Posted on 02/15/2003 1:20:48 PM PST by Forgiven_Sinner
PARIS -- In France's popular television satire, Les Guignols d'Info (The News Puppets), a Sylvester Stallone puppet struts on screen nightly, threatening to shoot 'em up against the Iraqis. French viewers clutching their sides in laughter understand who the show is lampooning: George W. Bush.
The disdain for Bush among many French people -- exacerbated by the U.S. administration's aggressive push for a war in Iraq -- is just one of several factors tearing the two allies apart. But it is the most visible. The view here and across parts of Europe is that the U.S. president's style and policies embody all that is brash, crass and impolitic about America. One reason the level of frustration may have reached a new high is many here feel there is little they or their leaders can do against America's overwhelming power.
The shift in attitude is dramatic since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when French people regularly stopped Americans in Paris to express their solidarity. France's Liberation newspaper published a poll 10 days later showing 73% of the French public believed their country should participate in any military action by U.S. forces in response to the attacks. On Sept. 12, 2001, the front page of France's largest newspaper, Le Monde, declared, ''We are all Americans.''
But they will be all French on Saturday, when thousands are expected to gather here as part of worldwide protests against a war in Iraq. A poll last week by the firm IFOP found that 77% of French adults oppose a war in Iraq, even if the U.N. Security Council gives its endorsement. And 81% said they didn't believe U.S. arguments that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has been developing weapons of mass destruction in defiance of U.N. resolutions. Polls in Germany and several other European countries have shown similar opposition to the U.S. push to disarm Iraq by force.
But Iraq is only the latest in a series of irritants here. Among them:
* The environment. The United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on global warming (news - web sites), which France supports.
* The death penalty. Bush was first known here as the governor of Texas, a state noted for its use of the death penalty. France outlawed capital punishment in the 1970s.
* The International Criminal Court. The Bush administration has criticized plans for the new body and demanded that U.S. military forces have immunity from prosecution.
* The increasing U.S. cultural invasion of Europe. ''The U.S. is everywhere here,'' says Philippe Moreau Defarges of the Institute of International Relations in Paris. ''We watch American movies. We eat at McDonald's. We've got EuroDisney.''
Bush is seen as an ill-informed bully who is indifferent to history. The U.S. president's regular-guy Texan style grates on French nerves. ''He comes off to the French as narrow-minded and a cowboy,'' says Jacques Bille, managing director of France's Association of Advertising Agencies.
Bush's statements about Iraq have deepened the alienation, says Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States at the Institute of International Relations in Paris. ''Bush's language is simplistic, his ideas are unsophisticated.'' French observers say the rift is worsened by the different styles of two headstrong men: Bush and President Jacques Chirac. The first leads the world's sole superpower. The second wields diminishing influence over major world decisions, as France is increasingly absorbed into Europe.
''To French people, it seems like Bush is just imposing the law of the richest and most powerful,'' says Stephane Rozes, director of the Paris-based polling organization CSA TMO, which tracks French opinion about the USA.
The French president is leading Europe in the battle against any immediate military action against Iraq. France, with Germany and Russia, prefers to increase the number of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq and give them more time to work. France also joined Germany and Belgium this week in an effort to block NATO (news - web sites) military protection for Turkey in advance of a possible war. Chirac has said he believes offering protection to a fellow NATO member would be tantamount to conceding there will be be a war in Iraq.
At 70, Chirac is Europe's elder statesman. He's a generation older than British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites). Esconsed in the 300-year-old Élysée Palace, the French leader reminds Europeans of their old values.
The political stands he has taken over Iraq reflect the French desire for independence, if not dominance, in Europe. That could be lost as borders blur within the European Union (news - web sites) and U.S. culture permeates the continent. A high school teacher voiced a common French opinion this week.
''I don't like Chirac,'' said Patrick Marzin, 30, who was eating lunch at a café in Paris, ''but he's behaving in this way because France has beautiful and honorable ideals. The U.S. acts only for money.''
Ironically, Chirac is perhaps the most pro-American president in French history. Almost every biography mentions Chirac's youthful summer adventures in the USA, where he had an American girlfriend and worked at a soda fountain. The French president was the first foreign leader to visit New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In contrast, ''Bush barely ever visited France,'' says Bille, head of the advertising association. ''His administration doesn't know about Europe. The ambassador to Paris doesn't even speak French,'' he says, referring to Howard Leach, whom Bush appointed in 2001.
Recasting his image now will be tough, Bille says. He says the U.S. president could have capitalized on the sympathy after Sept. 11 by paying closer attention to European sensibilities.
''Bush could have changed his image before,'' Bille says. ''Now he'll have to wait a very long time before he can do it again.''
Regarding the specifics of their dislikes:
* The environment. The United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on global warming (news - web sites), which France supports.
But France hasn't implemented.
* The death penalty. Bush was first known here as the governor of Texas, a state noted for its use of the death penalty. France outlawed capital punishment in the 1970s.
Why do they care what our laws are? Haven't they heard of sovereignity?
* The International Criminal Court. The Bush administration has criticized plans for the new body and demanded that U.S. military forces have immunity from prosecution.
See my previous comment.
* The increasing U.S. cultural invasion of Europe. ''The U.S. is everywhere here,'' says Philippe Moreau Defarges of the Institute of International Relations in Paris. ''We watch American movies. We eat at McDonald's. We've got EuroDisney.''
Um, isn't all this voluntary on France's and Europe's parts? Have we forced them at gun point to buy our movies and music. I don't think so.
I don't really care what they think anymore.
Ahem...just one word:
Vichy
Note, apparently sophistication is more important than truth.
And you'll have to wait an even longer time before he even bothers to try. What you don't understand France, is we don't care. We no longer like you because you are not worthy. You can't even see the part you played in the Rwanda slaughters, what you have allowed to happen in the Ivory Coast, how you failed Algeria. We don't care about you because you are old. Not wise, not reviered, but old as in rotting, decadent, falling apart. While you rail against our "culture invasion" remember it is YOU who are buying those hamburgers and YOU who are paying to see those movies. Also remember that while you deplore our culture, yours is being stripped away from you by the immigrants who have invaded your country and made whole blocks of your city off limits to your own people. The police can't even go there.
You're forgetting Airbus Industrie needs forty percent of its parts from American companies. If the American companies announce they would no longer do business with Airbus the Airbus final assembly lines in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany would come to a screeching halt in less than a week. Such an act would be an economic disaster for the French and Germans in NO time. :-)
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