The French Way (2 page)

Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to those who read all or parts of my manuscript and made recommendations for improvements. My helpful and generous consultants were Frederic Bozo, John Kim Munholland, Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, David Ellwood, Sophie Meunier, and Robert Harvey, as well as the two anonymous readers for Princeton University Press. Other forms of scholarly assistance came from Helene Volat, Paul Gallis, Seth Armus, Harvey Feigenbaum, Sherrill Wells, Donald Lamm, Martin Schain, Justin Vai'sse, Philip Mooney, Erin Carriere-Kretschmer, and Mary Demeri. This work owes much to the rich intellectual environment that combines policy and history created by the BMW Center for German and European Studies and the History Department at Georgetown University. The BMW Center and its director, Jeff Anderson, also provided me with resourceful and dependable research assistants—namely, Efthymia Drolapas, Chantal Clement, Kristin Melby, Stacey Chappel, and Marie Harding. Brigitta van Rheinberg, Sara Lerner, Sarah Wolf, and Brian Bendlin at Princeton University Press paid close attention to my manuscript and made important contributions.

Most of all I want to express my personal debt to my late wife, Sally McCarthy Kuisel, to whom this book is a tribute. Sally, who was an artist and an archivist, encouraged my scholarship, but, more important,
she made both of our lives joyful and fulfilling. Her remarkable esprit merits memorializing, and to evoke it I propose one of her favorite pieces of music, Franz schubert's “Trout Quintet,” which expresses her warmth, optimism, vivacity, and beauty. As my grandson said of Sally, “she sparkled.”

Washington, D.c., March 2011

A Note on Anti-Americanism

For readers who are scrupulous about terminology I shall at the outset define the elusive term
anti-Americanism
and explain how the expression will be used. scholars who have faced the definitional question tend either to emphasize intellectuals, political extremists, and discourse or they stress the general public and polls. The first conceptualization narrows and hardens the cohort; the second makes it diffuse and volatile.
¹
My exposition employs both approaches while noting the distinction.

The restrictive usage conceives of anti-Americanism as a predisposition, a reflex, or a bias that automatically assumes the worst about anything associated with America, in which America appears to have no virtues, only vices. It is metaphorically described as a disease—and a contagious one at that. It is fueled by a discourse about America dating from the nineteenth century, if not earlier, and it relies on stereotypes, images, tropes, and accusations that belittle everything associated with America and treats America and Americans as malevolent and dangerous. And it is a constant seemingly impervious to events or other developments. Accordingly, America is a dystopia with connotations of rampant consumerism, vulgar mass culture, social conformity, violence, and a will to world dominance. This stance, often labeled
anti-amiricanismeprimaire
, which could be translated as “primary” or “primitive” anti-Americanism, conveys a confrontational intent and
treats America as an ideology. The notion that America is an “-ism” makes this usage comparable to other ideological expressions like “anticommunism” or “anti-imperialism.” “Primary anti-Americanism,” including outspoken protagonists, captured a sympathetic audience of no more than 10 or 15 percent of the population. It is most commonly identified with intellectuals and extremist political and movements. The phrase
anti-amiricanisme primaire
came into vogue during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a reproof to ideological extremists on both the left (e.g., communists), and the right (e.g., the New Right).
²

Dystopian anti-Americanism has a right-versus-left inflection though both sides converge on basics. From the right America is a standardized, mass society rooted in materialist values and lacking either true culture or spiritual transcendence; from the left it is a capitalist monstrosity built on inequality, greed, and exploitation and pays no heed to social welfare, community or the environment. Both right and left agree that Americans have always been slaves to the “Dollar God” and are consumed by consumerism. Both view American society as feminized yet racked by violence. Both regard American culture as akin to trash. Both also see American foreign policy as unreliable—vacillating between imperialism and isolationism—and driven by moralistic and messianic aspirations as well as economic advantage. Both are disposed toward condemning America for what it is as well as for what it does. Defective policies originate less from flawed political decisions than from who Americans are and what they value.

Once the historian looks beyond the texts of writers and party programs and a hard-core minority and addresses attitudes among the general populace, anti-Americanism takes on a different color: here perceptions and assessments are less reflexive or totalizing; they oscillate and are more responsive to circumstances. There has been a kind of historical pulse as criticism ebbed and flowed, sharpened and softened, that requires understanding how changing contexts explain the dynamics of the phenomenon. The fluctuation of collective attitudes
toward America appeared in polling data and the media. Opinion surveys regularly reported a small bloc of the populace that identified it-self as holding strongly unfavorable views of Americans and America; but, in certain circumstances, such views could swell to half or more of the populace. These popular attitudes, unlike those aired by the dystopians, were highly volatile and often policy-specific, subject especially to transatlantic affairs like disputes over politics or trade. When a surge occurred, many of those surveyed attacked not only the U.s. government's policies, but also the shortcomings of American society or Americans. Analytically it is thus difficult to distinguish objections to “what America does” from “what America is” because they tend to overlap. At some level what America does, and who it is as a country interact—or, at least, are perceived to interact. For example, in the eyes of many French men and women, Ronald Reagan's tough anti-soviet stance in the early years of his presidency or his harsh socioeconomic policies represented who Americans were. Popular surges of antipathy form the second dimension of anti-Americanism alongside the far smaller cohort of dystopians.

The end of the twentieth century is an example of such a surge, when large numbers of the population, prompted by their leaders and the media, not only voiced criticism of American policies but also professed views about Americans that could be termed anti-American. For example, more and more of the French during the 1990s associated America and Americans with disparaging terms like
violence, racism
, or
domination.
I shall refer to this phenomenon as “growing anti-Americanism” with the understanding that this attribution is quite different from that represented by “primary anti-Americanism.”

In brief, I shall use the term
anti-Americanism
in two ways: it will occur in its restrictive sense when discussing the dystopians who prejudged and belittled everything attributed to America; but it will also be used more expansively to identify critical attitudes expressed by the general populace of America, of Americans, and of policies, both
domestic and international, associated with the United States. In this study the French have often scolded America for acting as a hegemonic power and for taking the wrong path toward modernity. In this way anti-Americanism encompasses both the small minority of reflexive haters as well as mass attitudes and perceptions that censored important aspects of America and its policies.

America, and much that was associated with America, was in vogue in France during the 1980s. Ralph Lauren fashions, California wines, Hollywood blockbuster movies, and venture capitalists were all chic. One Parisian couturier served McDonald's hamburgers at the opening of his fashion show. The socialist president of France, Francois Mitterrand, paid a visit to California's Silicon Valley and also admitted that he was a fan of the television show
Dallas.
U.S. president Ronald Reagan, after initially facing a cool reception, became so popular that many French wanted him reelected in 1984. President George H. W. Bush, especially after the success of German reunification, was even more highly regarded than his predecessor. And anti-Americanism, which once was synonymous with the cognoscenti of the Left Bank, was now unfashionable. By the end of the decade America, Americans, American society, and American popular culture were more warmly received than at any time since the GIs marched through a liberated Paris in 1944.

This narrative of French perceptions of America at the fin de siecle begins with an era of relative good feeling from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. The major aims of this chapter are, first, to describe and explain the warmth of these years as a prelude to the creeping chilliness in perceptions and relations that followed while watching the underlying rivalry that generated controversies and, second and more specifically,
to examine how the French responded to the American model—principally Reagan's domestic policies.

Why were the two decades of the fin de siecle apparently different? The answer lay in an unusual conjuncture of circumstances in the 1980s. Among the reasons for transatlantic amity was the admirable way Washington navigated the end of the Cold War. The splendid performance of the U.S. economy in the mid-1980s and the personal appeal of Reagan enhanced America's reputation. French domestic politics also contributed when the attempt at advancing socialism crashed and “Reaganomics,” at least to some French conservatives, briefly seemed attractive. Then there was the craze for American popular culture, especially among young people, and the spectacle of the French government courting the Walt Disney Company and showering awards on Hollywood stars. But one should not be deceived by appearances: these were not two completely different decades.

The contrast at the fin de siecle cannot be described simply as a shift from the balmy 1980s to the chilly 1990s or from America as a model to America as a pariah. This story is too complex for such simplifications because history, in this case, did not occur in neat decadelong packages; because perceptions were complex, nuanced, and fluid; because attitudes varied among different social and political groups; and because when it came to specific issues—such as American television programs—there was a range of responses, some of which were quite hostile. Amiability at the level of state-to-state relations, which itself was rather staged, existed only for brief periods, such as the years 1982-85 or 1989-91, and even these times were marred by serious quarrels. Moreover, Reagan's popularity was ephemeral and his domestic policies failed to inspire. At the same time transatlantic rivalry obstructed French efforts at combating the AIDS epidemic and cost over a thousand lives. Finally, favorable opinion was often informed by basic ambivalence about America and even about Americans. In short, the historian should be cautious in making generalizations about the decade, with one important exception: that of the public's general welcoming posture toward America,
Americans, and American popular culture. This seems indisputable. If the general mood was more comfortable during the 1980s than either before or after, it was nevertheless fragile and, as we shall see, easily upset.

Before France could become more welcoming to America there had to be fundamental changes in politics and society. The French had to be liberated from two older narratives about their destiny and they had to come to enjoy the benefits of a more open consumer society. Political change as well as deep socioeconomic transformations opened the way to an appreciation of the American way in the 1980s.

Up to the 1970s Gaullism and communism—two entrenched political ideologies that defined what loyalists believed constituted France's identity, and both remnants of the early postwar era—together commanded the loyalty of roughly half the French electorate. Both, in their own ways, were pillars of anti-Americanism. The peaks of French anti-Americanism following the Second World War occurred in the early 1950s and the during the 1960s: the first was largely the work of the communists and the second that of the Gaullists. The 1970s were something of a transition as these two sources ebbed: their demise was crucial to the transatlantic affability of the Reagan/Bush/Mitterrand years.

Gaullism lost much of its allure after General Charles de Gaulle retired as president of the Fifth Republic in 1969. His call to grandeur seemed rather passè once France had lost its empire, and his plans for remaking Europe lost credibility. He was unable to persuade either the United States or the USSR to end their bipolar hegemony and his effort at reinforcing the Paris-Bonn axis stumbled over the preference of West Germans for the Atlantic Alliance. De Gaulle's attempts at reshaping the incipient European Community, even though he succeeded in vetoing admission of the British, had not brought France the leverage he sought. From the U.S. government's perspective the general was notorious for removing France from NATO's integrated command and challenging the
pax Americana.
After his departure the Gaullist credo based on national independence, an autonomous nuclear force,
balance among the superpowers, and continued presence in traditional French preserves like Africa survived and formed a consensus among the French political class, but there was little enthusiasm for appeals to grandeur, threats to withdraw from the Atlantic Alliance, pronouncements aimed at embarrassing Washington, D.C., or pretensions that France should be present at every international crisis. Ironically, once de Gaulle had restored some distance between Paris and Washington there seemed to be less need to taunt Uncle Sam. The French people slowly accepted the reality that their country had become a middling power rather than a competitor with the superpowers and a candidate for grandeur. By the early 1980s less than a quarter of the French believed their nation was any longer a great power.
¹
De Gaulle's successor Georges Pompidou quietly retreated from the Gaullist creed by admitting the United Kingdom into the European Community; and Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who followed Pompidou to the Elyseè in 1974, was not even a Gaullist. Giscard refrained from baiting the Americans and, in the eyes of diehard Gaullists, abandoned France to Atlanticism.

The decline of the Gaullism carried with it a domestic message—that state direction of the economy or
dirigisme
had reached its limits. The Gaullist approach to macroeconomic management and modernization, a strategy that was in great part responsible for the reconstruction of the economy after World War II, seemed to many to have become heavy-handed and out-of-date by the 1970s. De Gaulle's presidency featured national economic planning; tightly regulated financial markets; protection of “strategic sectors,” especially from American takeovers; the elevation of “national champions” (i.e., high-tech companies that could show the tricolor in global competition); resistance to the hegemony of the dollar; shelters for agriculture and certain noncompetitive industries; and an integrated Europe closed to Anglo-American influence. Critics from the center and right of the political spectrum and much of the business community had come to see Gaullist economics as flawed. France, in their view, needed relief from suffocating state dirigisme that curbed healthy competition, denigrated private profitability,
subsidized lame-duck industries, distorted investment, and stifled entrepreneurship. The pendulum of political economy needed to swing back toward deregulation and the free market—the direction Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were to head. This, however, was not the view of Gaullism's other critics, Mitterrand's socialists—as we shall see.

A moderation of Gaullist dirigisme was underway in the 1970s. Presidents Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing advanced deregulation, marginalized economic planning, and made state intervention conform more closely to market criteria of profitability. Giscard infuriated traditional Gaullists by exposing vital industrial sectors to American multinationals. During the administrations of Pompidou and Giscard the French economy benefited from the expansion of trade within the new European Community and rapidly opened to markets outside the continent. When De Gaulle came to power at the end of the 1950s the share of imports and exports in gross domestic product (GDP) was less than 10 percent, but by 1980 these shares had climbed to 25 percent.
²
The realities of the global economy would, in time, teach the socialists that France needed to streamline dirigisme and take a dose of market medicine.

To a great extent Gaullism depended for its verve and appeal on the status and vision of a heroic wartime leader, and the cause lost momentum once the great man left the political scene. The Gaullist party survived, but as a conventional right-wing organization, one among several conservative parties run by career politicians like Jacques Chirac rather than as a national movement above partisanship, a rally of all French men and women, which had been the general's intention. Like an old Napoleonic battle flag in a military museum, the colors in the banner of Gaullism had faded by 1980.

The rival grand narrative to Gaullism, that heralded by the French Communist Party, which formed the hardcore of anti-Americanism on the far left, was also in disarray by the 1970s. The red star symbolized by the Soviet Union was no longer at the apex of the firmament: it had dimmed as the hope of progressives. Revelations of Stalinist gulags and
economic failures, repression of dissent, and sclerotic political leadership had tarnished the reputation of the Soviet way. Equally damaging was Moscow's oppressive control over other communist regimes in Eastern Europe including armed intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Even the vaunted Red Army was humbled in Afghanistan after 1979. In France the Communist Party suffered from similar sclerosis under the leadership of Georges Marchais and from the weight of a nineteenth-century political program featuring the dictatorship of the proletariat. As France deindustrialized—that is, closed coal mines, docks, textile mills, and iron foundries—the industrial working class, the proletariat of Marxism, shrank. Radical student activism and the events of 1968 made the party appear to a young generation as a leftover of a Stalinist past. For intellectuals alignment with the communists was no longer de rigueur. Locked in a sociopolitical ghetto the party suffered from sagging electoral support and in the 1970s faced a revived rival on the left, the rebuilt Socialist Party of Francois Mitterrand. Because he was afraid of it becoming a junior party, Marchais abandoned what appeared to be a winning electoral alliance with the socialists in 1977. The heroic days of communism were long past.

By the 1970s the ability of traditional Gaullism and communism—two pillars of anti-Americanism—to intoxicate the French polity had crumbled. The path was open to alternatives. The Jacobin socialist model advocated by Mitterrand would be tried in the early 1980s, but it would fail to inspire economic growth and the socialists would be forced to make a right turn toward the market. The American model, our subject, was the other alternative. It became more attractive not only because Gaullism and communism had waned but also because of long-term economic and social changes—in particular, the arrival of consumer society.

What had been derided and dreaded by anti-Americans of earlier generations had become French social reality by the 1970s. The signs were everywhere: consumers possessed the purchasing power to buy consumer durables like automobiles and the latest home appliances. For
example, in 1960 only one of four households owned a refrigerator, but fifteen years later nine of ten did; they spent less of their income on necessities and more on comforts, health, communications, and leisure; they shopped at supermarkets, franchise stores (including American outlets), and discount marts; bought on credit; and enjoyed vacations abroad including tours to the United States. And advertising, much of it speaking in American English, was ubiquitous. Affluence, which arrived in the late 1960s, also brought American brand products like Tide detergent, Levi's jeans, Hollywood chewing gum, Marlboro cigarettes, Tupperware, and Hertz rental cars. To the dismay of at least one American couple, by the mid-1970s the French had sacrificed their quaintness: they had adopted frozen food, carpeted floors, dishwashers, shopping centers, and Kleenex.
³
Social mobility accompanied consumer society making the old class distinctions of
bourgeois andpaysan
seem like archaisms of the last century. Distinct social stratification—though far from absent—had eroded, and sociologists spoke of the new French society, one that was more informal, open, and fluid.
⁴
Classe moyenne
replaced
bourgeoisie
just as
agriculteur
(“farmer”) replaced
paysan.
Advances in transportation and communication like television brought new physical mobility and easy access to national and world events to the rural populace and eroded parochialism. What modernizers criticized as “the stalled society” of the 1950s was on the move. Traditional markers of identity like the village, the peasantry, and the Catholic Church lost ground, and in this new French society of openness and movement American society seemed closer to home than ever before. Social status, according to the chic set who flirted with Americanization, consisted of the muffled sound of a closing car door. As the Atlantic narrowed, the American model became more relevant.