The U.S. media would have us believe that French society is overwhelmed today by a wave of virulent anti-Americanism. But this commonplace assumption simply does not stand up under scrutiny. Among other things, it does not account for the recent history of French-American relations. It is important to note that Bill Clinton enjoys an enduring and formidable popularity not only within the French political establishment but also among average French citizens. So does Hillary Clinton, who is highly regarded in France as a champion of women's rights. Indeed, during the Clinton administration (and under the presidencies of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac), the United States enjoyed remarkably warm relations with France. All of which is to say that it is not Americans the French hate; it is George W. Bush.
To be sure, some French essayists and philosophers have themselves succumbed to the intellectual laziness of assuming that the French simply despise the United States: A recent book by Jean-François Revel, L'Obsession Anti-Américaine, depicts contemporary France as a country profoundly irritated by American world supremacy both in the economic and political realms. And he depicts these negative feelings as the simple product of French jealousy of American hegemony. Revel is right about one thing: No one can dispute that France has indeed lost a good part of its international stature in the postcolonial era, especially in the Middle East. But this phenomenon cannot by itself explain the current and almost unanimous French rejection of the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq. The French are vehemently opposed to the prospect of an armed conflict in the Middle East not simply because of latent colonial envy but because they see Bush's leadership as a general threat to world stability and peace. The French government's unambiguous support of the 1991 Gulf War (although many elements of the French left, at the time, opposed it for ideological reasons) demonstrated that the country is not in principle opposed to just war or even to American leadership in world affairs; it is opposed, rather, to the United States wielding its leadership role in an unjust or injudicious manner.
The arrogance of many Bush administration officials -- particularly Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- has undoubtedly stirred an attitude of defiance among many French government officials. This attitude is in no way the monopoly of one single political party or group: Both France's left and the right are united in their dislike of the Bush administration's habit of striding the world stage with minimal humility. France is a country where the growing influence of multiculturalism, small political parties and globalization has led to social, political, cultural and economic fragmentation. Yet despite this, there is wide consensus that the U.S. approach to foreign policy is increasingly unwise. This consensus stems in part from the growing attention French politicians are paying to the concerns of the Arab community, which today makes up some 10 percent of the French population. And French Arabs are obviously suspicious of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, which would likely kill thousands of innocent Arab civilians. But non-Arab French citizens perceive a self-interest in opposing this war as well: The risk of terrorist attacks on French soil by radical Muslim groups would no doubt increase if France were to support such a war. Given the high number of Muslim terrorist cells that are likely active in France, the prospect of such attacks is no doubt a major factor driving French public opinion -- as well as the decisions of Chirac and his government.
But it is not just Iraq -- or even the Bush administration's arrogance -- that has helped shape French attitudes toward the current administration. The vast majority of French citizens have perceived Bush as illegitimate since he took office. (He was, after all, handed the job by the Supreme Court after a less-than-transparent electoral recount in the state of Florida, a state, incidentally, controlled by his own brother Jeb.) At the time, the French press (both liberal and conservative) weighed in overwhelmingly against the High Court's decision in Bush v. Gore. While the French viewed past American presidents as the rightful democratic representatives of their own people, they had a difficult time accepting that someone who had lost a majority of the popular vote could still assume the presidency. In this regard, the results of the 2000 U.S. election created in France a sentiment of malaise: The French are not anti-Bush because they are anti-American but rather because the Bush presidency prevents them from being pro-American; it defies the French historical faith in the American democratic system, a system whose most eloquent chronicler was a 19th-century Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. The dubious conclusion of America's last presidential election thus led to a common impression of profound betrayal in France -- the betrayal of democracy itself, of its political and ethical meanings for all the citizens of the Western world.
Moreover, the French-American rift over an invasion of Iraq is just one more in a long series of disagreements that have alienated most of the French population from the Bush administration. As the French say, the American policy toward Iraq is la goutte d'eau qui fait déborder le vase -- that is, "the final straw." In particular, the French cannot accept or even understand America's continuing support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disastrous policy of aggression toward the Palestinians. To the French, this further demonstrates the Bush administration's unwillingness to search for peaceful solutions to the current problems in the Middle East.
But French hostility toward the current administration is not just driven by American foreign policy; it is also fueled by Bush's regressive views on important cultural, social and moral issues -- abortion, capital punishment, health care, the environment and, of course, globalization -- that are dear to the French people. One should not forget that the law guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion in France was introduced by Simone Veil of the French right and passed under the conservative presidency of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing back in the 1970s. As a result, even many conservative French citizens find Bush's views on abortion to be absurd. France abolished capital punishment 20 years ago; in addition, defending a popular national health-care system remains a common preoccupation for French legislators on both the left and the right. Plus, Bush's stubborn opposition to the signing of the Kyoto Protocol puts him at odds with virtually all the governments of the European Union countries, including France. Bush's conservative positions on all these issues make him by far the most reactionary leader in the Western world today -- even more so than Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the main figure of the neoliberal right in Europe. One should not underestimate these essential differences of opinion between the United States and France. In the long run, the result of these divisions could well be the isolation of the United States from the rest of the free world -- and the irreversible weakening of its leadership within the international community.
The American media's coverage of the most recent French presidential election reinforced the stereotype of French anti-Americanism while wrongly portraying France as a country on the verge of right-wing totalitarianism. Chirac's overwhelming victory in that election demonstrated the French people's rock-solid attachment to the democratic values of the French Republic. The choice of Jean-Pierre Raffarin (a self-proclaimed moderate) as a new prime minister following the elections represented a rather minor shift from the center-left (represented by former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin) to the center-right -- by no means a radical transformation of the French political landscape. This political center is without a doubt the place where most French citizens situate themselves today. Bush's extremist (and even fundamentalist) worldview implies a definite break with this prevailing French zeitgeist of moderation. In addition, the dangerous confusion between religion and politics in many of Bush's recent speeches is particularly troubling to the French people, whose support for the clear separation of church and state dates to 1789 and the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Bush's worldview presupposes an international order ruled by unilateralism and a belief in the use of force for the resolution of conflicts between nations. These positions are profoundly incompatible with the political identity of modern Western democracies, which are rooted in the principles of multilateral cooperation. The current French war against the war in Iraq should be interpreted in the broader context of a war for the preservation of democracy's integrity. It is not a French battle against America -- it is a battle against Bush. And for liberal democracy.
Pierre Taminiaux is an associate professor of French at Georgetown University.
