Anti-French sentiment in the United States

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For general Anti-French hostility see Francophobia

Anti-French sentiment in the United States, as used here, is the manifestation of Francophobia by Americans. It signifies a consistent hostility towards the government, culture, and people of France that employs crude stereotypes. This anti-French sentiment should not be confused with rational criticism of French government and society, though it may be fuelled by French government policies. In some cases anti-French sentiment may be driven by xenophobia, a general aversion toward foreigners.

Contents

[edit] Before the Second World War

The United States of America was formed in a revolution (also known as the War of Independence) by colonies of the British Crown. Relations between the colonies and France prior to this revolution were therefore shaped by British-French relations. The colonials fought for Britain against France in the French and Indian War. Furthermore, the Puritan colonies and Scottish Presbyterians of the inland regions tended toward Anti-Catholicism and so disliked all Catholic nations, possibly in some part due to French persecution of Protestants (see Edict of Fontainebleau). By the same token a few Catholics in the colonies felt uncomfortable with the anti-clerical thought of many French philosophers.

How widespread it was remains uncertain, but during the Revolutionary War and immediately after Americans tended more toward "Francophilia." Many of the French philosophers proved inspirational to the Founding Fathers, and French military aid was pivotal in the defeat of the British. Thomas Paine would later feel admiration for the spirit of Revolutionary France. In patriotic American contexts of the time, France was characterized as the first ally of the American revolutionaries. When the Marquis de Lafayette toured the United States in (1824-1825), he was accorded a hero's welcome as the first American celebrity, and numerous new settlements were named Lafayette, Fayette and Fayetteville.

Not only did the French help the colonists defeat the British with military aid, but they also contributed an extensive amount of financial aid. One of the reasons why the British colonies rebelled was because they could not issue paper money, and could not have gold or silver with which to back that money. Ironically, they nearly lost because of this fact. The Congress issued money, but money which was supported by nothing, and so was practically worthless. For example, one barrel of flour at the time would cost 1,575 continental dollars. In order to prevent the cause from collapsing due to lack of funds, France gave to the rebels what was then worth $6.4 million in gold and silver, and depleted their own treasury in the process. The Netherlands and Spain contributed gold and silver too, although in smaller amounts.

Harvard University professor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury A. Piatt Andrew summed up this Francophile tradition, when he wrote:

   
Anti-French sentiment in the United States
 Few in number and limited in their activities, this little band of American ambulance drivers in France is of course insignificant when compared with the tens of thousands of young Frenchmen who crossed the ocean as soldiers and sailors to help America in 1777. To the valor and devotion of these Frenchmen we owe our very existence as an independent nation, and nothing that Americans have done for France during these last hard years of trial can be thought of — without embarrassment — in relation with what Frenchmen did for us in those unforgettable years of our peril from 1777 to 1781.
   
Anti-French sentiment in the United States

Anti-French feelings did not exist at that time in such a friendly climate.

Despite the positive view some Americans had of The French Revolution, it awakened or created Anti-French feelings among many Federalists. An ideological split was already emerging between Francophobe and Francophile sentiment, with John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and their fellow Federalists taking a skeptical view of France, even as Thomas Jefferson and other Democratic-Republicans urged closer ties. As for the Revolution, many or most Federalists denounced it as far too radical and violent. Those on the Democratic-Republican side disliked its excesses, but remained hopeful it would make France a progressive and liberal nation. Hence the division between conservative and liberal on France perhaps began that early.

On the 14th of July 1790, the Fête de la Fédération was held in Paris to celebrate the new constitutional monarchy ; during the event, a delegation of the United States of America, led by John Paul Jones, founder of the US Navy, joined the feast. It also included Thomas Paine, James Swan, Georges Howell, Benjamin Jarvis, Samuel Blackden, Joël Barlow and William Henry Vernon. The delegation arrived at the Champ de Mars with its flag, the first instance ever of a US flag flown outside of the USA, and was cheered by the people. At the time, the USA were thought in France as a "sister country" of enlightenment and liberty.

Adding to the mix in the 1790s, the French, under a new post-revolutionary government, accused the United States of collaborating with the English and proceeded to impound UK-bound US merchant ships. Attempts at diplomacy led to the 1797 XYZ Affair in which three French agents approached American delegates requesting a tribute of $250,000. This led to a state of Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1801. Relations deepened after the rise of Napoleon and the election of Thomas Jefferson, culminating with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. After the Anglo-American War of 1812, during which British military forces burnt the White House in Washington, France became a main ally of the United States.

With the influx of Irish immigrants in the 1840s and the rise of a populist sub-culture hostile to Britain, France became a rallying-point, though an ambivalent one, for its republicanism was tarnished. American cultured classes embraced French styles and luxuries after the Civil War: Americans trained as architects in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, French haute cuisine reigned at elite American tables, and upper-class women in the U.S. followed Parisian clothing fashions. Following World War I, a generation of rich American expatriates and bohemians settled in Paris. American writer Mark Twain is perhaps the most notable exception to the francophile trend in this period[2].

In the 20th century, the stock-market crash and the Great Depression put a damper on international lifestyles, and a change in temper of internal French politics during the interbellum sent many politically fastidious Americans home.

The First World War had also brought the British and the Americans closer together; and a centuries-old British reservation against the French was easily revived in a nation descended from British colonies. Reservations against the function of the democratic French parliamentarism, against Catholicism, against perceived French arrogance in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, etc. weakened the emotional ties between American Francophiles and the French. Additionally, France's attitudes against Weimar Germany, combining fear and a wish for dominance after the French traumatic experience of WWI (1.5 million French soldiers killed), were by many seen as an obstacle for a lasting European peace, as it mobilized the Germans into revanchism and militarism.

[edit] Post World War II

The French population greeting US troops during the Battle of Normandy
Enlarge
The French population greeting US troops during the Battle of Normandy

The rout of British and French forces at Dunkirk in 1940 against powerful Nazi German forces came as a profound shock to Francophilic Americans. For less Francophilic Americans this collapse seemed rapid enough to start the idea the French are weak or quick to surrender[citation needed]. The anti-French sentiment was common enough among the GIs that at the end of 1945 the US military authorities thought it necessary to distribute to them the explanatory (conciliatory) booklet "112 Gripes about the French" a year or so after their arrival in France.

Franco-U.S. relations worsened further under Charles de Gaulle, who attempted to position France as an independent power inside the western countries alliance. One concern was that the current NATO arrangement had a large number of American troops stationed in France. Americans were unhappy about the actions of de Gaulle and believed he was ungrateful as many Americans had lost their lives liberating France. However after the war the Americans supported France as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

France's troubled history in ruling Vietnam helped make the Vietnam War generally unpopular there. Additionally, the Vietnam war was seen as an imperialist war, echoing the unpopular Algerian war that France had waged a few years before. Hence de Gaulle's government began to criticise the US for intervening in a nation they had learned to leave, thus supporting millions of anti-war protesters in the US and abroad. Ho Chi Minh had made a bid for independence in 1945 with moderate financial support from the United States (and a massive one from the USSR and Communist China).

During de Gaulle's time in office, Franco-U.S. relations seem to have reached a historic low, and there were accusations from American commentators that France was "no longer a Western power."[citation needed], even though de Gaulle supported the US during the major Cold War crises (eg the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the Cuban Missile crisis) of the 1960s.

De Gaulle's support for Quebec independence was partly seen in the US as an unwelcome intrusion of a European power into the affairs of a sovereign country in the Americas, as exemplified by his Vive le Québec libre speech in 1967. This impinged upon the American Monroe Doctrine, in which the US vowed never to allow the reestablishment of direct European influence in the Western Hemisphere (although France still directly controls French Guiana in South America, Martinique, Guadeloupe and other islands in the Caribbean and St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland). This call for the independence of a province of a close ally sharing land borders with the US was seen as a hostile intrusion by a nation that the US viewed as a historic friend. De Gaulle's words managed not only to anger the United States, but also Canada and the United Kingdom who saw it as arrogance[citation needed].

Over the long term, De Gaulle's public statements may have done more than his policies to influence public opinion in the United States. "You have to be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination," (Time, 8 December 1967). Many in the United States believed such remarks were not only crude but reflected profound historical ignorance from a man who owed his position and his nation's freedom to Churchill's support, against many attempts by the Americans to undermine his position. (Roosevelt considered de Gaulle to have "all the attributes of a dictator" and tried to get de Gaulle to share power with the Vichy General Henri Giraud.[1])

Relations improved somewhat under de Gaulle's successors, but tensions reappeared intermittently. In 1969 a French documentary Le Chagrin et la Pitié, English translation The Sorrow and the Pity, brought back an earlier issue. Ever since the Dreyfus Affair accusations of popular French Anti-Semitism had been intermittently newsworthy[citation needed]. This documentary indicated that the French may not have resisted the Nazi-puppet Vichy government as much as many Americans had believed or hoped. The film proved controversial in France, but it primarily aimed at simply encouraging honesty about anti-semitism in France's history rather than inspiring any anti-French hostility. It is likely that few Americans even saw the film. Still many of the Americans who did see it were intellectuals so it may have inspired renewed intellectual interest in anti-semitism's place in French history[citation needed].

Osirak was a light water reactor program in Iraq derived primarily from French technology. In 1981 it was successfully destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in a bid to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. While the origins and the nature of the threat were not overly publicised at the time, the complicity of the French state in the program would set the stage for US-French relations for years to come.

Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986 further increased tension between the two countries. In response to alleged support for a multitude of terrorist operations in Europe, the USA launched a coordinated airstrike against Libya. France denied use of its airspace to the USAF substantially increasing the operational risk. The accidental bombing of the French embassy in Libya during the strike undoubdtedly affected French nationlistic sentiment.[citation needed]

[edit] Iraq War

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Anti-French sentiment in the United States returned to the fore in the wake of France's refusal to support U.S. proposals in the UN Security Council for military action to disarm Saddam Hussein. While other nations also opposed the U.S. proposals (notably Germany, Russia, Belgium and China), France received particularly ferocious criticism[2] because it was seen by invasion proponents as opposing not because of a disagreement over what to do about the situation, but as a way of opposing the United States for the sake of decreasing the diplomatic power of the United States and building an opposing power movement[citation needed].

France was accused in American media of knee-jerk anti-Americanism[citation needed], of hypocritically acting out of economic interests in Iraq's oil (a similar charge was leveled at Russia and Germany, but with far less ferocity), and of hypocritically sending a military presence to Côte d'Ivoire during the Iraq crisis. French President Jacques Chirac in particular was the object of much criticism. A former Prime Minister of France, Chirac was seen as a politician who had fostered close ties with Saddam Hussein over the years and thus was too sympathetic and hesitant to take action against him. Supporters of France disputed some of these allegations, arguing that Franco-Iraqi relations were not as close as they once were. In 2002 France ranked only as Iraq's 13th economic partner. Similarly, whereas the United States bought 50% of Iraqi oil France only purchased just 8%[citation needed]. After the breaking of the “Oil for food” scandal within a UN programme, allegations of corruption involving members of Jacques Chirac's political inner circle were widespread; later investigations of the scandal appear to support these accusations to some extent[citation needed].

France and Russia (both permanent members of the Security Council with veto power) warned that they would oppose the proposed new UN resolution authorising the invasion of Iraq on March 11, 2003. Since it appears unlikely that the plan would have received the required 60% support of the Security Council (see The UN Security Council and the Iraq war for further details), the proposition was cancelled. This caused some to wonder why France was singled out. One explanation might be that France was regarded as a traditional ally, whereas the US relationship with Russia was less close. The last time France used its veto without U.S. agreement was in 1976 over an issue with the Comoros (see Veto history). Many people (including some French people) felt hostility to France's position came from the idea it acted in open competition against the US to convince other members [3], for example in using shuttle diplomacy and economic incentives to win the vote of then-member Cameroon.

Further controversy erupted when President Chirac told EU candidate nations that supported the U.S. that they were "not well-behaved", that they "missed an opportunity to shut up", and that they were "a little careless of the dangers which come with a too-rapid alignment with the American position."[3] This was regarded as an implicit threat to slow the expansion of the EU to those countries that supported the U.S.[4]

It was also argued that accusations of knee-jerk anti-Americanism from France were made so as to avoid discussing France's stated reasons for opposing the war - namely that France did not believe there was a clear and imminent danger from Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, that it was not consistent with the War on Terrorism, and that a war would only destabilise the Middle East while not providing long-term solutions[citation needed]. Thanks to a long experience as a former colonial power in the region, France also warned the US that such a military operation in Iraq would be regarded by the Arabic world as an invasion and could support the emergence of an opposition movement widespread in the whole Middle East. The French position is that the state of the occupation of Iraq vindicates their position[citation needed].

[edit] Other foreign policy issues

[edit] China and Taiwan

During a state visit to China on April 21, 2005 Chirac's Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin lent support to a new "anti-secession" law on Taiwan, allowing China to use "non-peaceful" means to bring Taiwan back into the fold, and continued to push for a lifting of the EU arms embargo against China. France's position was seen as attempting to aid China in altering the balance of power against the US in the East Asia region as China is the most plausible military power to be able to do that. The French support of ending the EU arms embargo drew the most ire from the US and from supporters of Taiwanese independence. The push to end the embargo also inspired disapproval among many critical of Human rights in the People's Republic of China. Hence the US threatened sanctions against the EU unless the embargo was continued. Interestingly France's current eagerness to sell arms to China comes after it had previously sold high-tech fighter jets to Taiwan in the early 1990s.

[edit] Diplomatic friction

Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to France and Germany as "Old Europe" while referring to the many Central European countries which pledged diplomatic backing of the US war as "New Europe," raising long-existent fears that expansion of the European Union would be used by the US to keep Europe politically divided.

Chirac became the subject of harsh criticism in U.S. media [4] and French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin emerged as a prominent critic of U.S. action in Iraq.

[edit] NATO and United Nations

An element of modern American skepticism toward France stems from a perception of weak or token responses to France's NATO and UN commitments to conflicts in the Middle East. Most recently, while France has offered support for the UN mission to stabilize Lebanon, France has stated that it will not participate in the disarmament of Hezbollah.[5] Given that UN resolution 1701 (which France was actively involved in formulating) calls explicitly for "an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL," some Americans and many Israelis see this stance as counterproductive.

[edit] Cultural friction

The cultures and governments of the US and France have some significant differences which cause friction or misunderstanding. A Mark Twain barb reflects the widespread American belief of French linguistic snobbery: "In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language." (Innocents Abroad).

An interesting counterpoint to this reputation of cultural elitism is the popularity of American slapstick comic Jerry Lewis in France. He ended up obtaining the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest civilian award. Anti-French critics have suggested that this proved that the French had poor taste[citation needed].

More recently France's secularism has become something of an issue in the more devout Christian segments of American society. There are some similarities there to the Federalists' reaction to perceived French anti-clericalism. More recently, hostility toward the French was stoked by the new law barring religious symbols in schools.

[edit] Boycott

Some Americans, particularly commentator Bill O'Reilly have called for a boycott of French products. Their effect on U.S.-France trade, however, was negligible. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the United States imported $2.26 billion in French goods and services in February 2004, up from $2.18 billion in February 2002. [6] The calls for a boycott did raise some concerns among businesses. For instance, it prompted French's Mustard to make a press release stating "the only thing French about French's Mustard is the name."[7]

A number of factors may explain the boycott's apparent ineffectiveness. Calls for boycott largely focused on products stereotypically associated with France – wines, cheese, and luxury items (Chanel, YSL, etc.). These constitute a small minority of French trade (0.8%), whereas lesser-profile but higher-revenue products of all sorts were not targeted. Amusingly, French company Sodexho is the sole catering contractor for the United States Navy.[8]

On the other hand, Bill O' Reilly used the Paris Business Review, which at the time did not exist yet, to back the point France had been dramaticaly hit by the boycott he called for. The Paris Business Review was something he made up on the moment yet later it has been published as a prank on the devastating effects of the boycott[9].

[edit] Popular anti-French allegations

Some Americans relish anti-French jokes or cultural stereotypes because of the sometimes-strained relationship between the two countries. Others maintain that the reason for anti-French humor is that French culture allows for such humor explicitly, and indeed returns the favor, suggesting a sort of "when in Rome" attitude frequently referred to by suggesting France as "[a country] which can take the heat."[citation needed]

[edit] Warfare

Characterizations of military cowardice have been applied in efforts to dismiss the French opposition to the War in Iraq as fear and appeasement for Islam. Commentators such as Andy Rooney and Bill O'Reilly have characterized the French as being ungrateful for opposing U.S. foreign policy after U.S. soldiers fought to liberate France from Nazi Germany during World War II.[10] Such feelings were inflamed by an incident in April of 2003, when vandals desecrated the graves of British soldiers who died in France during WWI. Graffiti, including "Dig up your rubbish, it's contaminating our soil" was painted on gravestones and around the cemetery. Although no Americans were buried in that cemetery, the incident further fueled anti-French sentiment in the US.[11]

In 1990s popular culture, the derogatory phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" began as a joke on The Simpsons in 1995. It was used by Groundskeeper Willy's character in a satirical manner, but was picked up around 2002 when it became popular in a few Washington, D.C. circles. National Review contributor Jonah Goldberg claimed credit for making the term known, with its implicit characterization of the French as cowards.[12] In early 2003, George Will from The Washington Post described retreat as "an exercise for which France has often refined its savoir-faire since 1870".[13] Other editorialists have responded that French war involvement throughout history suggests otherwise [14] and in turn the US has been mocked for its late entry into World War 2. Anti-French displays also came in the form of bumper stickers and t-shirts calling for the United States to invade: "Iraq first, France next!", and "First Iraq, then Chirac!"[15]

[edit] Freedom Fries

A well known incident occurred in March 11, 2003 when the cafeteria menus in the three United States House of Representatives office buildings changed the name of french fries to freedom fries. The renaming had started in a private restaurant and had caught on after being reported in the press. French toast was also changed to freedom toast. (This echoed moves during World War I to replace the word sauerkraut with liberty cabbage and hamburger with Liberty Sandwich.) Most Europeans, and a sizable number of Americans, dismissed these name changes as insignificant.[citation needed] The French embassy made no comment, except to note that French fries come from Belgium. "We are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes," said Nathalie Loisau, an embassy spokeswoman. The term "French Fries" is not used in French - "Pommes Frites" is translated as "Fried Potatoes" - as "French" fries are credited to Belgium. In August 2006, the menus reverted to their original names.

[edit] French Language

Congressman Billy Tauzin from Louisiana, the only Cajun in the House of Representatives, removed the French language section of his official website because of anti-French sentiment. Congressman Roy Blunt began using jokes implying that the French were cowards [16].

[edit] Alleged Anti-Semitism

There has also been criticism of allegedly widespread French anti-semitism, influenced in part by the historical context of Vichy France complicity in the Holocaust. Some claim that anti-semitism motivates French criticism of Israel; conversely, others contend that the charge of anti-semitism is used to suppress political criticism of Israel. A widely-reported incident occurred in late 2001 when Daniel Bernard, the French ambassador to London, allegedly called Israel "that shitty little country" and asked "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?" during a private party.[17]. While this was an isolated incident, it reinforced the perception of French anti-semitism. Another incident sometimes considered evidence of anti-semitism in the French media is the purported killing of the child Muhammad al-Durrah, blamed on Israel by France 2. The incident is controversial because of claims that the child's death may have been falsely attributed to Israel or may even have been a hoax staged by France 2. The relationship of the report to alleged French anti-semitism is complicated by the fact that the report was made by long-time France 2 correspondent in Israel Charles Enderlin, who is Jewish and has dual French and Israeli citizenship.

Polls indicate that although modern France has a higher rate of "unfavorable views of Jews" than the US, Canada, or UK, French attitudes are similar to the rest of Western Europe [18]. French attitudes towards Jews may be more polarized than in the U.S.[19]; the percentage viewing Jews unfavorably is about twice as high as in the U.S., yet the percentage viewing Jews favorably also is, at 82%, slightly higher than in the U.S.

[edit] Airbus and Boeing

In business circles, one area of controversy is the dispute over Airbus government subsidies which have helped the European aircraft manufacturer stay competitive with Boeing. Although Airbus is a consortium of European nations, it is sometimes viewed as a French-controlled venture since it has a French co-CEO and it is headquartered in Toulouse, France. This point has been countered by noting that Boeing receives generous US military and NASA contracts that can be seen as equivalent to loans or subsidies. The military-civilian connection is a complex issue for both companies; Boeing's contracts are won in competition with the other major American defense company Lockheed, while EADS, parent company of Airbus, is the second-largest military contractor in Europe. Boeing has also received direct subsidies from Kansas and Washington[20].

[edit] 9/11 Attacks

In 2002, Thierry Meyssan wrote the book "L'Effroyable Imposture" (9/11: The Big Lie) about the terror attacks on 9/11. The book, which became a worldwide best-seller, claims that the September 11 attacks were not caused by terrorists, but rather by the US military deliberately attacking the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Meyssan's work was widely criticized in the French media. In fact, French expressed their feeling of solidarity with the American nation after the 9/11 attacks, and these tragedies increased closeness between the two countries in the time leading up to the Iraq war.

[edit] Mumia Abu-Jamal

In 2006, a street in St Denis, a suburb of Paris headed by a Communist Mayor, was named after Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jamal is a former Black Panther convicted of murder and sentenced to death for killing police officer Daniel Faulkner. (His death sentence, but not his conviction, was overturned in 2001; both sides have appealed that decision.) Faulkner's widow was quoted as saying "It's insulting to the police officers of Philadelphia that they are naming a street after a murderer." Jamal had previously been made an honorary citizen of Paris in October 2003.

Mumia Abu-Jamal has become a worldwide cause célèbre for anti-death penalty activists who claim that he is the victim of a judicial error.

[edit] Socialism

France is often described by American critics as being a "socialist" country. Such claims are commonly charged against European countries by conservative Americans, as the American political culture is generally more conservative than Europe as a whole. Since the foundation of the French Fifth Republic in 1958, France has been ruled by self-described Socialists for 15 years — notably under President François Mitterrand. Although France currently has a conservative government under Jacques Chirac, some of Chirac's proposed policies, such as his support of a global tax to fight AIDS, and his addition of an "environment charter" to the French constitution, are framed as socialist in America by conservatives. In addition, the French comprehensive welfare state system of public education, social services, publicly-funded health care and social security is often criticized as being "socialist" in the United States.

[edit] American Francophile response

In 2003, film director Woody Allen, actor Robert De Niro, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis and writer George Plimpton joined a pro-French tourism campaign as a direct response to anti-French sentiment in the US related to the Iraq invasion. [21]

[edit] Understanding Anti-French sentiments

As any foreign country "phobia", francophobia in the U.S should not be confused with rational criticism of France.[22]. It can rather be analysed as a cultural and sociological phenomenon.

[edit] The missing French diaspora

French historian Justin Vaïsse has proposed that an important cause of public hostility in the U.S. is the small number of Americans of French descent.[23] While he acknowledges that this is not the direct cause of anti-French sentiments, he argues that it explains why these sentiments can be expressed publicly, without being seen as a gross violation of political correctness. Vaïsse contends that by comparison, the public display of such sentiments towards Mexicans or the Japanese would be met by strong disapproval. He proposes that as a result of the limited number of French people who migrated to the U.S. France has no powerful and organised lobby to defend it, making it is socially and politically acceptable to hold negative stereotypes of the French. [24].

[edit] The conflict of Universalism

Pierre Bourdieu and Stanley Hoffmann [25] have suggested that one of the roots of anti-French sentiments in the United States (and anti-American sentiments in France) is the claim of both countries that their social and political systems are "models" that apply to all the countries of the world. Hoffmann and Bourdieu contend that France and the United States view their own societies as universal. Each blames the other for such grandiose pretensions; each rejects the other's claims. This conflict is made worse as the two countries have very different societies. The role of state, the place of religion in the public sphere, and the definition of ethnic identities differ greatly, and in some ways are polar opposites, between France and the United States. Each country's vision of itself is thus called into question by the other. Hoffmann and Bourdieu claim that anti-French sentiments are the product of this conflict.

[edit] See also

[edit] Books & References

  • Edward C.Knox, The New York Times Looks at France, The French Review, N°6, Vol.75, May 2002
  • No other national or ethnic group appears to get the same continually negative treatment in print media reserved for France and the French, with the possible exception of Arabs or Palestinians, and even there, the treatment is not so much cultural as political, linked to a specific context or event. If one were to substitute, for example, "Mexican" or "Japanese" or "Indian" for "French", what would reader reaction be?".
  • Martin A. Schain : "Transatlantic Tensions. From Conflicts of Interests to Conflict of Values?" Colloquium, CERI/GMF, 2 FEBRUARY 2-3, 2004 POLITICS, IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURALISM IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES Department of Politics and Center for European Studies New York University PDF document
  • Pierre-André Taguieff : The force of prejudice : on racism and its doubles (Minneapolis, Minn. : University of Minnesota Press, ©2001. ISBN 0-8166-2372-4, 0816623732)
  • Richard Z. Chesnoff, The Arrogance of the French : Why They Can't Stand Us--and Why the Feeling Is Mutual, Sentinel, April, 2005 ISBN 1-59523-010-6

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=187
  2. ^ See Condoleezza Rice: "Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia."
  3. ^ "France, U.S. vie for support" CNN March 9, 2003
  4. ^ "Safire: Chirac's Latest Ploy" The New York Times April 24, 2003
  5. ^ http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,432019,00.html
  6. ^ Trade in Goods (Imports, Exports and Trade Balance) with France US Census Bureau
  7. ^ "French's mustard denies French connection" CBC News, 27 Mar 2003.
  8. ^ http://www.sodexhousa.com/military.asp
  9. ^ The Paris Business Review
  10. ^ "France's Unpaid Debt" CBS News, February 16, 2003
  11. ^ "Graveyard graffiti taunts the allies", The Washington Times, April 4, 2003 full text
  12. ^ "Inscrutable Racism", National Review, April 6, 2001
  13. ^ "Wimps, weasels and monkeys - the US media view of 'perfidious France'", Guardian Unlimited, February 11, 2003
  14. ^ "The French", The eXile
  15. ^ Aaron's Case, First Iraq then France
  16. ^ "French Jokes Gain Wide Audience" Fox News, February 21, 2003
  17. ^ "'Anti-Semitic' French envoy under fire" BBC December 20, 2001
  18. ^ "Views of Muslim-Americans Hold Steady After London Bombings" Pew Research Center July 26, 2005
  19. ^ "Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics" Pew Research Center July 14, 2005
  20. ^ "See you in court" The Economist March 23, 2005
  21. ^ "Woody Allen promotes France" BBC June 11, 2003
  22. ^ Justin Vaïsse, "Etats-Unis : le regain francophobe", Politique Internationale, Autumn 2002 [1].
  23. ^ http://www.politiqueinternationale.com/revue/article.php?id_revue=12&id=228&content=synopsis
  24. ^ Pierre Verdaguer, "A Turn-of-the-Century Honeymoon? The Washington Post's Coverage of France", French Politics, Culture & Society, vol. 21, no. 2, summer 2003.
  25. ^ Pierre Bourdieu, « Deux impérialismes de l’universel », in Christine Fauré and Tom Bishop, L’Amérique des Français, Paris, F. Bourin, 1992 ; Stanley Hoffmann, « Deux universalismes en conflit », The Tocqueville Review, Vol.21 (1), 2000.

[edit] External links

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