Franco-Phobia
Francophobia is the American media's latest pastime. France, the experts inform us truculently, is the Western world's "cheese-eating surrender monkey" and a nation of anti-Semites desperately trying to assert their long lost power by pushing their agenda on the world stage. Hearing all the opprobrium heaped upon the Gauls, you'd think they had publicly announced their support for Al-Qaida, or fired a missile at the White House. But no, France's only crime is that, oh horror, they objected to the war in Iraq
American commentators seem to forget that France is not the only country to have opposed the war - what happened to Germany and the millions around the globe who took part in the anti-war demonstrations? And how about the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose opinions are ignored in the patriotic outbursts of the US press?
But heck, it's more fun to pick a convenient scapegoat and let loose a barrage of abuse. Maureen Dowd, writing in the New York Times, after dubbing French foreign minister Villepin the 'leader of the Euro-whiners', comments on his clothes, literary endeavours, and 'visits to the tanning salon'. Such rabid efforts to ridicule the French are, of course, a thin cover for the commentator's lack of any real argument.
Another dominant theme of France-bashing is accusations of anti-Semitism, which anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of French politics knows are completely spurious. Anti-Semitism is not an issue in French politics these days; the country certainly has an array of other problems, including social inequality, unemployment and racism against its North African minority - but anti-Semitism stopped being widespread in France several decades ago.
But the worst aspect of the war of words waged by the US press is the exploitation of World War II: 'we saved you in WW2 and this is how you thank us?'. The concept that France should blindly obey America just because the US intervened in a European war six decades ago is as ridiculous as saying that America should follow French foreign policy because France helped them achieve independence 200 years ago.
Tom Friedman declared that 'France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly'. Well, the US is so caught up with ridiculing France so as to eliminate any debate, it's getting pathetic. The proposal that we kick France off the Security Council and replace it with India, and another commentator's description of France's place on the Council as 'an unearned quirk of history', are completely ludicrous. So France doesn't deserve to be on the Security Council, but a Communist dictatorship and a 'democracy' that ends its hostage crises by killing 200 people with toxic gas are paragons of responsible leadership?
In any case, if Security Council eligibility was only about the countries' size or whether they toe the US line, we might as well throw multi-lateralism to the trash-heap right away. Oh wait, the United States have already done that.
24th Apr 2003