Think We Can (French) Kiss and Make Up?

September 11, 2003 9:27 AM

Think We Can (French) Kiss and Make Up? Two years ago it was "I'll always love and support you". It only took a little while, though, before the arguments began. But there are always counselors to help you work on the relationship. There is even talk of reconciliation. And anyway, this love-hate relationship has been going on for almost three centuries.
posted by twsf (10 comments total)

Don't you mean (Freedom) Kiss?
posted by zekinskia at 9:39 AM on September 11, 2003

Also check out Fouad Ajami's The Falseness of AntiAmericanism.
posted by Jos Bleau at 9:53 AM on September 11, 2003

As for relations between the two governments, it would be nice if we could get along. But it doesn't matter a whole lot. The whole rift stems from the French (and Germans) trying to be coy about getting Iraq's natural resources and the US just barging in line and taking them. There's no good guy there.

If rabid anti-French sentiment still exists among the US population, it's confined to the Lee Greenwood-loving segment. The rest of America probably feels the same way about the French that they have for most of their lives-- either dislike them for their cold snottiness, love them for the neater parts of their culture, or don't really care.

I would expect that because French people value their language and culture, the bulk of them dislike us and our cultural takeover of the world. And that's fine-- if I was a citizen of another country, I'd probably dislike the US.

None of that's going to change. Nobody really likes anybody, and that's fine.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:00 AM on September 11, 2003

I'd guess that a whole new round of anti-French propaganda is on the way, with the US rounding on France for not 'growing up' and helping to pay and sort out the war it didn't want.
posted by niceness at 11:18 AM on September 11, 2003

...and of course any hint of "we told you so" will be French arrogance.
posted by niceness at 11:20 AM on September 11, 2003

So the French didn't want war in Iraq because it didn't further their goals. When has America ever consciously endorsed a measure which didn't further ITS goals?

There is certainly quite a lot of hypocrisy about (not speaking of this thread specifically).
posted by clevershark at 11:42 AM on September 11, 2003

All I know is, if France sent thousands of troops to some place in Mexico because of disputes in the fashion industry which led to blood vendettas both in France and Mexico, we'd be all over France's butt for violation of our Monroe Doctrine yet for some reason I don't fathom, we Americans can go around with impunity blowing up things in France's neighborhood, over some stupid oil industry issues and religious stuff? yah i know "but it's more complicated than that, zach" just stow it, m'kay?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:37 PM on September 11, 2003

What a witty, well-composed front-page post. Bravo, twsf.

I'm grateful for French food, so I couldn't dislike the French.
posted by Holden at 2:06 PM on September 11, 2003

Foo. If France and the US didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.
posted by aramaic at 2:31 PM on September 11, 2003

Thanks for posting that link JB. Ajami has some insights, but unfortunately the article is all over the map. I wish he would stick to his thinking about US forms of modernity and why this is so challenging to parts of the Arab world. There he has something to say.

While he can catalog how judgmental the French can be, it isn't like that is a challenging task.
posted by ednopantz at 3:58 PM on September 11, 2003