FRENCH essay

Multi-ethnic Challenges

Section 2: International Relations

Overview

In this Section we look at France’s worldview and global presence. We’ll explore the ways in which de Gaulle helped to shape these perspectives as well as how France is perceived by those in the international community. This discussion also touches on France’s complex relationship with globalization and its former colonies, as well as what is perceived as an anti-American sentiment.

Key terms and concepts: La francophonie, Anglo-Saxon, Anti-Americanism, “soft imperialism”, globalization

· How does France view itself in relation to the rest of the world?

· What is "soft imperialism" and how is it related to anti-American sentiment in France as well as in other parts of the world?

· What associations does the term "Anglo-Saxon" conjure up in the mind of a French person?

· What reservations do the French have about globalization that derive from their overall mistrust of free trade?

Chapter 20, entitled "Change", opens Part III of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong. N-B begin with a review of the ways in which the French experience of their history (ties to the land, World War II and the Algerian War), the ways in which they view and value what is public and private space and behavior, grandeur, the importance of language, attitudes towards money, and political accountability, all of which add up to make them different from Anglo-Americans. They go on to compare the way in which France's overseas departments and territories are an integral part of France's political and economic presence in today's world, and how the keen interest the French take in international affairs is supported by the third-largest press agency in the world, France-Presse, created by de Gaulle before France's liberation in 1945. As N-B point out, it was the first of the three top press agencies (along with Associated Press and Reuters) to publish in Arabic and today operates in six languages (p. 284).

In the second part of the chapter, N-B discuss the independent course taken by France after WWII vis-à-vis the US (pp. 284-285). De Gaulle sensed the threat posed by America's presence in France and did not hesitate to make sure that the power and prestige of his country would survive. Placing the American army under the control of the French préfets immediately after the Liberation was not popular with the US leadership, especially since the French were bolstered by the myths that they had liberated themselves from the Germans. In his return to power in 1958, de Gaulle acted without consulting his allies. When the Western powers were anti-Communist, de Gaulle was pursuing a rapprochement with China and Russia. Under de Gaulle's leadership, France tested its first atomic bomb (1960), withdrew from NATO and closed all US bases in France (1966), and lent support to the separatist movement in Quebec (1967).

As N-B point out, no French president has stirred up as much controversy on the international stage as Charles de Gaulle. But as a result of his efforts, France has retained its position as a world power and continues to exercise a position of leadership in the world. They also discuss the importance of La Francophonie, an idea proposed to France by the Canadian province of Quebec in 1960.  Essentially, Quebeckers thought that they, as well as other isolated French-speaking peoples of the world, could benefit from belonging to a cooperative society among French-speaking countries to be spearheaded by France. Out of fear of appearing neo-colonialist, France initially refused but was eventually convinced to undertake the project. This has turned out to be a great political advantage for France. La Francophonie, or bloc of French-speaking nations, has an opportunity to speak with a common voice at the UN. For the  French, the intergovernmental community of French-speaking peoples has helped to overcome the negative legacy of their colonial past (pp. 286-287).

What de Gaulle recognized early on was the insidious and ultimately more powerful tactic of long-term occupation -- a brand of "soft imperialism" that slowly imposes its customs and values, eating away at long-held traditions and beliefs and ultimately destroying what was once a nation's identity. Anti-Americanism has been alive in France for many generations, but  N-B argue that this is not an attitude unique to the French nor has its process been well recognized by the American public in general, which operates under the illusion that the rest of the world is eager to adopt American culture because they love and admire it. N-B cite examples of the encroachment of American culture through initiatives by US government and businesses, in particular the Blum-Byrnes Accord signed by the French in 1946 making American aid conditional on the introduction of American products in France (p. 287). They also mention the U.S.-generated myth that led Americans to believe that D-Day (June 6, 1944) was an American landing, when in fact most of the troops were British and Canadian (p. 288). Though the French are hardly in a position to point fingers at myth-makers since they have shown themselves to be masters of that art, N-B make an important observation about what constitutes the crux of the French-American war of words: "These days, the French do not fancy themselves economic or military rivals of the United States, but they still feel like cultural rivals" (p. 289).

While the issue remains highly complex, N-B note that the undercurrent of anti-American sentiment in France can be summed up in the expression "Anglo-Saxon," which refers to anything that comes from the those countries that have a strong Protestant ethic with emphasis on community life, individual liberties, and economics -- that includes the US, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, the Scandinavian countries and South Africa. While this implies that France operates by something opposite -- or a "Catholic" ethic, it is important to remember that the French State is officially secular. Nevertheless, as N-B have noted, "...while countries like Italy and Spain are more fervent followers of Catholicism, they never created a State as Catholic as France's, which is heavily centralized, hierarchical, and homogenizing. It is almost as if the French studied the Catholic Church and created their State in its image" (p. 290), hence the term "Anglo-Saxon" to avoid any religious connotations.

This basic difference in worldviews is what is behind the French position on globalization of markets epitomized in the activism of José Bové. Whereas the WTO was promoting a model of free trade that allows markets to determine what is best (in reality, a sort of Darwinian paradigm), the French want to impose controls that protect the products of individual nations and subsidize the markets struggling to gain a toehold. One idea they have floated that hearkens back to the founding principles of the UN (which created the agency to begin with and which is being considered by other Western democracies) is the placing of a surtax on financial transactions, the proceeds of which would be used to redistribute wealth to the poorer nations.

La Francophonie

As we learned in a previous Module, France maintains ten overseas possessions scattered all over the world, which are the vestiges of the former French colonial empire. Moreover, today French is spoken on five continents by approximately 200 million people.

The term francophonie was coined in 1880 by French geographer Onésisme Reclus (1837-1916) to designate the community of people and countries using French for various purposes. As the colonial empires of France and Belgium disintegrated, the language remained the common thread that  tied countries together long after they gained their independence. In the second half of the twentieth century, prosperous French-speaking areas of the world in Switzerland and Canada joined Belgium and France in helping their former colonies to develop viable political, social, and economic structures. On March 20, 1970, a group of French-speaking leaders from 20 countries came together in Niamey, Niger, to sign a treaty of mutual aid and cultural cooperation known as the ACCT (Accord de coopération culturelle et technique). In 1986, the first summit of Francophone nations was called. Since then, there have been summits held every two years.