I need you ('cos it makes me feel better)

 

By and large we know how Americans don’t really care about the French and yet, how many clichés and prejudice commonly shared among a good number of them! And not exactly flattering in general…

The funny thing is to try to understand why the French are so specifically targeted. What have they done to Americans? One could expect the Germans not to be their favorite friends. Weren’t both twice at war within 25 years? And not precisely skirmishes. But no, nothing against the Germans. Or the Japanese (Pearl Harbour anyone?). What about the Vietnamese? Or the Russians after 40 years of cold war? Nichts, nada, zil, zero, rien. Well, I thought the Iranians were now America’s bêtes noires. But nothing against the people of Iran, just the leaders of the regime. And what about the English? Didn’t they burn down the White House in 1812? And they weren’t exactly helpful in Vietnam, were they?

But when it comes to the French, it’s the people of France that are the real target of all the heavy irony (best case) and the outright insults and wrath coming from America. Talk of cultural racism! No other country seems to harbor such bad feelings against France and the French than the U.S.

It’s like the people who often seem to think of itself as the best people on earth (how many times have I read this line…) needed to have a permanent anti-model to permanently assert its own self-esteem. “We’re good and look how bad and despicable the other (the French) is!” (racist, anti-Semite, unhealthy, coward, effeminate, sleazy, economically impotent, immoral, treacherous, unreliable etc. you name it) “all that we’re not, we the best people on earth.” Now, if that isn’t an inferiority complex’s symptom, I don’t know what is!

In the meantime, these same people who indulge into this kind of nationalist hatred keep on hammering that they’re looked down upon by the French which they think is evidence of said French arrogance and aloofness.

Man, these people create their own enemies and carry on nurturing the very conditions that make them appear… how to phrase it? …not entirely grown up in the eyes of the world. This is really surprising indeed…

Hmmm... It seems like many people in the U.S. need France and the French as a set off in order to enhance their own sense of morality. Did you say self-righteousness?

And I wonder, will the French be ever forgiven for Yorktown and Miss Liberty?

Note: The picture is “Le verrou” (the bolt) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in Le Louvre