THE AMERICAN ENEMY: The History of French Anti-Americanism

I was musing on the tube the other day (for reasons that now escape me) about anti-Americanism, and asked myself which country seems to display it the most. I also asked myself another question, that of which country owes the most to America. My own answer to both questions was "France".

Wouldn't have thought anything more of it, except that I've just come across this review of a book about French anti-Americanism - so I now throw the question open to all of you!

J

----------------------------------------

The Sunday Times - Books
May 01, 2005
THE AMERICAN ENEMY: The History of French Anti-Americanism by Philippe Roger
reviewed by Sebastian Faulks

When George W Bush announced that he intended to invade Iraq, a country without the will, desire or means to have instigated war itself, his international standing plummeted. The people of Britain and Germany among others registered their distaste in opinion polls. But not France. An action that perturbed the rest of the world made no difference to French people’s opinion of America because it was impossible for them to register a more profound revulsion than they already had. French polls merely flatlined where they always stood: at maximum.

...

France has often had reason to dislike America as in the case of Iraq, or in the matter of the economic conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. However, it is the grim achievement of Philippe Roger’s book to demonstrate that France’s lifelong hatred of America does not depend on intermittent justification, but is a self-perpetuating state of mind that meets a vital need in the French psyche. The fact that Roger wrote before the Iraq invasion therefore does not bother his thesis.

I began this book believing that the greatness of French civilization was perhaps connected to its self-regard; that the patronising ignorance of the French towards other cultures is a small price to pay for the joy their own civilization has brought to the world.

Now I am not so sure. As Professor Roger’s book went on, building its pathology of racism brick by brick, I felt that I was reading not so much the story of a national failing as a universal fable about man’s capacity for self-delusion and the human urge to self-validation through hating others. Francophiles, be warned: this is a deeply dispiriting book.