicain Lorrain, the nouveau philosophe Bernard-Henry Lévi and the right’s standard-bearer Alain Finkielkraut. All felt a notable disdain for the media spectacle that was well summarized by Le Monde: “Is it absolutely necessary that a person’s celebrity should prevent his being presumed innocent by the media. Because even if everyone is equal before the law, not everyone is equal in the eyes of the media.”

But there was also another element to the situation: “What was striking about the image was seeing a high ranking man, a quasi head of state, in the position of a common criminal or delinquent. It was this juxtaposition that elicited such an emotional response,” wrote one commentator. The French reaction, based on a monarchic, almost imperial conception of power, was completely incomprehensible to the Americans. Yesterday it was the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who expressed his incredulity with respect to the French critics with a few phrases recorded by the New York Post: “I think it’s humiliating, but if you don’t want to do the perp walk, don’t do the crime.”

The same New York tabloid has more proof of the difficulty that the two nations have in understanding one another. During the Iraq War, proposed by Bush and despised by the French, the Post published a front page story. When all of America was talking about the Axis of Evil led by Saddam, the Post’s top fold displayed President Chirac hugging German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, calling it The Axis of Weasel.

It was a period when Congress in Washington passed a bill stating that all the menus in Congress should have the term “freedom fries” substituted for “french fries.” To further explain the different approaches of the old world and the new world of the stars and stripes is a popular phrase that has now become almost idiomatic: “Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus.” One ready to defend their right to bear arms, the other favoring relationships created through diplomacy and cooperation. Just replace European with French and there you have it; the only difference is that for the French, Europe is not much more than an extension of the Hexagon.

Complicating things in the love-hate relationship between Washington and Paris is that the ruling classes don’t view it in the same way as the citizens of the more populous urban areas. The reaction to the rough and direct ways of the Americans is very much the view of the French establishment, but is not shared by the people. In fact, “Made in USA” products like McDonald’s have had more success in France than in many other European nations. At the same time, the boycotting of French products during the Iraq War found plenty of American supporters during wartime, although it left many intellectuals rather scandalized. Now the incident involving Strauss-Kahn will only confirm for Americans the stereotype of French debauchery. Maybe and old joke will come back into vogue, as well. “Do you know why the French refuse to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he has a bunch of lovers and he usually wears a hat. Listen people: Saddam is French!”