The Rise of the French Neocons and the Fall of Frog-bashing
With the rise of Nicolas Sarkozy, 'Sarko l'Americain' to his detractors (and friends, too, apparently), the Neocons are set to do for France perhaps what they have done for the United States.
And does anyone doubt that Sarkozy is in fact a Neocon? Well, in the United States, neocons are largely defined, if not by themselves, as essentially those who are extreme in their wishes and actions to bring about imperialist resurgence. Sarkozy's recent accord with the U.S. regarding Iran certainly puts him in that category (as does that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel). (Britain never left the fold, even if it is now only a lieutenant ("partner") of the U.S.)
The history of U.S.-French relations has always been on-again, off-again. The reasons for early problems probably lie in the fact that the United States realized that French support in the revolutionary period and beyond was really just the result of 19th century realpolitik: France was glad to support what was turning out to be a real thorn in its English enemy's side. (The British and the French had been battling on and off-again for nearly a thousand years, mostly due to crazy ass aristocratic squabbles, claims and counterclaims.) When the British came to the aid of the Confederate States of America in the 1860s, French support was all the more welcomed even if it might have been seen as self-serving.
In the later period, beginning perhaps with the First World War, which President Woodrow Wilson entered after promising he wouldn't, in order to buttress America's new ally (mostly due to financial links), former colonial master, Great Britain. Remember it was Great Britain, not France, which launched the War of 1812 by attacking the fledgling United States, eventually burning down the White House (perhaps the only real threat to its existence the United States has ever faced). In any event, WWI began the modern period of U.S.-French relations. Then came the Second World War and the rise of the United States as the preeminent power in the west, for sure, but also the world. As the U.S. rose, the continental powers declined. British and French imperial fortunes, despite still considerable holdings, were sinking. The British took to its lieutenant-to-the-United-States role rather blithely. It's called a partnership, but it's not a partnership anymore than bosses and workers are "partners". It's unequal. The British fool themselves and the United States encourages them. All the better for everyone involved. The French, however, were never quite as eager to be so dominated by the U.S., for understandable as well as, perhaps, egotistical reasons. This unease first showed up in France's split with NATO fairly early on. It has continued until most recently with the French resistance to the U.S. war against Iraq.
However, throughout the history of U.S.-dominated part of U.S.-French relations, France has generally been largely (if not specifically) in accord with the U.S. regarding the international system. France simply desired a more independent status. Those times that it hasn't been in accord have not necessarily been for altruistic reasons, of course. For instance, it is likely true that the French government opposed the Iraq war not because it was a crime, but because they had business ties to Iraq. But that's certainly not completely illegitimate - although when translated via Neocon propaganda, it certainly seemed so. But French disagreements with U.S. policies have always been presented as the worst sort of betrayal. And this betrayal has been tied in the most xenophobic ways to France's supposed lack of appreciation for America's liberation of the country in WWII and, simultaneously, to France's supposed lack of intestinal fortitude in dealing with "bad guys", which, so goes our own propaganda, is always the reason we shoot up other people's countries.
Of course the accusation of French cowardice was always more self-serving to American elite power than fair or true. World War Two is the most oft-cited example, though Dien Bin Phu come in a close second. Concerning the first example, it is true the French were defeated by the Germans in a few weeks in the spring of 1940. It also true that many French then collaborated with the Germans, including collusion in the rounding up of Jews, Communists and others. But defeat at the hands of the Germans is not cause to be deemed cowardly. The French army's defeat had more to do with outmoded tactics than cowardice. Guderian's breakthrough at the Ardennes and the Germans use of concentrated armor columns are the answer to France's defeat. As for collaboration, it was always limited. After all, there was also the resistance, l'Maquis, which was not only instrumental in many independent operations but also provided support and intelligence to the allies before and after D-Day. As for Dien Bien Phu, it is telling that French failure to follow up a defeat by oppressed colonialists I think it is not an exaggeration at all to say that the anti-French attitude among American nationalists has been due to French failure to kiss American ass, not cowardice or snottniness. But it has not always been so.
In an important recent example of French connivance with American policy, France actively took part in carrying out the kidnapping a few years ago of elected Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide. Apparently, the French helped in the operation, including setting up Aristide temporarily in its former colony, a recent client, Central African Republic. This was as unseemly an act on the part of the United States as one could imagine. The French not only did not object, they helped. Those crazed xenophobes in the United States that rant and rave about the French lost this opportunity to pat the French on the heads since they were too busy denying the fact the U.S. kidnapped Aristide and took over his country - again.
But such things are hardly new. The French and the U.S. were in accord as early as 1804 in smashing the Haitian upstarts. Then it was due to a slave rebellion that was crushed by the United States and France, with the French then being the dominant partner in the criminal activity. A century later, during the First World War in fact the United States took over the brutalization of Haiti. The pattern has continued up until today.
The Iraq war, though, brought about a real coarsening of U.S.-French relations, but it was largely because of American extremism in pursuit of Bush's neocon agenda. It became so bad that hack politicians in the United States changed "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" in a display of hostility so childish and bizarre that it would have been laughable if it hadn't been so reminiscent of typical xenophobic nationalist smack-talk.
Many French perhaps didn't give a crap and figured, if unfairly, it was an example of just the sort of America they had come to hate so much. Others though smarted at the hyperventilating "France Sucks" rhetoric emanating from across the pond and wished to do something about it. America and France, they felt, have a lot in common: they both like to exploit, manipulate and kick around Third World countries when they can. That's enough to hang a relationship on, isn't it? The Iraq thing was just a moment in time; the U.S. and France can go back to old collaborations, can't they?
Well, along came French rightist Nicolas Sarkozy. Do I need to tell you that the French business, military and intelligence elites might have drooled over the possibility of so pleasing the American neocons as to put Sarko the American in power? How do you say Diebold in French?
And why not? French elites after all more or less see things the way U.S. elites do on everything from corporate welfare and the lowering of economic expectations on the part of ordinary folk to the War on Terror and the manufactured need to defeat the "Islamo-fascists."
The rise of Sarko the American is a manufactured mending of U.S.-French relations. It is an excuse for all the "Frog"-bashers to put away their pillows and hail the snail-snackers as comrades again. A good example is stealth-neocon Tucker Carlson of MSNBC (stealth because he pretends to be a loyal oppositionist but nevertheless nearly always shills for the latest Bush Administration claims, saying it is because they are true or self-evident not because he is a neocon shill). When Sarkozy recently sneaked into the country and vacationed with the Bush's in Maine, he menaced paparazzi, bare-chested even, when they wandered too close. Carlson took this as a good sign - a sign that the French had regained their manhood - and, by definition, their alignment with American interests. Carlson said something to the effect, "Hey, maybe the Frogs are not so bad." Yeah, if they elect a French version of George Bush, they can't be so bad, right?
