Antiamericanism and Francophobia

I received a fax this week from the Director of the Memorial in Caen, the imposing Normandy museum devoted to the fight for world peace and to the sacrifices of the American and other allied soldiers who landed in Normandy in 1944 to liberate France from Nazi occupation. He was passing along, at the writer’s request, a letter he had gotten from a now elderly French woman who, as a young girl living near Cherbourg, had witnessed the bravery and the death of many of those young men. It had been written the day French television showed the New York Post splashing a front-page photo of rows of white crosses in an American military cemetery in France under the headline: “They died for France, but France has forgotten.” “Dear Mr. Director,” she wrote. “Please tell our American friends, that they remain friends because we were in contact with those who sleep now under the little white crosses of the cemeteries in France as well as with all the civilians who died. In 1944, I was near Cherbourg and I saw all those deaths. But I also keep in my memory the kindness of the American soldiers. It is all those memories that make me hope so much that a diplomatic solution can be found to the current crisis with Iraq. Tell them, I beg of you, Mister Director. Tell them how much we remain in the debt of all those dead heroes and also to those who managed to return safely to their homes. Thank you. Madame Bernadette Mouchel.” Oddly enough, when I received the fax because the Memorial has me listed as an American correspondent, I was trying for the umpteenth time to wrestle, unsuccessfully, with an article that would explain the mood in France and the feeling of the French about the prospect of a war with Iraq, and even worse, a rift in France’s relations with the United States. How could I do it better than Madame Mouchel? In a nutshell, she had summed up the anguish of a people who almost universally admire America for its liberties and opportunities, for its dynamism and democracy, who haven’t forgotten what they owe to the Americans who fought and died on French soil in two world wars, but who view the current U.S. administration’s  course with alarm and dismay.That’s why they have been cut to the quick and really shaken by what is being portrayed here as an outburst of “Francophobia” in the United States because of France’s opposition to an immediate attack on Iraq. To be sure, there is an irrational side to such sensitivity. The French media produces constantly critical, often scathing and unfair comment about America and Americans, which never seems to rattle anyone here, but often is viewed, understandably, as anti-Americanism on the other side of the Atlantic. Often it is prefaced with a disclaimer that the criticizing person or body really isn’t anti-American per se. “But…” For the most part this is true. But the “But…” part can be quite disagreeable. Basically, we are used to it, particularly in any situation where the French fear they will be viewed as simply following America’s lead and not acting as the great nation they still believe they are. Historically, in those cases, Washington has tended to sigh and roll its eyes but eventually just to brush it off as another outburst of the French being the French again. Unfortunately, the French, who expect it and similarly shake it off when it comes from the British, their historical adversaries, aren’t used to such barbed criticism from us. Not until now. Luckily, French-American disagreements have generally followed the pattern of an old married couple that squabbles a lot but never allows their periodic tiffs to destroy the marriage. The two countries are too linked by history, tradition and shared democratic values for it easily to be otherwise. It doesn’t mean it’s ever been easy or that the pattern can’t be broken. But it does provide hope that France and the United States, somehow, some way will get past their current differences about the advisability of launching an attack now against Sadam Hussein’s regime and go on as firm allies–until the next squabble. That would make Madame Mouchel and a lot of us who love both these countries very happy. Bonjour Paris is pleased to have Robert Korengold as a contributor.