TransAtlantic Perspectives, Vol. I (March 2002)

The View from France, Brian Swint

In America, common wisdom holds that September 11 changed the world.  But did it change France?  French attitudes towards the US have always been ambivalent; anti-American sentiments are arguably essential to the French identity. Yet the French remain aware of the benefits of a close relationship with their transatlantic neighbor, regardless of how much they rail against American hegemony and bad food.  After September 11, France is still very much ambivalent.  Although the French take the tragedy seriously, they question the goals and methods of American foreign policy.  In American minds, the Bush administration’s war on terrorism is closely related to the tragic events. However, in France, the two are clearly distinct.

To begin, public debate has been markedly different in France and the US.  Because intellectuals in France traditionally express their political views publicly, academics have a popular audience; Americans tend to listen exclusively to politicians and journalists.  As America focused on the victims of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, in France, public intellectuals placed the events within a larger theoretical and geopolitical framework.  Jean Baudrillard’s “The Spirit of Terrorism,” (Le Monde, November 3, 2001) served as a point of departure.  A famous postmodernist and critic of American culture, Baudrillard argues that the collapse of the World Trade Center was a kind of suicide; in its darkest fantasies, the system itself yearned for its own demise. By incorporating the notion that terrorism is a part of the global system that created it, Baudrillard hopes to collapse the moral categories of good and evil on which American foreign policy is based.  This approach highlights the inherent flaws in a “traditional” military campaign against terrorist targets that are, by nature, both everywhere and nowhere.

If nothing else, Baudrillard sparked a lively public debate. This intellectual debate took place in national newspapers, not in academic journals. He earned many critics.  Some accused Baudrillard of representing the predicable cynicism and anti-Americanism of leftist French intellectuals. Alain Minc, for example, called Baudrillard’s view the “Terrorism of the Spirit.”  (Le Monde, November 7, 2001)  Jacques Julliard, editor of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, placed Baudrillard in a class of miserably anti-American intellectuals. (“Misère de l’antiamericanisme,” Liberation, November 13, 2001) Whether or not Minc and Julliard represented Baudrillard’s arguments fairly and correctly is beside the point:  September 11 forced French intellectuals to question any anti-American sentiments they may have harbored. Though most remain skeptical of American influence, the appeal of unreflective anti-Americanism has diminished in France. 

Most interesting, though, is how the newspapers have analyzed the tragedy differently in France than in the US. “The Spirit of Terrorism” could never have been published in the New York Times. The American post-September 11 swell of uncritical patriotism simply would not have allowed it. French newspapers focused on the absence of critical voices in the American press. S. Kauffmann in “The Patriotic Consensus” (Le Monde, November 15, 2001) reported on the American media’s self- and public censure of discourse; as Geraldo was rushing off to cover the war, Susan Sontag and Bill Maher were harshly being told to be quiet.  The Bush administration reminded the press that “loose lips cost lives.” In November, publics in France and the United States were already thinking differently about the aftermath of September 11. The difference in the tone and content of civil discussions was great enough to be newsworthy in itself.

But as intellectuals were arguing in the newspapers, what did the average French person think about September 11? If you asked an anonymous passer-by in Paris how they felt on that Tuesday, you would have received an answer similar to what you would have expected if you had asked the same question to someone in New York:  that is to say that, like Americans, many people in France took September 11 personally.  It was not an abstraction or just another tragedy that seemed far away.  It was easy to see how the World Trade Center Towers could easily have been Montparnasse Tower or a skyscraper at La Defense. Indeed, the televised repetition of the events forced people to feel a part of the attacks, even if they lived an ocean away. In short, people in France were in no way callous to the human tragedy of the events.

However, unlike Americans, the French do not easily accept the war on terrorism as the appropriate response to the violence of September 11.  In France, sympathy for the victims of terrorism does not translate into overwhelming support for the US-led war on terrorism: just as before the attacks, the French suspect that American geopolitics are disingenuous. This sentiment is not merely habit or idle speculation.  In the book Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, authors Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie report that the Bush administration had extensive contact with the Taliban in the summer of 2001.  The administration was willing to accept the Taliban regime and ease its stance on terrorism in exchange for cooperation in building a pipeline across Afghanistan. Western markets could then gain access to Central Asian oil supplies.  When the Taliban refused, the administration made plans to go to war with Afghanistan…well before September 11.  Thus, the tragedy perversely served US oil interests by mobilizing popular support for this war. Some people have no doubt heard about this book in the United States, but not many.  In France, the authors’ allegations are common knowledge; you can buy the book in any train station kiosk.

Books and newspapers, moreover, are not the only media outlets questioning US foreign policy; television can even find the war on terrorism laughable. The popular prime time television show “Les Guignols de l’Info” satirically portrays figures in the news with realistic-looking marionettes.  Dressed in Rambo gear, puppet of Sylvester Stallone gives updates on American military developments. In a dead-on French impersonation of his thick nasally speech he tells the newscaster, “People say that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not treated well.  But they get three square meals a day! One (he throws a dog bowl on the news desk), two (another doggie bowl), three (dog bowl number three).” Whether or not the joke is funny, in France it does not run the risk of being offensive. 

Because there is less popular support for an expansion of the war on terrorism in France than in the US, the US cannot expect unconditional French political support in the future. What is more, French politicians have additional reasons to assert themselves in the next few months.  With the successful launch of the Euro, the EU is looking more and more like it will become a counterweight to American economic power.  France feels it is a natural European leader; it is a large country and one of the original six member states in the European Economic Community.  Furthermore, it is in good position for leadership vis-à-vis other large member-states.  Germany will have trouble leading the EU overtly because of its history, and the United Kingdom cannot lead without participating in the Euro experiment. If the French want to lead in Europe, then a strong foreign policy stance against an American policy unpopular in Europe would seem a good place to start. 

Meanwhile, intellectuals in France continue to consider the meaning of September 11.  Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard political theorist and professor of French civilization, recently returned to France to address the present world order. Speaking at Sciences-Po Paris, his alma mater, he, like Baudriallard, placed September 11 in the context of globalization.  International actors, Hoffmann explained, generally do not act altruistically.  For example, the US-led war on terrorism seems to be motivated much more by the need for revenge than the desire to improve the lives of those whose human rights were grossly violated in Afghanistan. In sum, we have little reason to believe that globalization will actually improve the human condition. September 11 shows us, among other things, that optimism about the way the world functions today is unjustified.  Above all, perhaps, the world needs a new philosophy that can account for pluralism at global level and that can make normative demands on actors in international affairs. Hoffmann's remarks provided the French public with still more arguments in the endeavor to reconcile sympathy for the human tragedy of September 11th and distrust of the war on terrorism.
 

In the State of the Union Address, George W. Bush told the world that the war on terrorism has only just begun. Yet the international discourse on the war on terrorism has also only just begun.  Afghanistan was relatively easy:  the Taliban clearly harbored terrorists and committed gross violations of human rights.  But as the war moves out of Afghanistan, the US can expect its allies to demand more involvement in decision-making processes and more evidence of a target country’s culpability. If France objects to US policy in the next few months, it will not be because they are indifferent to terrorism.  Rather, it will be because the French have a different view of world events and because ambivalent feelings towards America remain.