Trent and Joe have launched a discussion here about France and our relationship. Instapundit and Vodkapundit have weighed in as well.
In reading these, I kept getting a vague discomfort, kind of like the feeling you get when the moules you eat aren’t bad but aren’t really right either. First let me lay out some foundations.
I’m not an expert on France, French politics, or modern European international politics (I don’t think Trent, Joe, or the others are, either…that’s not a disqualification, just a comment on the limits of my and our knowledge and experience). I do have some direct experience; my first wife is French, and she and I traveled and stayed there frequently for ten years and lived there for a year a long time ago while I finished work on my Masters. Her late father was a general in the French Air Force (the real deal; he flew bombers from England during WWII, and served in Indochina and Algeria, as well as a tour as an attaché in Washington D.C.), and was on the board of one of the three largest French companies when I knew him.
My advisor in Berkeley also was a student of French history and economics, and even published a book, Modern Capitalist Planning: the French model on the subject.
I say this just to give some perspective to my opinions…I have no special knowledge; these opinions come from my memory of wide-ranging discussions with a number of interesting people, and the fact that I still read Le Monde occasionally.
First, I think that Trent and Steve are just flat wrong when they criticize France for not acting like an ally. They are right that France isn’t acting like an ally, but wrong to assume that it is or ever was.In my impression, the driving force behind French international politics is the simple desire to carve out a space where France…even as a second- or even third-class world power…can lead. And those areas are twofold: defining the bureaucracy that they hope will subsume national governments, and in dealing with Africa and the Middle East, where they feel that their ‘benign’ colonial history…to them their willingness to withdraw from Algeria and bring the pieds-noirs home counts as that…gives them special status as the ‘portal’ between these regions and the West.
We in the U.S. are cming to perceive a great conflict between Islamist forces and the West, while the French see the Islamists as people who can be dealt with, leader to leader, and see an great opportunity for France (and Europe) as becoming the gateway between the oil-rich Middle East and the West.
This is totally in line with French diplomatic history in which the major defining principle has been to define themselves against whoever is in power at the moment; first their peer power, Prussia, then England, then the United States. They have always been comfortable that with their ‘realism’ and diplomatic skills, they could reach some rapproachment with the other side, whether that was the Soviet Union, Libya, or now Iraq.
Our frustration with France comes from our (not unreasonable) assumption that a) since we keep bailing them out of military difficulties; b) we rebuilt their economy twice; and c) they lived under our military protection for twenty years, they would act as allies and assume that our interests were parallel, with small differences involving metric v. English measurement and whether we would sell Michelin or UniRoyal tires to various third-word accounts.
They don’t feel that way.
They loved DeGaulle for navigating between the force fields of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and for developing the ’force de frappe’ which they felt ensured France’s military independence.
Trent argues that they are in the midst of a ‘moral collapse’ as state and corporate corruption combines with the increasingly ungovernable banlieues (50’s and 60’s suburbs largely occupied by African and Arab immigrants) and an elite that has lost its philosophical compass.
Let me suggest an alternative theory, which I believe better accounts for the facts.
France is a bureaucratic state, with both the government and private sector fully enmeshed in a dirigiste bureaucracy, with all of the problems which that may entail (see my own writing on the subject). The French have what would be, to many of us, a flexible morality that goes beyond the public acknowledgement of the Prime Minister’s mistresses and illegitimate children, and to the notion of ‘favors’ of various types, both political and corporate.
The political compass of the bureaucracy is not only their own individual advancement, but the institutional advancement of France, and the empowerment of France in a world dominated by larger and more powerful players. The EU would set this triumph in cement, as France joins hands with Germany and takes over Europe.
France has never cared about the U.N. or international process except as a forum in which it could maneuver to maintain its independence.
The French are vaguely amused at our ‘moralistic’ view of international affairs. They pride themselves on cold-eyed realism, and in fact can be astoundingly bloody-minded when it suits them (see the Rainbow Warrior, pretty much anything about the Algerian war). If the 9/11 attacks had happened in Paris and say, Toulouse, large parts of the Middle East would be smoking holes right now, U.N. mandate or no U.N. mandate.
France, like most of the cities in Europe, has for years had a crime rate that would stagger a politician in the U.S. Criminals recently robbed an armored car with a RPG; in the 70’s and 80’s, well-off families (like my in-laws) kept ‘beater’ cars in town, and luxury cars at their homes in the country. The locks on the doors of their Ave de la Gde Armee apartment … in the late 1970’s … put to shame the security systems I see on my friends’ in New York or Chicago.
It is increasing, and there are strong reactions to it … Le Pen as one example. First, the signals of social breakdown Trent discusses are not unique to France (see the recent decision by police in the U.K. not to investigate property crimes), and second, the ‘breakdown’ is highly unlikely to happen, because before it gets to that state, I predict that we will see an authoritarian crackdown that would make moderate Republican fans of ‘law and order’ blush. I believe that one reason that the French are more sanguine about this is that they are convinced that the GSIGN can and will deal with any domestic disorder before it becomes a true threat to the social order.
France is, to the best of their belief, pursuing a path that is in the best interests of France.
Now, I think they are wrong; I think they are wrong as they place their reliance in a bureaucratic legitimacy; wrong in their vision for Europe; and wrong in their approach to the issues posed by Islamist Arabs.
And I’m amused to taunt them as members of the “Axis of Weasels”.
But it’s a crucial mistake to pound the table and attribute their actions to impending moral and social collapse; it’s a mistake because it prevents us from dealing with them in a clear-eyed, rational, forceful yet respectful manner. They aren’t going anywhere. Our relationship with them is going to change; but in the next decades we will need all the temporary allies we can get, and we can hope that it will doubtless change again.
Actually your theory explains the Vichy armistice with the Third Reich in 1940 very well, which is the sign of a substantive historical thesis. Why should France continue in a British alliance if all it meant was a brutal occupation of metropolitan France along with Italo-German conquest of North Africa? The war, as it was construed in 1939, was over by the end of June 1940. The fact that Churchill was right and Petain wrong only puts Vichy in the “cheese eating surrender monkey” column due to hindsight.
The response to Colin Powell’s presentation by the French A2 news (via C-SPAN) was spectacular to watch. In short, it was a complete denial of the evidence presented. The Weekly Standard’s David Brooks provides a good summmary of the broadcast.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/215jfyfl.asp?ZoomFont=YES
I am utterly baffled by the logic of the French.
Yeah, I saw part of that. They played it (translated) on cable.
They were spinning REALLY HARD. I wish I’d seen more just to be sure, but they were leaving out all the pro-war arguements and letting lots of easy to refute anti-war stuff past.
On the other hand the commentators didn’t hold an unchangable stance. They left the door open, somewhat.
How corrupt is French TV? I was watching channel 2. Is it just a government mouthpiece? Does it have a well known political affiliation?
I’m used to clear thinking, earnestness and obvious political independence on state owned CBC in Canada. The French channel didn’t come off that way at all – it was more like FOX.
Anyone more familiar with it?
Yeah, I think we have to get past the jokes. They don’t have their brains in the drawer. They have a history of acting out of pure self interest, or what they perceive as their self interest, and hiding behind a veneer of culture. French colonialism was as cruel as any, they have a long history of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus case), and the French Foreign Legion was just a cover for gangsters, sadists, and sociopaths.
They clearly seek to dominate Europe by building a cumbersonme bureaucracy which they control. They wasted no time in asserting themselves with brute force in the Ivory Coast.
They are very smart slimeballs.
I don’t have to say much except that I agree with the main points.France’s (and Germany’s) big project for decades has been to build EU into a global superpower not reliant on the United States.I don’t think the French are blind to the damage they are causing to the Euro-American relations.This is their way of saying “we don’t need you anymore,so you can shove it,Yankee!”
Thanks for the link, A.L. – but that was just my assessment of the trouble they had gotten themselves into.
What should we do about it? For that, read:
http://windsofchange.net/archives/002990.html
Hi, Joe,
At the end of the article, you write:
“But it’s a crucial mistake to pound the table and attribute their actions to impending moral and social collapse; it’s a mistake because it prevents us from dealing with them in a clear-eyed, rational, forceful yet respectful manner. They aren’t going anywhere. Our relationship with them is going to change; but in the next decades we will need all the temporary allies we can get, and we can hope that it will doubtless change again.”
A good many of my father’s ancestors were from New England, having arrived there well before the Revolution. (They weren’t Puritans, but they did share some of the same attitudes.) Too many of my father’s family (by his own account) held the old Puritan belief that prosperity was a sign of God’s favor. Left unspoken was a corollary that they also believed: that poverty was a sign that one was on God’s shit-list.
I do not believe that the French, individually or collectively are on God’s shit-list. Yet the Universe does have laws, and individuals and societies ignore them at their peril. That peril can take the form of poverty or societal dysfunction. That French society is so badly screwed up, and that they are not prospering, should be a big red blinking light on their national dashboard telling them that *something* is badly wrong. And that American society is generally in good shape, and that we are so very properous, should tell the French that America is doing something right.
And the only way that the French (or any other people) are ever going to learn to shape up is if their mistakes are pointed out to them (not necessarily by the United States) and, if necessary, have their noses rubbed in those mistakes.
Yes, we will have to deal again with them someday, which is why we want to treat them with some consideration– why make enemies of them when we don’t have to? But we do them a disservice if we don’t teach them that acts (like twisting Article V of the NATO treaty beyond recognition in the recent war in Afghanistan) or failures to act (like failing to uphold their treaty obligations) have consequences.
Here’s to the collapse of the Fifth Republic. The French desperately need a sixth.
Oooops.
This is what I get for forgetting that you’re not a solo act anymore, Joe.
Sorry, Armed Liberal, for attributing your entry to Joe…. ^_^;;
One big error that the French are making is to imagine that they can manage the problems that the Muslim countries pose by doing just leader-to-leader dealings. We can’t bargain our way to a solution when the regimes we are dealing with depend for their survival on running their affairs in ways that put them in direct conflict with us. In order to bargain there has to be a mutually satisfactory solution. There isn’t one.
A similar problem exists vis a vis the terrorist networks. They don’t want to bargain. Their main goals are completely incompatible with the nature of our civilization.
The problem we face with the French is that they are unwilling to accept the scale of the threat. They want to believe that any outcome that furthers their own narrowly defined interests will not result in an excessively large threat to the rest of civilization. The strength of their desires to pursue and protect their own interests blinds them to the scale of the developing threat.
A well written post, but complete and totally off. I have responded to this on our blog. Anyone defending the loathsome French has got some great courage that is for sure.
Andrew, that’s not an argument… give us an URL or two.
And I’m not reading A.L. that way – he isn’t defending them, he’s saying they aren’t about to collapse, so we need to see them clearly. Once we do, perhaps we may be able to use them on occasion in full awareness of who and what they are (and in the area of intelligence sharing we do – they do a very good job survelling the Islamists).
A.L. also uses the words “rational” and “forceful,” which to me doesn’t rule out retaliation for “Axis of Weasels” activities. He’s just saying that revenge is a dish best served cold, and don’t get carried away.
At least, that’s how I’m reading it.
The French look out for the French.
They find us easy to manipulate because we get defensive when we’re accused of being selfish or bullying or insensitive–because they are all these themselves, and not ashamed of it. They know accusing us of that pushes our buttons, so they keep doing it.
That seems to be what you’re saying, isn’t it, Armed Liberal?
That we should basically see the relationship of one of convenience, and let the rest go, because they will always strive to both accomodate and adapt to circumstances to remain a major power–and will do whatever it takes to do that.
Makes sense.
Historically, they are our oldest ally. Titularly, they still are. But trusting them, apparently, is a different matter.
A.L.
I waited a bit to see what others would say/comment on your post before I dropped my two bits. It strikes me that you are living up to the latter have of your handle. You visibly itch when the subjects of morality and spirituality are brought up, just like most Democrats and Europeans.
That, BTW, is why most liberals, democrats and Europeans get on so well. And it is why all three are horribly inept when they are dealing with people who are motivations primarily stem from issues of morality and spirituality.
People must have a faith to believe in. Time and again secularists make the mistake of thinking; “if only we could free the people of the ‘superstition of religion,’ all would be right in the world.” All the time missing the civilizing influence of religious codes on people, and the cultural antibodies they provide to damn fool ideas like Communism and Fascism.
You have a distinct point about French crime and the GSIGN, but it isn’t the point that you think you are making.
The difference between the crime America faced in the 1970’s and the crime France (and other European states too include Britain) faces today is that the criminals from the French “cities of darkness” hate the very concept of France and French culture in general.
American criminals in the 1970s were not a threat to America physically or existentially.
The Muslim criminals of the “cities” are both. They are the internal 5th column for a foreign invasion that the French elites don’t want to face up to for what it would mean for their governing multi-culturalist ideology.
The French gave up their “God of Nationalism” because it was crushed repeatedly and publically many times in the last 100 years, not because they wanted too. The wars with the Germans in 1870, 1914 and 1940 destroyed their totem of nationalism at home. They also lost in Dien Ben Phu/Vietnam, the Suez Canal to American intervention and finally the 4th Republic fell over Algeria abroad.
The French nationalist “God” had failed so the French elites adopted a new one, what is now referred to as Transnational Progressivism. They look to me to be about 3/4 of the way from nationalism to “full Tranzie.” That is why you keep seeing things like the unilateral Ivory Coast intervention popping up from time to time in French foreign policy.
At home, the French seem to have made the full transition to Tranzie. The repeated punishment of white Frenchmen for defending themselves of their women from Muslim criminals, while letting off said criminals, is a tool of social control. Conditioning Frenchmen to rely on the GSIGN, the government anything but themselves is not western. In so many words, Tranzies have abandoned their western heritage and effective self-defense is to close to American style individualism to be tolerated.
The Tranzies “want a herd and not a pack.”
That is why France is going to get Le Pen’s party as the next ruling government. The Tranzies have yet to fully suppress the Western Democratic nation-state in Europe, as the Netherlands recently showed.
If Chirac does not deliver on reduced crime, the French people will vote for a fascist who would “play Serb” to the unassimilated French Muslims over anyone else, if they feel mortally threatened by the Muslim criminals of the “cities.” And the point of my links to the posts over on Little Green Footballs is that they do right now.
For the French elite, the free election of Le Pen would rub it in their face that their “Tranzie God” has also failed. The result would be an evil that is as empty souled as Saudi Wahhabis.
Sigh.
Off to a family dinner, so longer response later, but a quick one now: I’m extremely comfortable talking about my morality and about making moral judgements about what we do, but I’m damn cautious and uncomfortable driving our relations with others based on our moral judgements of them. I’m no relativist, but I’m not ready to convert others to my morality at swordpoint.
This deserves a longer, more thoughful response, and it’ll be here soon.
A.L.
“That is why France is going to get Le Pen’s party as the next ruling government.”
With respect, don’t do the brown analyst’s acid, man. It’s dangerous. Symptoms include analysis that looks at the shifting elements of the system and forgets to look at what is keeping it in place – and there is almost always much more of the latter than the former, even under periods of decay.
IF serious problems continue in France, AND nothing sufficiently spectactlar happens to force a government crackdown, AND the Socialist voters don’t pick up the lesson of the last election and still fragment in early rounds… then Le Pen MAY be in round 2 again. Any one of those assumptions fails for any reason, and you lose the bet.
I think it’s (just) possible to imagine Le Pen up to 20-22% support (from 15-16%) next time if things break his way, maybe 25-30% if things completely went to hell AND the government ran into scandals so big they mattered even in France.
Even 20% would be a significant shift, at least in terms of standard democratic politics – it would mean that either his natural base has grown by almost +33% (and since they’re the economically marginalized, bad news), or a breakthrough beyond (a very rare political event). But even 30% tl. wouldn’t be enough to win, and beyond that starts to look like Lotto odds from this point in time.
Too many assumptions, too little knowledge, too dramatic a set of shifts to credibly propose without serious backup.
Yeah, I would make a pretty substantial bet against LePen’s election to PM in the next five years…
…dinner at the restaurant of choice in the winner’s home city??
…I’ll caution you that I know (and like) some non-cheap restaurants here in L.A.
Again, you (possibly incidentally) raise some serious issues which deserve serious response; give me some time and I’ll reply.
But the bet’s up for the world to see.
A.L.
George Will is overly fond of repeating the adage that “nations don’t have allies, they have interests.” As tired as it is, the phrase does help explain the idiocy of the French . . . . . all they’re doing is pursuing what they see as their national self-interest. They’re very, very wrong about that, but after all, they ARE FRENCH.
In almost every age, international alliances have shifted based on near-term objectives. Athens and Sparta drove off Persian invaders together, but in a generation’s time, Sparta was allied with Persia in a war with Athens. Go figure.
I agree with A.L. about most/many/all of the reasons behind French idiocy – and they do have a serious problem with their own Muslim immigrant population – but at the end of the day, all they’re doing is pursuing what they think is best for THEM.
But one important fact they’ve got wrong is that it’s critically important to be on the winning side in a war – to the winner go the spoils and all – and the French will rue the day they pissed off an American milquetoast such as Colin Powell. In an era where there’s only one superpower, any rational party ought to know better, but then the U.S. hasn’t been very good at teaching anybody a lesson, so far. Let’s hope that changes.
I’m French. I think it’s better to say it first this way you won’t loose any time by reading what I’ve got to say.
I’m sure you are all wondering why the French can oppose their selves against the American government’s decision of war in Iraq….
First, let me tell you that this attitude isn’t taking place just in France, and I know it because I lived I lived in many countries (South America, northern America, Europe and even in the United States) and many people from those continents… should I say a large majority are against that war. I lived in the USA and my friends there told me that even in your country there are more and more people asking for peace. In France for what we know, Iraq isn’t as armed as the us government says. we are way more concerned by north corea. We are very concerned by the people living in Iraq that would like saddam Hussein to leave, but they are also hoping to do not receive any american bombs on their family’s homes. So yes we rather like a more or less peaceful ending for this crisis. Let me teach you that during the gulf war, it has been inspectors of the UN that have been able to dissemble a big part of Iraq’s massive destruction weapons and not the American army anyway. So why can’t you accept that the blue helmets (the UN forces) get there and bodyguard the inspectors of the UN for a full check up supported by a pacific army.
Secondly, we, western Europeans, don’t think that the American government is going to do something different in Iraq after the war than in Afghanistan or in any country he has ever fought against during the last 4 decades, which means an other dictator controlling the country, friendly to the USA’s government at the beginning, or a destroyed country. You suffer from Ben laden. Don’t you ever wonder who gave him its first weapon?
You think our country is corrupted…. For what I know there’s no worst economical scandals than the one from Enron, the Anderson cabinet that took place in your great USA
Our president isn’t the best we could hope for. But I am more than happy to see what I’ve got when I see your dumb ass president that doesn’t even have the intelligence for eating a bretzel correctly.
You think our medias are obsolete or corrupted…. Unlike yours, our medias have their hands untied and are allowed to write above any subject concerning what ever they want. And they don’t watch for economical impacts every time they write an article. It is world widely known that France as the greatest liberty concerning the press. You are allowed to say anything if it’s not insulting someone else. This why we are allowed to say our president is corrupted when yours is a hundred time more and you don’t say nothing.
Concerning your media….. The first page of the New York post entitled “SACRIFICE”; I am pleased to remind you that during the 18 century you were really pleased to receive from France money, powder boats officers of the French army and many other things. Supplies that definitively made your independence possible. So please, don’t play smart with us. I think it was Eisenhower who said before the operation overlord: “Lafayette nous voila!”
In France, unlike in the USA, even if we are looking for economical developement we are not ready to give up on education or culture for money. I never saw such uneducated people than in the USA (example: I asked an American studying in high school where Argentina is on a world map. He pointed at the Philippines. Even you who read me could laugh about it I’m sure. But if you ask me I agree in giving you some more). I’m sure you will be pleased to know that; in Cuba; and Ireland close to your country that you made so poor because of your embargo (for the one who didn’t knew it) people are a thousand times more educated than you are for almost nothing.
In France school is an obligation. And your mum, as good as she can be in making fat cookies, can’t teach you maths. Maybe that’s why we can talk your language when 99% of Americans are completely unable to pronounce even one word in French.
Concerning health, …., there is nothing to say. Americans are the fattiest people in the world. You don’t have social security unlike us. So it is more or less. “Make money, a lot of money, by the way forget your soul or die like a dog in the street.” Because when you have very few money you can’t afford any of the treatments that are needed in order to hope to be cured from a cancer. In France you don’t live or die from a cancer whether you are rich or poor. That’s what we call freedom. A word you probably misunderstand.
As a conclusion I would like to talk a little bit about your moral. Which by the way looks like the customs of the Christians from an other century, a dark one in fact. Your puritan morality is against evolution. I don’t give a damn if my president had his dick in every women’s mouth of the presidential bureau of the Elysée. You are diving into obscurantism. And the worst part concerning this, it’s that the violence you express in your media, your movies and all the shit you send us across the ocean are against what you say. Donald Rumsfeld thinks that we are old and tired. Teach him that Spain for example, has to thanks France and Germany for the development she has known for the last 15 years. And Aznar, their president, should listen to his people like Berlusconi or like Blair or like many other….they will pay it sooner or later.
Don’t ask for “why do so many people hate us”, the answer is following:
The world is tired of America’s politic of interest. The world is tired to see the USA not giving any interest for the environment; the world is tired to see the American giving birth to the worst dictators for the 4 last decades, like in South America for example. The world is tired of your arrogance.
Thanks for reading me. If you find this outrageous, I wrote it after reading the nonsense, the bullshit, and the stupidities I found in your forums and Medias.
Another thing i had to say, don’t you think your vision of the world is kind of stupid. good against evil. it’s a litlle bit too easy to explain the world this way. and i think that if the world would work this way there would no more wars today.
if we don’t want war we are against you. it’s too easy. you don’t have to think this way. you are always right and we are always wrong.
well… but when some americans ask for your president to do not speak in there names. they aren’t even allowed to be on tv.
i just saw the results of un. i am smiling. an other mistake from your government. you though it was going to be so easy to crush the old europe… error. because china is with us. and you wouldn’t say anything to china because you are to afraid of losing contracts there.
what a pity
by the way would be pleased to chatt a litlle bit with you. so feel free to answer me even if i’m french. 😉
Well, it would help if you had a proper grasp of history. Guess that French education system isn’t so great after all. Karzai in Afghanistan was put there by Loya Jirga. Grenada, invaded in 1980, now enjoys a democratic government (again). There haven’t been many other expamples where the Americans sent their army, and won, and could dictate terms. And of course, using the last 4 decades as your reference dishonestly sidesteps your own history.
If there’s no discussion, it’s because (a) you’re in an older thread; and (b) it’s just a list of prejudices, mostly. You hate America’s education system, health care system, and entertainment industry. Well, they vote in their elections, and they vote with their dollars, and you don’t like their choices. Well, you’re not an American, and neither am I. And those choices are their own business. They don’t force anyone to attend their schools, or visit their doctors, or watch their shows.
And this is somehow connected to serious choices about war and peace. Using ethnic or national prejudice as your reasoning on such an important issue strikes me as pretty stupid. Grow up, s’il vous plait.
“Don’t ask for “why do so many people hate us”, the answer is following:
The world is tired of America’s politic of interest. The world is tired to see the USA not giving any interest for the environment; the world is tired to see the American giving birth to the worst dictators for the 4 last decades, like in South America for example. The world is tired of your arrogance. “
Xavier, this is why your country is about to pay a heavy price. Environment? YOUR country sank Greenpeace’s ship in a terrorist act. Dictators? YOUR country has armed Saddam Hussein and gave him a nuclear reactor, knowing it would be used to make bombs. YOUR country not only supported Algerian dictators, but fought a dirty war that kiled hundreds of thousands. YOUR country still backs dictators in Africa, for reasons that can only be described as “colonialist.” And who, exactly, ASKED the Americans to go to Vietname in the first place, Hmm. That’s right. It was you.
Arrogance? To criticize the Americans for these sins and present your country as morally pure by comparison is the ne plus ultra of arrogance.
Your country has chosen to side against another Great Power and with a homicidal dictator, in a matter the USA considers to be part of its highest national interest. You don’t pull stunts like that and expect not to pay for it.
I can tell you with confidence born of watching our next-door neighbours very closely over the last few months. *France will pay for this.* I don’t think you realize how much yet, or how much attitudes like yours have led to this siutation.
But you will.
Dear Joe,
Let’s first say that if I speak for the last for decades, Joe, it’s because your imperialism took all its importance it has today forty years ago.
I’m sure that you can understand that every country has some dark decisions and some bad attitudes in its history… well I never said France was free of any of this. Yes we were a colonialist country. As many countries from Europe. (In fact you were a colony of England, your puppy today…) France has to remember what happened in Algeria. And we do. We think we can change by accepting our errors, and maybe that’s another reason for us to reject your war. You can’t say it for America when the Vietnam War still for a lot of Americans as a war they had to do. France was in Indonesia and understood that it was a lost war, so it retired. USA came from itself and never accepted to be defeated.
Concerning the Greenpeace boat. You qualify this act of terrorist. Yes it appears it is. And we know our government did it. Correct me if I’m wrong but there were no deaths in this case. Anyway, how could USA’s government accuse France when, as I said it before, the number of death caused by the USA in wars or because of economical interests is so important that you don’t have anything to envy to the Nazis. I am sure you could explain to my brother who lives in Argentina that the USA always acted for the good of South America.
You are going to explain me what is the real influence of Karzai in Afghanistan? Because for what I saw he is nothing. His authority is based on the war chiefs of every region there. It doesn’t appear that it is a democracy. I don’t think we have there a durable solution. If we agree on the fact that some intervention was needed in Afghanistan. We disagree on the efficiency of the bombing method or on the reliability of those war chiefs. But it is well known that The Great USA started caring about the Talibans when they realised their gas pipe wasn’t going to cross the Afghanistan with Talibans in charge. With no government in charge, it’s easier. No?
France isn’t as hated as the USA. And I would also say that I don’t hate Americans, as I’m not anti-American. I’ve got friends there. But I’m sure you never met them. They were probably in the manifestations you didn’t saw on TV because they have been made illegal. Does the USA still a democracy?
Dear Joe, you think we are going to suffer cruelly from our position on the Iraqi matter. Well… what could you do? A boycott, yes. But you don’t have to forgive that fighting against the French economy is to fight against the European economy as we are economically related with the Euro. I am not sure the Spanish government or the UK’s government would really appreciate this. And as a proof you should watch all the manifestations which took place in the whole Europe making a clear united statement by the same time: “we don’t want your war”. This means that European citizens agree, unlike the governments
Oh, yes… I was forgiving. Concerning Iraq’s weapons. Your government had sold many weapons to Iraq too. As England too.
No Joe, you really need to put a little bit more of interest to this subject in order to say something more convincing if you care a little bit more in convincing people. And anyway, why do you want so much to get a war. Can’t you accept that there are other solutions in this matter than war? Why do you always want things to end in a bloody way? Do you really think that Saddam Hussein is the worst danger in this world? That North Korea isn’t more dangerous than Iraq?
A bon entendeur, salut
look at this link. it’s funny
sorry, this one: http://www.stopesso.com/funstuff/nose.html
So, Xavier, if I’m to get this right, you don’t hate America – just our movies, health system, economy, schools, etc. etc. etc. Right. I’ll point out just two things.
1) When France sank the Rainbow Warrior, Fernando Pereira, a photographer, was killed. One of eight people aboard. The French government denied involvement for months.
2) If you believe that Bush will invade Iraq at the behest of Exxon, rest assured that I’m convinced that Total Fina Elf has something to do with Chirac’s determination to see Hussein remain in power.
what you say about chirac might be true. yet i rather suport a crap who shows himself in favor of peace than one who’s in favor of war because the country he is determined to attack is in the evil axis. it looks like a big bad joke.
please don’t say what i never said. i never talked about movies for what i can remember. even if i think that they aren’t many good american movies compared to what is produced, refering to an hollywood organisation against war, the american actors seem to be quite intelligent to understand that a war in the middle orient ain’t so clever. many of them hate bush for what i saw. and they aren’t any anti-american.
Xavier,
Regards French versus American support for dictators, I have two words: Robert Mugabi.
He is Chirac’s kind of thug. He shows proper respect for France and the proper amount of hate for the Anglo-Americans.
Have a nice day.
Re: French vs. American freedom of the press
Chirac is a worm:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,900093,00.html
Prohibited from poking fun at your politicians. Doesn’t sound too free to me.
Have you ever read the sun chuck? i did, and i can tell you that it’s no press. it doesnt’t have anything of analysis. it’s a pure piece of crap. so i am find normal that the french government stops this kind of crap. we haven’t been waiting for you to make fun from our politicians. “the guignols de l’info” are an example. but i can’t expect you to know them with your pitiful medias.
Xavier, the problem that many of us have with being lectured by you all is that while you’re happy to point to examples of American bad acting in international affairs, you all act as if, say, the French never supported any dictatorships in the Middle East or Africa, propped them up, supplied them with arms and nuclear programs (but enough about Chirac’s relationship with Saddam Hussein), and the like.
At least we tend to want to get rid of “ours” (like Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillipines, which is now a fairly stable democratic Republic, or in South Korea, or in Taiwan, or El Salvador, in Nicaragua we got rid of one of “yours”, and the like. We deposed generals in Haiti who, frankly, would likely have been more “friendly” to America than Aristide, so that we could return Aristide to power, because he was elected, and the like).
I’m not sure the French have such a record. They certainly don’t in the Middle East or Africa or in the rest of their former colonies (well, really, current colonial preserve, La Francophone and all that). You all rely on ignorance to point fingers at us, as you did with Vietnam which became a huge cause celeb of opposition to America in France during the ’60s, when the problem origniated because of, well, France (had America followed the policy that we were inclined to at the end of World War II, rather than listened to the French who wanted their colonies back, then arguably that whole mess would not have come to pass. You all leave us holding the bag in the end and then claim to be innocents. . .)
Yes, America has at times supported dictatorships when in our sincere (if sometimes misguided) belief the alternative would have been worse (as it ended up in Southeast Asia – more people died and were made refugees in the few years after the war ended than had during the entire decade of American involvement). France often just supports dictators because they promise to keep the French language part of the region’s heritage. French involvement in, say, Rwanda in the ’90s was particularly despicable, and yet you condecend to us as if we’re the source of all the world’s problems. Then the French have the gall (gaul?) to claim to be a wronged friend, abused by America.
This is rather shameful.