French court American tourists

Scotsman.com ^ | 1 Jul 2003 | SUSAN BELL IN PARIS

[aculeus]

IN A desperate attempt to show Americans that France has no lingering ill-feeling towards the United States,the main Paris tourist bureau on the Champs Elysées will be decked out in the stars and stripes this Friday.

It is - for the French - an unusually demonstrative celebration of the 4th of July. "It’s a symbolic gesture of friendship to show Americans that they are extra welcome in Paris this summer," a tourism spokeswoman said.

Hotels and restaurants will also mark the US holiday, she said, "offering American visitors a free glass of champagne or a box of chocolates, for example.

"We want to show Americans that we still consider them to be our friends, and that they will be well received despite the difference of opinion between our two countries over Iraq."

Many Americans apparently do not share French willingness to forgive and forget. The number of US tourists visiting Paris from January to April this year plunged by 27 per cent compared with 2002.

US travellers, who previously topped the French capital’s league of foreign visitors, have been overtaken by the British. The French have reacted by launching an intensive marketing and public relations drive, optimistically entitled "Let’s Fall in Love Again", to bring them back.

It includes a video in which the Francophile comedian and filmmaker Woody Allen talks about his love affair with France and declares: "I don’t want to have to refer to my French fry potatoes as freedom fries, and I don’t want to have to freedom kiss my wife, when I really want to French kiss her."

The campaign does not appear to have elicited the hoped-for response across the Atlantic, where the New York Times described it as "maladroit".

It will take more than a video to improve the two countries’ trade relations. French exports to the United States dropped by 21 per cent in the first four months of the year, excluding the military category.

Fears that the US would extract its revenge for President Jacques Chirac’s intransigence over Iraq by boycotting French products were further confirmed by sales figures at the 12th biennial Vinexpo wine fair in Bordeaux.

US sales of French wine have plunged by almost 25 per cent, a fall blamed on a backlash against French products by US consumers.

The US accounts for less than 10 per cent of all French exports, but the US market is the biggest buyer of Bordeaux wines.

"Over the past two months we’ve seen a fall of practically 25 per cent, and that’s ... worrying," said Roland Feredj, head of the Bordeaux Interprofessional Wine Council.

"It’s clear from our American distributors that there is a hesitation to promote French wines for the time being," Bruno Finance, sales manager for Yvon Mau, one of Bordeaux’s largest wine merchants, told the New York Times.

Bernard Hervet, director of a large vineyard in Burgundy, has seen his US exports drop by nearly a third this year.

Louis Régis Affre, general manager of the Federation of Wine and Spirit Exporters, said retail sales of French wine continued to fall sharply in May, even though overall US wine sales were growing.

US wine merchants stayed away in droves from Vinexpo. Even the US wine guru Robert Parker, publisher of the Wine Advocate, did not come to France to taste the 2002 wine, saying he had cancelled because he was worried about travelling during the war.

His influential ratings control price and demand for Bordeaux’s top wines and his absence is a severe blow to last year’s vintage.

At this year’s Paris Air Show, the world’s largest gathering for aerospace executives, military brass and flying fans, the US presence was down markedly from that of previous years. Not a single top executive from a leading US defence contractor attended.

The Pentagon did not allow the US military aircraft present, including an F-16 fighter jet that had just returned from action in Iraq, to take part in the daily flying shows.

Despite an upbeat assessment by the US ambassador in Paris, many political and business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic believe it will take time to patch up French-American relations following the war.

Writing in the right-wing daily Le Figaro last week, the ambassador, Howard Leach, said France and the US have mended the rift over the Iraq war and are focused on working together.

"The differences that we experienced over the disarming of Iraq are in the past and are now part of our history," Mr Leach wrote. "They are not forgotten, but each of us is now better served by focusing on our current international problems and the future."

He insisted the decision to skip the air show was not political but financial. "Companies that elected not to participate this year were reducing expenses because of the difficult economic time in aviation or decided this air show was not the right market for their products," he wrote.

However, Washington insiders said the Pentagon had put pressure on firms not to attend.

[Mike Darancette]

Visit France just in time for the Labor Unrest Season.

[txzman]

"It includes a video in which the Francophile comedian and filmmaker Woody Allen talks about his love affair with France"

A slimy director who beds his own step-daughter is someone that is supposed to make me want to go to France? LOL! All Woody does is confirm I want nothing to do with the French...

[Mr Fowl]

Near My house in New Jersey there is a French owned company called Durand Glass. They make everything from drinking glasses, mugs, plates, etc etc. Anyway, they have 3 glass furnace's that was running 24/7. Because of the our Boycot on French products 2 glass furnace's are now shut down. LOL

[Peter Libra]

If nobody has been that way, they could take a vacation starting at Prairie Du Chien (Wisconsin). Nice city. Trips on a riverboat just over in nearby Iowa. Then go to House on the Rock (Spring Green). After, work ones way up on the "blue highways" to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. Huge locking system there, worth seeing.

See, remnants of old France right on yer doorstep.

[KC_Conspirator]

France has no lingering ill-feeling towards the United States

Yeah, I thought that a scream as well. Why just last week our national soccer team went to France for a friendly tournament and the French booed and jeered our National Anthem every time it was played and were generally rude outright to our team. Not as bad as when the French stoned a Jewish youth soccer teams bus, as they did last year. Such class! Such sophistication!

[tdadams]

IN A desperate attempt to show Americans that France has no lingering ill-feeling towards the United States

No hard feelings toward us? As if the U.S. is the one who needs to apologize? What Gaul!

[Rob45and2]

The French did not like us before Iraq and they still don't like us now. I left Paris after two days into a seven day trip. If I want to treated rudely, I'll go visit my in-laws. I certainly don't need to pay that much money for it. Malaise is after all a French word. Service is maudlin, over priced,and more than a little irreglar. Special requests and questions are treated with unequaled arrogance.The French can kiss my lilly white Irish ass.

P.S. Paris smells

[DocJ69]

Forgive me! I just returned from spending nearly a month in the UK and the Continent. It was our sons (2) graduation gift. We went to Paris for three reasons(Tower,Arch of the Triumph,Louvre) Wel two out of four lifts were on stikr at the tower, All the good stuff (my opinion) was on strike at the Louvre, however they lied and said it was all open, no Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, no Flemish Art, or any art. Told them what I thought, embassased the wife, boys loved their Dad telling the French what he thought, We left seen the Arch and headed out of the "Dirtest city in Europe" for Austria it was beautiful.

[gaspar]

Thirty years ago Jean Respail visualized present-day France in his shocking novel, The Camp of the Saints. It is a modern classic and should have been read (and still should be read) by every thoughtful American.

[Tamzee]

With Iran, France is continuing to choose greed over human rights and democracy. They can cement an American flag on every turned-up French nose in the country, it still doesn't change the nasty political aims of the government. France's international manipulations don't just endanger Americans, they endanger democracy across the globe.

[Farnham]

*snicker snicker*
Those snickers are made in America, aren't they?

[Ronin]

Yew betcha!

Good-ol, American, teeth-rottin, gut-pleasin SNICKERS!

Fook ze Frenchiezzz

[Bob J]

No kidding. Why didn't they use Roman Polanski?

[Bob J]

They just don't get it, do they? American hate France not because they disagreed with us, but because of their behind the scenes machinations and back stabbing attempts to insure economic interests over our security.

The French proved they cannot be trusted nor are they any kind of friend or ally. They would sell their own mothers into slavery if they could make a buck off it. In a desperate attempt to hide their stagnating birth rates and shrinking markets, they imported hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants who now extort what they want politically out of the French government over threats of violence and destruction.

I say cut 'em loose.

[Oztrich Boy]

The French are surrendering again, and noöne cares.

[FairOpinion]

They should have thought of the consequences of their actions before Chirac went around the world, drumming up anti-American sentiments and actions, practically blackmailing some countries (Turkey) to not support our military action in Iraq.

They made their bed, they can lie in it. Maybe it will teach them and other countries that the US is not some stupid big Teddy bear they can kick around without any consequences to themselves.

[FairOpinion]

"Well, the government may well work on the relationship,"

---

The government is not working on a relationship, that is just some poorly concealed (deliberately) veneer. The US government didn't send high level people to the Paris Airshow and discouraged US companies from attending as well.

We -- both the US government, with Bush in charge, and the American people -- have long memories and we remember who our friends and enemies are. Unlike the Clinton administration, who kicked our allies (Israel) in the shin, while appeasing and trying to pay off our enemies (Arafat, N. Korea, to name a few).

[FairOpinion]

Maybe they'll try to have John Kerry promote France next. After all he has a Frnch barber, to whom he spoke French, so apparently he likes the French.

[FairOpinion]

Instead of France, we can visit Italy, Spain and the UK.

We can wave at the French ( perhaps not with all fingers), while we are flying over France.

[FairOpinion]

"but now that they have endangered our lives, we don't think it's funny anymore."

---
Exactly. When the chips were down, they not only didn't support us, but actively worked against us.