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April 21, 2009
Exclusive Sacre Bleu! Let's Talk About France (Part One of Two)
"Really, smarty-pants? What did French land give us?"
"We invented democracy, existentialism, and the ménage à trois."
"Those are three pretty good things."
- Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
"We invented democracy, existentialism, and the ménage à trois."
"Those are three pretty good things."
- Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
Since around the time that I came of voting age, I've been running in circles in which it's fashionable – in vogue, if you will – to take the mick out of the French. Sometimes, it gets pretty relentless. A few good examples:
Question: Have you heard about the new French tank?
Answer: Yeah, it has four gears: one for going forward, and three for going in reverse!
Question: Might I interest you in some surplus French rifles?
Answer: Let me guess, never been fired, and only dropped once?
Question: Why are there trees lining the Champs Elysees?
Answer: Because the Germans like to march in the shade!
The French are dirty, smelly chain-smokers. They're lazy and arrogant, and have more interest in riding bicycles, drinking wine, and eating cheese than they have in hard work or self-defense. To quote Groundskeeper Willy from The Simpsons, the French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." Another classic episode of the same franchise taught us all that the French are likely to be less concerned with the mistreatment of a nine year-old exchange student than they are with crooked vineyard workers lacing wine with anti-freeze – "a very serious crime!" Right? Who's with me?
You know what? We Americans are too hard on the French. That's not to say that they don't deserve some grief. However, fair-weather ally though they may have been, it was the Marquis de Lafayette and French officers of his ilk who provided critical training, leadership, and even supplies to the Continental Army. It was the tardy but decisive presence of the French fleet at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 that ended British chances of stifling the American Revolution once and for all. (French assistance against the British was probably similar to American support of South Korea, South Vietnam, and the Afghan Mujahideen during the Cold War, but when you're fighting an enemy whose numbers and logistics are superior to your own, any help is good help.) America's relationship with France has not always been purely harmonious, but for most of the last two and a half centuries, relations have been cordial, and we are far more similar in our character than we are different.
Forgive me while I get personal for a moment: despite the stereotypes, I've never met a Frenchman I did not like. About two weeks after the invasion of Iraq, I was in Florence, Italy. Due to a mix-up with my travel companion, I found myself alone in a pizza parlor, and heard someone speaking English. It turned out to be a French guy named Julian. I'd never met him before, I've never spoken with him since, but over the course of the two evenings I was in Florence, we ran across each other both nights. The first night, we conversed over dinner and drinks, culminating in the most international experience I've ever had in my life: being an American, discussing a war in Iraq with a Frenchman at an Irish pub in Florence, Italy. We disagreed in our views on the invasion, but the conversation was cordial, and I remember it fondly – the only thing that could have made it better would have been if he'd been an attractive young woman, but I guess you can't have everything. The next evening, it was Julian who spearheaded reconciliation with the buddy I was traveling with after some mid-trip tension.
Fast-forward a year and a half to mid-September, 2004. Americans in general and conservatives in particular, are often criticized for not traveling internationally. (I assume that most of those who offer this critique haven't read my recent article that touches on this subject.) After living for two months in England, I went touring for two weeks in Scotland and Ireland. Because I wanted to go through the Channel Tunnel, I decided to do the unthinkable: I added France to the tail end of my itinerary. I was fortunate to have some family contacts with whom I was able to connect, and both they and everyone else I came into contact with treated me far better than I would have ever expected based on the French reputation. One of the greatest experiences of my life was spending a very warm Friday afternoon seeing the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour Eiffel, Les Invalides, the book and curio sellers along the south bank of the Seine, and finally the Île de la Cité and its star attraction, the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, all of it on foot. From climbing through a skylight with my host on the first night in order to get a rooftop view of Paris, to joining my hosts for a family Christening in the country, to the final goodbyes before I boarded the Eurostar, France was wonderful – due largely to the generosity and character of the French people with whom I came into contact. Most of those Americans who malign the French either ignore this tradition of French hospitality, or have never given themselves occasion to find it out in the first place. For the record, I firmly believe that personal diplomacy like this is far more valuable than anything that government diplomats will ever do for relations between two countries.
As open as I may be to defending the French as a people in general, I find it bizarre that so many people, particularly those on the American left, hold France and its national system in such high acclaim. I can only surmise that those who want the United States to become a big version of France must not be paying attention to just how dysfunctional France has become.
For example, consider French foreign policy. From its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to its role in negotiations about Iran's nuclear program, France's presence in global diplomacy and politics is largely a function of its dominance during the 18th and 19th centuries – the momentum of which was based in no small part on the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose influence ended in 1815. The 20th century was less inspiring for French foreign affairs. What follows are a few of the highlights.
An optimistic appraisal of the French record in World War I would be to claim that they were able to bring the war to a stalemate. The French inclusion in the final victory was due almost entirely to America's leadership and provision of troops.
After World War I, France banked almost its entire defense on the Maginot Line. France lost almost immediately upon Germany's attack in 1940 when Germany circumvented the Maginot defenses altogether. The government-in-exile and resistance forces were heavily dependent upon the United States and other allied forces to liberate France. France's resurgence was then heavily bolstered by the Marshall Plan, without the financial contributions of which France may never have been rebuilt at all.
Having been one of the more egregious colonial powers, France unsuccessfully fought a number of wars of liberation against native rebels in its various colonies. Notable among these were the First Indochina War (which eventually resulted in the American intervention in Vietnam) and the Algerian Revolution.
Under General Charles de Gaulle, who had led Free French forces during World War II, France jointly botched the Suez Crisis of 1956 with England and Israel, withdrew from the NATO military command, opposed Britain's entry into the European Community, and recognized Communist China.
In 1977, France built a nuclear reactor in Iraq. Fearing that the Iraqis would use the reactor to create a nuclear weapon, the site was damaged by an Iranian air strike in 1980 and destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981. Given the Hussein regime's history with weapons of mass destruction both before and after the Persian Gulf War, one can only imagine what might have come of a functional Iraqi nuclear program during the course of the 1980s.
It is only fair to note that during the last 20 years, French forces also fought in the Persian Gulf War and provided troops for the KFOR mission in Kosovo. Within the NATO rubric, France committed troops to Afghanistan early on, when the mission appeared likely to consist of a brief combat phase followed by humanitarian support and peacekeeping. Under the controversial French president Jacques Chirac, the French government actively opposed and undermined the 2003 invasion of Iraq, allegedly due to both lucrative French contracts with the Hussein regime and ties to the corrupt Oil-for-Food program.
This is not to say that France has not played a positive role in international politics and diplomacy in recent years. Although the effectiveness of the UNIFIL mission to Lebanon has been called into question recently by independent journalist Michael Totten, the French deserve credit for taking the lead in providing ground forces, complemented by a German-led naval component. Although negotiations to bring Iran into compliance with international nuclear regulations have failed thus far, the French deserve credit for spearheading the Western effort to exhaust all diplomatic options. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also led the West in transitional diplomacy with former pariah states, such as Libya's Moammar Qaddhafi (BBC, Times) and Syria's Bashar al Assad (Guardian, UPI). By serving as an intermediary with these heads of state, President Sarkozy has revitalized a French diplomatic tradition that was essentially abandoned by Chirac.
France has also taken a leading role in fighting Somali piracy, conducting daring rescue missions in September of 2008 (Times, Times, BBC) and April of 2009 (CNN, BBC) and capturing a crew of pirates in October. However, despite their military successes in these daring raids on Somali pirates, a French patrol was massacred by Taliban forces in August outside Kabul, Afghanistan. The loss of these ten French heroes led the Parlement Français to debate whether or not to withdraw the entire French contingent from Afghanistan. The latter example is a poor demonstration for the level of resolve one would expect from a nation that carries itself as a formidable player on the world stage.
Modern France has a number of lessons, both good and bad, to teach the United States. It is these lessons, particularly those misguided French policies that are championed by certain American political factions, which will be discussed in my conclusion.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom Ordeman, Jr. is a technical writer for a major defense contractor in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Feedback:
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