Anti-French sentiment in the United States

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Anti-French sentiment or Francophobia in the United States is characterized by disapproval of many or all things French. It often takes the form of moral censure ("treacherous" or "cowardly") corresponding with tensions in Franco-U.S. relations. In its extreme form it is characterized by undertones of chauvinism, nationalism, and jingoism.


Before the Second World War

"Francophobia" in the U.S. since 1945 reverses the earlier pattern of a "Francophilia." In patriotic American contexts, France was characterized as the first ally of the American revolutionaries. When the Marquis de Lafayette toured the United States in (1824-1825), he was accorded a hero's welcome as the first American celebrity, and numerous new settlements were named Lafayette, Fayette and Fayetteville. With the influx of Irish immigrants in the 1840s and the rise of a populist sub-culture hostile to Britain, France became a rallying-point, though an ambivalent one, for its republicanism was tarnished. American cultured classes embraced French styles and luxuries after the Civil War: Americans trained as architects in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, French haute cuisine reigned at elite American tables, and upper class women in the U.S. followed Parisian clothing fashions. Following World War I, a generation of rich American expatriates and bohemians settled in Paris.

The stock-market crash and the Great Depression put a damper on international lifestyles, and a change in temper of internal French politics during the 1930s sent many politically fastidious Americans home.

Post World-War II

The spontaneous collapse of France in 1940 under German forces came as a profound shock to Francophilic Americans, who remembered a quite different Paris through the rosy tints of popular culture: "The Last Time I Saw Paris," an American hit for Tony Martin in 1941, and An American in Paris (1951) both fed off sentimental recall of stock imagery of Paris that actually reflected the 1920s, not the 1930s.

Soon after the end of World War II, relations between the United States and France began to sour; the U.S. was critical of French colonial activities during the Algerian War of Independence and during the Suez Crisis (1956). The United States pushed for France to end its colonial empire.

Franco-U.S. relations became far worse under Charles de Gaulle, who rejected the position of France as weaker partner of the US and attempted to position France as a counterweight to U.S. power in Europe and certain parts of the Third World. This included demanding equal status in NATO, and then pulling out of NATO's integrated military command when this was refused. France also distanced itself from Israel, with which it used to have a very close relationship, and began to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in the Middle East. Israel then sought closer ties with the United States. De Gaulle's government began to criticize the US war in Vietnam, which was generally unpopular in France. Some believed that de Gaulle's support for Quebec independence was more a bid to aggravate the United States than to actually foster Quebec independence. France also tried to develop friendlier relations with the socialist world, including the Soviet Union. French pursuit of nuclear weapons and an independent military capability were also designed to free France from its dependency upon the US. During de Gaulle's time in office, Franco-U.S. relations reached a great low, and there were accusations from American commentators that France was "no longer a Western power."

Relations improved somewhat under de Gaulle's successors, but tensions reappeared intermittently. France, more strongly than any other nation, sees the European Union as a method of counter-balancing American power, and thus works towards such ends as having the Euro challenge the preeminent position of the United States dollar in global trade. France has also worked hard to maintain a number of dependencies in western Africa. The American government remained lukewarm towards France, and pursued much closer relationships with other states such as the United Kingdom.

Some Americans have a lukewarm view of France, while others are Francophiles who hold French culture and history in high esteem. In a 2002 poll, ten-percent of Americans claimed that they dislike the French while fifty-percent claimed that they like the French. From these statistics, it would seem that the strong anti-French sentiments are reserved for a small minority.

Iraq War

Anti-French sentiment in the United States returned to the fore in the wake of France's refusal to endorse the 2003 US plan to invade Iraq in the UN Security Council. While other nations were also openly opposed to the plan (notably Germany, Russia, and the People's Republic of China), France was accused of particularly ferocious criticism, because it was seen as opposing not because of a disagreement over what to do about the situation, but as a way of opposing the United States for the sake of decreasing the diplomatic power of the United States and building an opposing power movement.

France was accused (mainly in the US) of knee-jerk anti-Americanism, of hypocritically acting out of economic interests in Iraq's oil (a similar charge was leveled at Russia and Germany, but with less ferocity), and of hypocritically sending a military presence to the Ivory Coast during the Iraq crisis.

France and Russia, both permanent members of the Security Council, opposed the proposed new U.N. resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq on March 11, 2003. [1] Since other nations were also openly opposed to the plan to invade Iraq, most wondered why France was singled out. Many people (including some French people) feel that France was singled out because they were one of two members of the security council who openly threatened a veto on March 11, while other people claim it possible that the concentration of the U.S. media on France is an example of media manipulation, using France as a scapegoat to avoid mentioning and discussing all the other countries that were opposed to the plan. It was also argued that accusations of knee-jerk anti-Americanism from France were made so as to avoid discussing the actual reasons that France said it had to oppose the war - namely that France did not believe there was a clear and imminent danger from Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and that a war would only destabilize the Middle East while not providing long-term solutions.

Diplomatic friction

Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to France and Germany as "old Europe" while referring to the many Central European countries which pledged diplomatic backing of the US war as "New Europe," raising long-extant fears that expansion of the European Union would be used by the US to keep Europe politically divided.

French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin emerged as a prominent critic of U.S. action in Iraq.

Cultural friction

In the winter of 2002-2003, the derogatory phrase "cheese eating surrender monkeys" – once used on The Simpsons television program in 1995 to refer to the French – became au courant in Washington, DC circles. National Review contributor Jonah Goldberg claimed credit for making the term known. Many US commentators and politicians, including Andy Rooney on the television program 60 Minutes, characterized the French as being ungrateful for opposing U.S. foreign policy after U.S. soldiers fought to liberate France from Nazi Germany during World War II. Bumper stickers were produced in the United States which jokingly called for the United States to invade: "Iraq first, France next!", and "First Iraq, then Chirac!".

On March 11, 2003, the cafeteria menus in the three United States House of Representatives office buildings changed the name of french fries to freedom fries in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's opposition to the U.S. position on Iraq. (French fries actually come from Belgium.) French toast was also changed to freedom toast. (During World War I, in a similar move, attempts were made to replace the word sauerkraut with the term liberty cabbage, French toast replaced German toast as the popular term for that dish, and frankfurter with hot dog, in menus and in popular speech; only the latter was successful.) Europeans generally dismissed these name changes as "gimmickry".

Congressman Billy Tauzin from Louisiana, the only Cajun in the House of Representatives, removed the French language section of his official website because of anti-French sentiment.

It was also reported that many Americans purchased great quantities of French wine and poured it out on the streets instead of drinking it. Many, even other protesters, have noted that no matter what one does with the wine, buying it still provides money for those who produced it. In that regard it could be called an anti-protest, despite being an unintentional one.

Boycott

According to the president of IC&A Inc, a business that imports only French products, demand for these products fell in the vicinity of 40% to 50% from February 2003 levels.

Anti-French sentiment reactions

Reaction to anti-French sentiment in the US was a tenor of the anti-war protest in Montreal, Quebec on March 15, 2003, and may have been partially responsible for that city's 200,000-strong turn-out, being one of the largest of that day's worldwide protests (although Rome saw 3 million protesters and London over a million). Recurring protests in Montreal continue to be the largest in North America.

Because of the sometimes heated relationship between the two countries, some Americans, including editorialists and congressmen, relish in anti-French jokes. Some of these allude to events of the Second World War, alleged French military weakness and cooperation with the Third Reich. Such argumentation has been used by conservative editorialists to dismiss the French opposition to the War in Iraq as fear and appeasement with respect to radical islamism. The French were also accused of ungratefulness for the US intervention in World War I and the American liberation of France in World War II. The French feel that gratefulness cannot mean that they should not have an independent foreign policy. Such argumentation was especially developed during the course to the War in Iraq [2]. Many anti-French American insults deal with the French culture. In some cases, these considerations are based on clichés as they exist everwhere and towards every country. Regarding the French examples are that France was a socialist or anti-semitic country, that the French were lazy, emotional and flamboyant, rude and disrespectful to tourists or that they eat food some find disgusting like frogs' legs, snail's and "stinky" cheeses.

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