In Defense of the French
(written by Lancelot Finn, May 2003)
I want to speak a word in defense of the French.
I will first of all admit that there is some reason for the animosity against the French that has grown in America in recent weeks. Before the war, France’s decision to become the self-appointed leader of opposition to the war struck Americans as petulant and presumptuous. At least, though, it was then plausible to think that France had the interests of the Iraqi people in mind. Perhaps, we hoped, France opposed the war because they thought it really thought the war would kill “hundreds of thousands.” No one really knew the state of Iraqi public opinion then, so the French might even have thought Saddam enjoyed real support. It was sad to see the mask come off after the war, when celebration in the streets of Baghdad did not melt Chirac’s cold heart one bit.
But before we condemn, we should try to understand.
First, the French do not necessarily have bad intentions; they may just not be thinking straight. Chirac’s plan to put the UN instead of the coalition in charge of reconstruction in Iraq, for example, would have risked further chaos and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, but did Chirac understand this? Whereas Washington, DC has a shrewd policy establishment comprised of think tanks and agencies and journalists in a robust marketplace of ideas, the French are stuck with left-wing rant like the newspaper Le Monde, which grows more adrift from reality year after year. Common sense has largely been cooked out of the French world of letters after forty years of being boiled in the psychobabble of Camus, Sartre, Lacan, Derrida, etc. If the French seem unable to form sensible opinions, it’s not all their fault: they have a disadvantaged environment in which to do it.
Second, it is natural that France wants to grab the spotlight when it can, because the country has a chip on its shoulder. Two centuries ago, France was a very important country in the world. French was the chief international language. France was not only a great cultural center, but Europe’s greatest military power. We should forgive the French if it is difficult to come to terms with the fact that their time has passed and they no longer matter much in the world. A stagnant economy and high unemployment make matters worse. We should be grateful that French nationalism is finding an outlet in foreign policy rather than in the xenophobia of Le Pen that 17% of the French voted for a year ago.
Third, it is not surprising that the French seem not to care about right and wrong, because most of them don’t believe in God. Most US voters, and leaders like Bush and Blair, are adherents of Christianity. Our faith teaches us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. So when we see our fellow human beings in Iraq suffering under a brutal dictatorship, we are willing to make sacrifices to liberate them, because we expect to be answerable to God for the use or non-use of the power that has been given us. It is easy to condemn the French for bonhomie with dictators like Saddam, for selling them arms, for undermining arms-control efforts in order to scoop up oil deals, etc., but first ask yourself this question: if you thought there was no God, if you thought your good deeds would go unrewarded and your bad deeds unpunished when you died, might not you too be as cynical as a Frenchman?
Fourth, we should recognize that we are partly to blame for the problem of France. All too often, when America is under pressure, we have made alliances of convenience which later back-fire. We gave our help to the Soviet Union against Hitler, only to see it subject eastern Europe to decades of oppression. Both Saddam and bin Laden are ex-US allies. We supported Saddam against Iran, and we supported the mujahideen, many of whom later formed al-Qaeda, against the Soviet Union. Similarly, at the end of World War II, we were so eager to put one of “ours” in the Security Council, that we gave a permanent seat to a country with a long history of conquest and expansionism, which was even then using torture and repression to hold onto colonies in Africa and Indochina. If, yet again, our past foreign policy is coming back to haunt us, we should recognize that it is partly our own fault.
In short, I believe that the French are deserving, not of our anger, but of our pity. And in our moment of victory we can afford to be magnanimous. France is a nation that has often in its past displayed great artistic and intellectual vitality, and which may again in the future have something worthwhile to contribute to world civilization. I propose that, rather than punishing France, we offer them a gift, namely, since their 35-hour week suggests that what they value most is leisure: permanent vacation. Permanent vacation, that is, from the burdens of great power status which they have shown themselves unfit to bear. As a nice, neutral country, like Switzerland, France can wine and whine and scold and philosophize all they want, without hurting anyone at all, and leave the advancement of liberty to others.