Francophobia
Le Monde editorial
Translated by Douglas
French original: "Francophobie"
(Le Monde, 2003/02/11)Let's sum things up to avoid repetition. We, the French, are profoundly weak-kneed. Our souls are in "Munich." We are venal, more or less anti-Semitic and, this goes without saying, wildly anti-American. Let's not forget: we are "old," too. This is how a certain American press sees the French. One of the Washington Post's most famous commentators writes that France has cultivated only one art since 1870: retreat or flight. The New York Post accuses France of ignoble ingratitude: the GIs' sacrifice in World War Two forgotten! In its "free opinion" page, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by Christopher Hitchens, who wrote of Jacques Chirac as a "roaring rat" in the process of making France into "Saddam's pimp." All this for which crime? Paris dares not to adhere to the Bush administration’s Iraq policy... The most widespread press comment is that there can be only one reason for Paris’ position: base material interests that smell of gasoline.
We shall not be consoled in observing that this is only the shepherd's reply to the shepherdess. It could only be the response of an America that on this side of the Atlantic is too often portrayed as a gang of cowboys with their fingers on their triggers, lead by a simpleton pastor. We shall likewise take little comfort in noting that francophobia is, as shown by the American researcher Simon Serfaty, a sentiment largely shared among the party of president George W. Bush. It would be equally useless to point out that France is country where books decrying anti-Americanism are great commercial successes. And of course it is vain to recall that at least two key parts of Paris' position deserve to be debated: 1. Iraq does not present such a danger as to require war; 2. a war against an Arab country is precisely what Osama bin Laden wants.The hour is one of caricature. And what can only be followed by bad press is nevertheless revealing: the tone of the media across the Atlantic matches what is often said of France (and Germany) in private in some official circles in Washington. Not all. In public, Tuesday, president Bush tried to seem serene, desirous of minimizing the Franco-American divide. And Jacques Chirac reminded his interlocutors that the conflict over Iraq must not hide what binds the United States and France together.
We will venture a final conclusion from the array of precious phrases drawn from the American press on the subject of France. In the era of globalization news, the growth of exchange, of instantaneous communication, of CNN and the Internet, of 24-hour news, the stereotype is not dead. On the contrary. The "global village" is still the realm of the cliché.
[Posted 2003/02/12]
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