France's Americans have the blues
Frédéric Gerschel and Charlotte Deliry
Translation by Douglas
French original: "Le blues des Américains de France"
(Frédéric Gerschel and Charlotte Deliry, Le Parisien, 2004/01/16)While the number of Americans who visited France dropped in 2003, a great part of those who live in, or pass through France complain of a genuine harassment. “We've had it,” they say.
It's not easy to be an American in Paris these days, as the political and strategic disagreements between France and the United States continue to grow. Since the Iraq war, many students and businessmen or just tourists passing through admit they are experiencing a kind of pressure they had not expected: off-color remarks, dubious jokes, verbal (if not physical) assaults. Have the French become Americanophobes? “Yes,” said Bernard Kouchner in le Parisien Dimanche of January 4. “Bush has been made into a great enemy, as though this could hold an uneasy and insecure country together. France is not right in its head.”
Justine, 31, a New Yorker working a lingerie boutique and who has lived in France for nearly eight years, does not hide her discomfort. “You have to be tough. Otherwise you get it in the face all day long. At first, it can make you smile. But, after hearing that Americans are fat oafs, ignorant and stupid people, only fit to stuff themselves at McDonald's, you get worn down. We're on the receiving end of a kind of harassment and it's not just from the Maghreban community. In the US, my friends ask me what I'm still doing here. I tell them that I like France and that I don't want to return even if sometimes the thought crosses my mind.” Last September, Justine says she hit bottom: “I was shopping in a store near porte d'Orléans. At the check-out, I asked if I could pay by transferring money from the United States. The guy behind started shouting: 'I'm fed up with these Americans. Fuck Clinton. Fuck Bush and fuck you, too.' He was hysterical. Before leaving, he spat on me. I was so upset I started to cry.” A fifth-year student at the Center for International Research in Paris, Nicolas Dumont, from New Jersey, has also had an unpleasant experience. “I was in a café with a girl I know and we were speaking in English,” he says. “A woman of a certain age got up and shouted at us cruelly [in English]: 'Go and defend your president now!' I'd never seen this person before. How could she talk to me this way? I don't support Bush's politics but neither do I accept gratuitous criticism of my country. This unreasonable anti-Americanism is tiresome.”
“They called my son Bush” Also a student in Sciences-Po, Natasha Burlet, 25, from Long Island, admits that several months ago she started modifying her behavior. “I'm fed up with always being on the defensive. So I stick with other Americans. I especially avoid discussing politics with French people.” Recently, in the metro, Natasha saw a group of American tourists having trouble: “I heard people making fun of them. Remarks like, 'They're so vulgar. What are they doing over here?'” Married to a Frenchman, Suzie Bachelot, who has lived in the small village of Eyguiè`res (Bouches-du-Rhône) for many years, feels that those who know her haven't changed their feelings about her. But, in school, her two sons, 13 and 15, are often subjected to unpleasant remarks from their schoolmates. Will this be a long-lasting enmity or a passing squall? Edouard MacDonnell, president of very influential social and economic association, the American Club of Paris (which has 450 members), calls for calm: “We're having a rough time but it won't last. The French are furious with Bush and the current administration but, with travel, cinema, music, in some respects they've never been as Americanophile as they are now.” In May, the American Club will celebrate its centenary year. The theme announced for the festivities: “How can we improve relations between France and the United States?”
Frédéric Gerschel and Charlotte Deliry
Le Parisien, Friday January 16 2004
[Posted 2004/01/18]
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