Ménage à trois

It’s all about history isn’t it?

Seven years ago, when France opposed the USA during the Iraq war crisis, most French people were dumbfounded to discover how widespread and fierce anti-French feelings were in America. To a large extend, the French were indulging in the feel good illusion that by and large and contrary to the British, Americans were rather sympathetic to them… how naïve and misinformed!

They couldn’t figure out how former enemies had become closest friends and closest friends had turned into near bitterest foes. The crisis the Iraq war started between France and America only highlighted a long simmering history of bad feelings between the two countries.

All along the 17th/18th centuries, when the American colonies’ population was growing mostly from English immigrants, France was THE world power of the time with one competitor only: England. If one takes into account the rivalry between the two countries dating back the Middle-Ages, the two were already at odds for more than five centuries, from Hastings (1066) to Joan of Arc (1412-1431) through the Hundred Year War! The English immigrants when they were heading toward America were carrying these memories with them. Is it too much to assume francophobia was in place the day the Mayflower landed on American shores (1620)?

Of course this rivalry between France and England was kept alive in America since it was an English territory. One thing that is never called to attention is that the Founding Fathers of America were born English subjects of the King of England, Georges III, and that was the case until the 9th American president, William Harrison (1773/1841). When the colonials decided to break free from England, the help they received from the French was all but natural. They had to resort to the historical competitor of their motherland and they owed their freedom to their arch enemy! How could that be without having a price in terms of self image and resentment? Americans owe their independence and freedom to France and the French. For people originating from England!

Their historical identity is shaped out of two dependences. The first vis-à-vis their former rulers, the second vis-à-vis their only allies at that time. Every true American patriot shudders at the thought he could be required to sing along the “God Save the Queen” in honor of Elisabeth II, and bow in front of the British flag. He doesn’t have to, and he knows whom he owes it to… 

Now, America being the child of England, no wonder Americans see the English as their natural friends through thick and thin and the French as cumbersome historical allies carrying with them embarrassing souvenirs… And since it is not possible to forget the debt of gratitude, the only practical thing to do is to keep on sullying the memories that seem to be so impossible to live peacefully with. Hence the permanent sort of seemingly love/hate relationship between France and America, swinging from ignorance to outbursts of anger and conversely with some moments of truce in between. The French-bashing at work in America is only an extension both historically and geographically of the francophobia in England. The hundred year war lives on in America!

While that may be a way of characterizing the relationship between France and America, this national feeling translates of course in the mind of individuals but certainly not all of them. For one, Americans of Spanish origin probably couldn’t care less about the type of relationship there exists between Washington and Paris, and the same holds true for Americans of Asian descent and African-Americans. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that mostly white Americans are concerned with the issue, if and when they do. Of course the English have never forgotten nor forgiven the French for the loss of their colonies and, generally speaking, think the French richly deserve the treatment they get from the Americans. 

As for the French, by and large they don’t feel concerned in the least with the history of America’s independence. Let bygones be bygones. Add to this General de Gaulle asking Washington to withdraw the American troops stationed in France in 1966… and it is a tough job for many Americans to maintain a positive image of Lafayette…

It’s all about history, isn’t it?