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com French anti-Americanism Spot the difference Dec 20th 2005 | PARIS From The Economist print edition AP AP France quarrels with America not because the pair are so different but be cause they are so alike NESTLING in a valley near Aix-en-Provence, Plan de Campagne is a familiar French landscape. A strip of garish hoardings on stalks reaches into th e distance. Le Plan Bowling, a 30-alley indoor centre, squats near the E l Rancho Tex-Mex grill, a clay-coloured mock hacienda, complete with cac tuses and sombreros. Two McDonald's fast-food joints rival Buffalo Grill , where poulet Kentucky and assiette Texane are served under a red roof topped with giant white buffalo horns. All this is ringed by vast parkin g lots, crammed with gas-guzzling 4X4s. Beyond the Romanesque churches and lavender fields of the tourist trail, France is changing. Slowly, its way of life is beginning to resemble tha t of the country it loves to hate. Over four-fifths of the French now li ve in towns or suburbsmore than in America. French intellectuals and editorialists may stil l philosophise in smoke-filled cafs, but their countrymen flock to Holl ywood films and devour American brands. American culinary sinsfast food , TV-dinnersare on the rise in the land of gastronomy, and with them ch ild obesity. Yet the more that ordinary French people embrace such Ameri can ways, the more the elite seems fixated with an anti-Americanism that runs far deeper than just differences over Iraq. But no other country gets suc h scorn from Americans for harbouring the sentiment. France's defiance o ver Iraq explains much of this today. But that disagreement swelled into an exchange of insults because it drew from a deeper well of American a ssumptions about the Frenchtheir unreliability, ingratitude, supercilio usnessthat are in turn inspired by the force of French anti-Americanism . French anti-Americanism is unlike other European varieties, because it pr evails not only on the political left but on the right too. Anti-America nism in Spain used to be a largely right-wing phenomenon, and the tradit ion is venerable among right-wing writers in Britain. But only in France has it inspired the most potent strain of right-of-centre politics for nearly half a century. President Jacques Chirac derives most of his supp ort from this tradition, whose champion is still Charles de Gaulle, the president who converted France's dollar reserves into gold and, in 1966, defiantly pulled France out of NATO's military command. Some, such as Philippe Roger, the author of L'Ennemi Amricain, detect an undercurrent of anti-Americanism going back to the denigration of pre -revolutionary America by French thinkers in the 18th century. It reappe ared, often as cultural snobbery, in the 19th century, and hardened into contempt in the 20th, most virulently among communists, as American ind ustrial might grew. A rash of publications during the 1920s and 1930sL 'Abomination Amricaine (1930), Le Cancer Amricain (1931)railed aga inst the inhumanity of American life. Out with the people and their products, their methods and their lessons, their dances and their jazz! The sentiment has found an echo, especially i n the columns of France's national newspapers, ever since. The durabilit y of anti-Americanism prompted Jack Straw, Britain's foreign minister, t o call it an ancient French neurosis. Scratch the surface of the denunciations from on high, however, and Frenc h anti-Americanism is not quite what it seems. First, because it is an e lite doctrine that is often not shared by ordinary people. Second, becau se it is used by the political class more as a scapegoat for its own tro ubles than as a reasoned response to real threats. And, third, because i t implies that the French clash with America out of antipathy. Certainly, French intellectuals cherish low-plot, high-art films, and t he French Ministry of Culture leads a guerrilla war to defend such works from a vulgar American invasion. Getty Images Getty Images From France with love In the first 11 months of 2005, the top film was Star Wars: Episode 3 The all-time top box-office film in France is another American blockbust er, Titanic. On the small screen, French versions of American reality television and confessional talk-shows clog up the schedules, spawning t he term la tl poubelle. In 2004, the person most searched for on Google France was Brit ney Spears. The more American brands flaunt their origins, the better they seem to do . In Carrefour at Montesson, a giant out-of-town hypermarket west of Par is, the bakery shelves are stacked with Harry's American Sandwich brea d, a sliced product that has taken the land of the baguette by storm. In the nearby McDonald's, Le road to America menu tempted customers not so long ago with Le New York burger and Le Texas. Such is the success in F rance of McDonald's, a chain that is struggling elsewhere, that its boss was promoted to reinvigorate the brand across Europe. Existentialism on the rocks The French seduction by Americana is not new. The French fell for America n jazz in the 1920s and 1930s, welcoming black American musicians who sa w France as a haven from the racism at home. Duke E llington, Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong were mobbed when they toure d France. American writers, too, from Richard Wright to Henry Miller, ma de a home in Paris, finding a reception and stimulation that eluded them at home. Sartre and de Beauvoir adored America's jazz, its novels, its films and its whisky. Of course, a taste for American brands or popular culture does not necess arily mean a taste for America, its citizens or leaders. Consumption pat terns are no guide to affinity, argues Mr Roger: American brands are pop ular in the Arab world, after all. Yet even the evidence for popular ant i-Americanism is ambivalent. For sure, 85% of the French disapprove of George Bush's international pol icies, according to the latest German Marshall Fund transatlantic survey , compared with 72% of all Europeans and 62% of the British. Mr Bush's F rench supporters are a silent minority: just 11% would have voted for hi m, said one poll before the 2004 presidential election. And today's Amer icaGod-fearing, fixated by terrorism, militaristicis not the Europhile America of old that a nostalgic France often yearns for. In one 2004 poll, 72% of the French had a favourable view of Americans, more even than in Britain (62%) or Spain (47%). Some 68% of those questioned in another po ll the same year said that what unites France and America was more impor tant than what separates them. During the 60th anniversary of the Norman dy landings in 2004, politicians were frosty, but the people at large sh owed an outpouring of gratitude to American veterans. Even in the 1950s, as anti-Americanism raged on the left, ordinary French people did not express hostility to America. Between 1952 and 1957, acc ording to Michel Winock, a French historian, polls found the French on a verage unequivocally favourable to America. Young French bankers, cooks and students head for New York or California. On the lef t, Laurent Fabius snapped up a short summer job lecturing at the Univers ity of Chicago in 2003 and again in 2004. On the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, who found an hour to entertain Tom Cruise at his ministry in Paris, tol d a New York audience that The dream of French families is that their c hildren go to American universities. Even Mr Chirac has fond memories o f a summer at Harvard. He may rail about American cultural imperialism, but could not resist inviting Steven Spielberg to the Elyse Palace to a ward him the lgion d'honneur. In truth, the allergy to America was always a rather intermittent complai nt. When we recall the fervent anti-Americanism of the left in the 1950s and of the right in the 1960s, we can't help but be struck by the transfor mation of attitudes and sensibilities that have opened the door to Amer ican mass and high culture. The transformation of attitudes has even re sulted in general support for American foreign policies. Survey data sh ow that while France manifested the strongest hostility towards the Uni ted States in the pos...
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