This was just bound to happen! Francis, my soccer-mad (and Mac-loving) newsvendor, kept a copy aside just for me -
- along with the young one's "Don't you dare forget to buy it!" weekly dose of:
Spirou, like several good things "French", is really made in Belgium, except that we don't always bother to say so, do we, Marcel? As I hope to make clear, products, people and ideas which come from next door, even Switzerland, are not all the French tend to "borrow". Borders can be a nuisance, except when trouble like the Chernobyl cloud hits them and decides to go and visit somebody else instead. So we were assured at the time.
That title about "declaring war" scarcely needs translating, any more than the shock revelation that 'The French don't work'.
There's a top-left chunk that says "France runs a high risk of being invaded by its new enemies. But that's no problem, the Germans are there to liberate us, according to the experts." Should 'l'iMonde' ('The Unspeakable' will do) prove to be a worthy addition to the 'Unchained Duck' (no official site), and not just a one-off, then it's one up to the satirical press.
But don't be fooled, America. With a few vocal exceptions, the French still adore you. It's just that sometimes the God-fearing people who end up in the White House scare the merde out of them, just as they do some of the rest of us. The current belligerence is widely seen as one fundamentalism pitted against another. Some are held to believe that since the end of the world is already nigh, there'll be no harm in giving the Superpower a hand to speed it up. Nobody blames the ordinary folks who come and pack Le Louvre most summers. You'll see a Frog reading 'l'Imonde' at McDonalds. The smiles that greet tourist dollars are every bit as sincere as the warnings in the subway to stay the safe side of the painted white line.
Back in the early '80s, when the dust from Mai '68 was long since swept away from the cafés near the Sorbonne on Saint-Germain and the Boul' San-Mich', French navel-gazers were debating whether a "consumer society" was finally taking shape. After all, this ran against the grain of tradition and religion too. Two decades on, a largely elder generation keeps its savings at the state-run post office rather than trust anything as overtly capitalist as a bank - and that habit makes for appalling queues if you just want to pick up a waiting packet on a Saturday.
The consumer debate is over. Most of us here are every bit as ready to help warm the globe as anybody else. Kids have tellies in their bedroom and the diet of pap has long been as good as America's (heck, TF1 and several others even copy the best of it). The independent movie theatres have begun to realise what's good for them and go under or put a mainstream film on the list, even if it is showing just up the road. One of the few obstacles to progress left is the obstinate refusal of an excellent public transport network to fall apart, though it's been bombed since I've been here - a legacy of good old-fashioned imperialism which led France into another war, in Algeria, which you didn't even discuss in polite circles until recently. But people do try to send transport down the tubes. The rare and symbolic days when Parisians are told to leave their cars at home are blithely ignored. When I came back here after one trip abroad, friend Tony told me, "You know, while you were away, the pollution level got so high they had to invent a new scale!" I didn't believe him at first, the old tease, but it turned out he was right. So, don't worry about globalization, we're on board. The glaciers are even melting in the Alps. I've seen the striking effects with my very own eyes and talked to the people who live up there.
Incomprehension doesn't come into it: for all the 'Vive la différence!,' the French look at America, like most of what they see and yearn only to be almost exactly the same. Remember the photos after September 11, those masses of flowers: the grief and the shock was heartfelt here too.
What they don't like to the point of resentment is the tired old line: "How can a country prove so ungrateful to the brave boys who died to rescue them in 1918 and 1945?"
There's no lack of gratitude, even if nobody likes being reminded about wars they nearly lost, especially when one of them should never have begun in the first place. Your average Frenchman takes the flag-waving with a pinch of salt. He and his wife will reply: "Sure, but since then, once Washington has bombed the hell out of [empty this space], they leave it to 'Old Europe' to pick up a large chunk of the bill and stay on to clean up the mess!"
Indeed, your average informed French person knows that a people whose Constitution they admire very nearly as much as their own also helps to mend the damage. They suspect that Bush honestly does believe he will help make the world a safer place.
"Those who give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security" (Ben Franklin). I promised the reader who sent me that line to ponder it, not that I needed long. When I consider Franklin the man as well as the message, I see a different calibre from anybody in the top team today!
This morning, after Bush's demand for "people to show their cards and let the world know where they stand" in the UN Security Council, I've done my best to stand back and zap the French airwaves. Comment caught at random: "...the Americans were right over Suez, but today they should be listening to us...", "the reports from Pakistan about Osama bin Laden could be seen as a very convenient amalgam...", "President Bush has spoken strongly; never has he has been so naked about his conviction...", "...Chirac and the British understand the Arabs well. Our ties are historic. Perhaps we are not so good at understanding Israel...", "...It is what, this menace to France? Saddam Hussein is not (French far-right leader) Monsieur (Jean-Marie) Le Pen...". I caught no mention, however, of comparisons between Saddam and Hitler. And if I quote no pro-Washington comment, it's not for lack of trying to catch one!
Only earlier, on the BBC, did I hear what struck me as unfortunate diplomacy, when a US former arms inspector highlighted a rift between the British government and the British public, arguing that the latter, like the French and the Germans, have failed to grasp the nature of the threat. When you have allies, it is perhaps unwise to hark on the shakiness of their own power-base.
My adopted compatriots are convinced that when it comes to the art of diplomacy, they remain Numéro 1. Their popular press may see Chirac seeking his Nobel Peace prize, but his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, has emerged from relative obscurity as the most eloquent vocalist of the tune sung here.
French people worry, of course, that the fallout from any mistake now is going to be so darned BIG that even the amount of money their fellow taxpayers in the United States may be asked to chuck into it as well won't be enough to fill the craters. The prevailing concern, now that war seems inevitable, is what happens afterwards. Fear and terror are universal. It's the response to them that comes down to individuals. Many are the leaders who can oppress the masses, rare indeed are those who can shape them. To take up the language of those who lie in their graves does not enhance political stature; it can merely show that a politician knows a good quote. Widespread French cynicism about politicians is far from unhealthy. I've not spoken to a French person yet who would want to see the conflict of views expressed by the leaders we're stuck with escalate into more than a difference between friends.
11:21:10 AM link 
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