Anti-Americanisms in World Politics

5. The Distinctiveness of French Anti-Americanism

5 The Distinctiveness of French Anti-Americanism S O P H I E M E U N I E R 129 “The French president has no rivals as global spokesman on anti-Americanism,” the Economist recently wrote.1 Between taking the lead in the anti-globalization movement in the late s and in the movement against a war in Iraq in , France confirmed its image as the “oldest enemy” among America’s friends.2 After all, even before the days of Chirac and de Gaulle, France had always seemed to be at the forefront of animosity toward the United States—from eighteenth-century theories about the degeneration of species in the New World to twentieth-century denunciations of the Coca-Colonization of the Old World.3 In recent years, in a context of international public opinion highly critical of U.S. involvement in Iraq, the French surprisingly did not stand out from other Europeans in their overall feelings toward the United States.4 Whether assessing American Middle East policy, the big threats facing their respective societies, or even American culture, French public opinion was very much in line with German, Spanish, This chapter greatly benefited from the comments by participants in the workshops on antiAmericanism organized by Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, in November , January , and June ; the Duke University Globalization and Equity Seminar, March , ; the Brown University Department of French seminar, April , ; and the University of Chicago Program in International Security Policy seminar, April , . I thank Rawi Abdelal, Nicolas Barreyre, John Bowen, Patrick Chamorel, Bernard Chazelle, Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas, Peter Gourevitch, Miles Kahler, Peter Katzenstein, Judith Kelley, Robert Keohane, Richard Kuisel, John Mearsheimer, and Mary Nolan for their thoughtful comments and suggestions . Thanks also to Carolina Ardila Zurek and Cleosie Kirkland for research assistance. . Economist d. . Miller and Molesky . . Kuisel . . See chapter  by Chiozza. For recent polls, see Pew Global Attitudes Project a and d; PIPA ; German Marshall Fund . Dutch, and even British opinion. But polling data confirms that over time the French have been systematically more critical of the United States than most other European publics. As shown by Isernia in chapter , even though French sentiments toward the United States have been prevalently positive over time, only Spain and Greece in western Europe have consistently manifested stronger hostility toward the United States than France. In particular, the French public, along with French politicians , became extremely critical of the perceived trend toward U.S. unilateralism in world affairs throughout the s, many years before their European counterparts. It is also during this period that French politicians and intellectuals articulated the concept of “managed globalization”—a series of multilateral regulations and initiatives designed to shield Europe from the negative effects of the global law of the market.5 Is the lesser French enthusiasm for the United States over time evidence that France is anti-American, as common wisdom usually assumes? What makes French anti-Americanism a singular phenomenon? The introduction to this book defines anti-Americanism as a very heterogeneous set of attitudes, resting on different sets of beliefs and cognitive schemas. In chapter  on the varieties of antiAmericanism , Katzenstein and Keohane show that one must distinguish opinion from distrust from bias, although it is often difficult to do so. What is often portrayed in shorthand as anti-Americanism may actually be reasoned criticism, and what is passed off as reasoned criticism may mask real prejudices. In this chapter I explore the distinctive dynamics of French anti-Americanism, by first demonstrating that France harbors an enduring distrust of America centered in the past decade on the related issues of unilateralism and globalization. I then explain why French distrust of the United States is so deeply institutionalized, arguing that the deep reservoir of anti-American arguments that have accumulated over the centuries and the simultaneous coexistence of all types of anti-Americanism have made anti-American rhetoric a tool that can be used at no cost for political benefit. Finally, I focus on the potential consequences of French anti-Americanism for economic relations and the war on terror. Is French Opposition to the United States Driven by Anti-Americanism? France exhibits an enduring distrust of the United States, which sometimes shades into bias, especially among the elites. But contrary to the assertions of many American French-bashers who have made a cottage-industry of denouncing innate French biases, the most important...