McDo, Macaroons and Republican Francophobia

France has a president who rides horses in his jeans, holding the reins in one hand, on a Camargue that can largely hold its own against the wide open spaces of Arizona.

France has politicians who tweet and make lip dubs.

France also has a former minister who remembers fervently the GI landing in Normandy when he was not even born in 1944. That is some commitment.

And yet, and yet…

And yet, France remains a big old foil to candidates in the Republican primaries.

For instance, when merry Newt Gingrich wants to slander Mitt Romney, he comes up with a video clip in which he strives to demonstrate how the former governor of Massachusetts is in reality a “liberal” who makes taxpayers finance abortions, a wimp when it comes to defense, who would say anything to win — but crucially, that he could say this “anything” in French. Because, oh highest of treasons, Mitt speaks French. Cross-fade to a young Mitt Romney addressing the camera in the tongue of Molière: “Bonjour, je m’appelle Mitt Romney.”

Yes, Mitt speaks French; blame it on his attempt at evangelizing France in the ‘60s, good little Mormon that he was, devoted to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. Is it because France was not responsive to his good word that he, also, abandons her today? Ungrateful Romney, who back in 2007, was planning a political campaign with, among other things, bumper stickers saying “First, not France.”

Yet though Gingrich self-righteously denigrates Romney’s second language, he too learned French. Worse still, the candidate who loves to compare himself to General de Gaulle lived in France for two years, between 1956 and 1958, on the second floor of a Loire chateau, not far from Orleans, homeland of quince marmalade. And it was in this France that Gingrich’s political vocation arose, in Verdun to be precise, where he supposedly decided to become a politician to prevent such carnage happening again. Then, Gingrich spoke out for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency, the exploitation of the moon’s mineral resources and getting poor children to work, to teach them the value of the aforementioned work.

For Rick Santorum, father of seven children, jolly fellow opposed to abortion even in cases of rape, France should be summed up to one date only: 732, when Charles Martel stopped the advance of the Arabs in Poitiers. And even then, Poitiers is a bit too high on the map. Because the France of today is, to this candidate drenched in Christian values, a country where Mohammad “is the fifth most popular name among boys” — and from Rick’s mouth, that is not a compliment.

But why is France such a scarecrow for Republicans?

The answer, the real answer, is not to be found in her Muslim population or her opposition to the Iraq war in 2003, her universal healthcare system, her disheveled intellectuals and their gaping shirts, her inclination to debauchery or her raw milk camembert. Neither does the Republicans’ electoral francophobia have to do with the tendency of French people to think rednecks are hicks.

No, it is really because the French have depraved McDonald’s, that the Republicans loathe France. “McDo,” who through its McCafé tailor-made for France, has almost become a tea room where one can chat over an extra-strong black coffee while dipping macaroons in it. “McDo,” who, in France, is introducing table service!

This is as grievous a crime as having, for the opening of the Super Bowl, a Gallic rooster singing atop a manure heap, in lieu of Janet Jackson with her nipple out.