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| Fifth Column |
| To Some in France, U.S. Sinking in Storm |
| 2005-09-26 |
| Yet another excuse for french-bashing, I must be masochistic or something... Sorry, JFM, seems like you'll have to defend France's honor once again. Still, I saw "Marianne"'s cover about GWB in a newstand a while back, and was shocked too (but then again, "Marianne" is one of the most anti-Us and anti-Bush news outlets out there, along with the "Guignols" tv puppet show). Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer Commentators argue about whether Katrina is providing an excuse for anti-Americanism. PARIS — Like other U.S. allies, France helped after Hurricane Katrina hit. The French government sent about 20 tons of relief supplies to the Gulf Coast as well as military divers and other emergency workers. The Total oil company donated $1 million. The U.S. Embassy reports an outpouring of public donations and condolences. But in a sign of the continuing tension in France's 2-century-old alliance with the United States, a debate has arisen here about whether Katrina has also reopened the floodgates of anti-Americanism. Some French commentators have been dismayed by the tone of the media coverage concerning the destruction across the Atlantic. Some prominent people in the French press and politics, they believe, have eagerly turned the catastrophe into an all-purpose symbol of American ills, real or imagined. "If the United States didn't exist, it would have to be invented so that elsewhere we can reassure ourselves, as if to better hide our own defects and incoherencies," warned a recent editorial in Le Figaro newspaper. "It's easy to ramble on about the decline of the American empire. Some even see the difficulties encountered by the U.S. as the work of a vengeful hand from the beyond
. Derision and demonizing are out of place." The extensive coverage has tended to paint the picture of a superpower brought down by economic inequality, racial conflict and neglectful government. A recent Nouvel Observateur cover summed up this stark view: "America Stripped Naked: The cyclone reveals the wounds of the every-man-for-himself society." Marianne, a left-leaning newsmagazine, declared: "The American giant folds beneath the weight of its failures and struggles to enforce an order that it wanted to impose on the world." Marianne's take typified the profound disdain for President Bush in evidence here. A special issue titled "The Fall of the Pyromaniac Fireman" blamed Bush for a planetary flash fire of crises — from Iraq to global warming — that, in the magazine's view, discredit an entire free-market-driven, militaristic "Anglo-Saxon model" of governance. In the newspaper Liberation, Gerard Dupuy accused the Bush administration of "contempt for victims who without a doubt were doubly at fault for being both poor and black." He concluded that the neoconservative "crusade," which was "already mired in the Mesopotamian marshes" of Iraq, had "foundered in the Louisiana bayou." The U.S. media has also been tough on the administration for its response to the hurricane. But the invective here has been particularly harsh and grows partly out of an "old anti-American undercurrent reawakened by the war in Iraq," columnist Laurent Joffrin wrote in Nouvel Observateur. In the past, the anger about Iraq sometimes distorted reality, some analysts say. In 2003, author Alain Herthogue undertook a day-by-day analysis of French media accounts of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and compiled his findings in a book titled "The War of Outrages." His study focused exclusively on the three-week invasion, not the unproven prior allegations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or the insurgency that began after Saddam Hussein fell. Herthogue asserted that the French media consistently, and erroneously, gave the impression that the military operation was about to collapse even as tanks rumbled into Baghdad. French criticism of the Katrina crisis also shows fundamental differences in the role of the state in France and the U.S. The French national government controls everything from law enforcement to healthcare to transportation. City and regional officials have more limited powers and duties than their U.S. counterparts, especially when it comes to disaster response. So New Orleans' woes appear to confirm suspicions that Washington leaves Americans at the mercy of the forces of nature as well as markets. Some pundits predict that Americans will now want a more muscular, "French" approach to government. But others suggest that it's best not to point fingers. They recall the heat wave two years ago that killed about 15,000 people in France. In that tragedy, many elderly people perished in hospitals and nursing homes that lacked air conditioning. Thousands of corpses were discovered in sweltering apartments as the death toll escalated and French leaders, as well as some relatives of the dead, were criticized for remaining on summer vacation. "The denigrators have rushed to condemn the 'American model,' " wrote Ivan Rioufol in Le Figaro. "But have they looked at the state of their own country? The Third World, exposed in the [American] South, exists in French housing projects
. The indifference to the marooned corpses recalls the 15,000 elderly, dead and abandoned in the 2003 heat wave
. It's indecent to suggest, in this jubilation at describing a humiliated superpower, that France would have fared better." In a recent letter to this newspaper's Paris Bureau from the southwestern town of Frejus, a retired contractor named Cesar Orefice complained that the media coverage of Katrina had been "absurdly triumphant" and gleefully anti-American. It "leaves me disillusioned, overwhelmed, heartbroken by the simplistic anti-Americanism served to us like a dish a thousand times warmed-over," wrote Orefice, 71. "We talk about these events essentially to criticize with a few accompanying giggles the incapacity of the American administration to react
. I wonder what efficiency we would have seen if a city like Lille, Lyon or Bordeaux had been wiped off the map." With the letter, Orefice enclosed a check for 50 euros (about $61) for Katrina's victims. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #16 A scholar friend told me of how the French newspapers heaped scorn on Napoleon Bonaparte in exile. When he landed on the French coast they were still negative, but on a daily basis, as he came overland to Paris, they turned 180 degrees. By the time he arrived, they were overflowing with praise and admiration of their emperor, almost lost for words at their excitement and joy at his victorious return. Feh. He was not impressed. He had long known what they were. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-09-26 20:20 |
| #15 To JFM and A5089,I agree your comments and insights are informative and welcome.JFM when you start your blog it will go in my daily reading,I look forward to it.It would be a great help to us if you could link to some English speaking French blogs and try to get some of your friends to stop in here at RB once in awhile. I'm as guilty as(if not more so)of France bashing as anyone else,I mean no offense to you personally.I like you,your a smart,personable person and enjoy our talks. (personable,person...sheesh) |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-09-26 14:10 |
| #14 "the day I open my own blog one of the very first posts will be about the structural reasons explaining why the French officer corps has sucked so much after Waterloo." I theorize Napoleon III took the Batons out of the knapsacks. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-09-26 13:49 |
| #13 In my experience there is also a difference between Parisians and all other French people. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-09-26 13:42 |
| #12 It's Joan of Arc syndrome, the French elites will stab true French patriots in the back everytime they get the chance. |
| Posted by: Ernest Brown 2005-09-26 12:33 |
| #11 "the day I open my own blog one of the very first posts will be about the structural reasons explaining why the French officer corps has sucked so much after Waterloo." I agree with Evert V., I'd love to see that! The French intellectual elites have been enslaved to totalitarian-minded philosophies for a long time now. Check out the first section of Michel Serres's CONVERSATIONS ON SCIENCE, CULTURE AND TIME (fr. Eclaircissements) talks about the Stalinist reign of terror he encountered at the École Normale Supérieure in the early 50's. |
| Posted by: Ernest Brown 2005-09-26 12:32 |
| #10 The difference is that we in the U.S. have always assumed that our elites are only in it for themselves (just like the rest of us) and we don't trust them farther than we can throw them. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2005-09-26 12:15 |
| #9 Ditto, Sea. Unfortunately, the side of France that the US sees is the side of the elites and the MSM. Not exactly putting your best face forward JFM, no? Of course, the side of the US France sees is the same elite/ MSM propaganda, too. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2005-09-26 11:27 |
| #8 To JFM and A5089, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your commentary, and how glad we are to have your wisdom, insight, and patience here at RB. Us Yanks tend to give you and La Belle France a hard time, but you return each day with good humor and teach us a little more. So, thanks. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-09-26 10:10 |
| #7 JFM: Rita was a much weaker storm than Katrina. It hit the beach with 120 mph sustained wind speed. Katrina's sustained wind speed was somewhere in the 160-170 mph speed range. While not an exact comparison, a 175 mph wind has about twice the kinetic energy of a 125 mph wind. That doesn't give you a comparison of the total storm energies, but it's the only yardstick I have handy right now. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-09-26 09:53 |
| #6 "the day I open my own blog one of the very first posts will be about the structural reasons explaining why the French officer corps has sucked so much after Waterloo" Pleas do,I'll be looking forward to read & discus that subject. |
| Posted by: Evert V. in NL 2005-09-26 09:48 |
| #5 Amen, JFM! You're spot on on french racism and the tired old clichés directly drawn from the english repertoire... The sad thing is, anglos see us basically as we (french) see the italians, thus proving you're always someone else's latin wimp (I don't feel latin at all, btw, even if I AM a wimp myself). We too got popular stereotypes about the USA, which may surprize Us readers (did you know that the americans can't fight and are pîss-poor soldiers? ;-)), but anti-americanism is much more than simple "ethnic" prejudice, and is in fine very unhealthy for France itself, as it is irrational and a camouflage for our own very serious problems. I'd suggest reading Jean-François (another JF) Revel about that, his book on anti-americanism is very revealing and was translated in english IIRC. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2005-09-26 09:44 |
| #4 Note: The French MSM has pontified a LOT about the Blacks in New Orleans (1) and just this morning they were hinting that the difference betweeen Katrina's and Rita's death tolls was due to Rita hitting a whiter population. So, if one day you meet a French talking of racist America don't forget of mentionning the Ivory Coast and France's help to the Rwandan genociders, ask how many votes were lost by the French politicians involved . Then scream ZERO and bash him on the head about French racism and how they are only interested in Blacks when it allows bashing America. (1) And they presented its major as a hero. A Black and Democratic Rudolf Giuliani. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-09-26 09:35 |
| #3 JFM, I can understand your frustration. It's hard to see a country that used to be at the forefront of Western Civilization pouring its heritage down the pissour out of sheer resentment. You probably wouldn't get this kind of reaction if your government would just be honestly opposed to us, like Putin, rather than pretending to be an ally. As they say in Texas, don't urinate on our leg and then tell us that it is raining. |
| Posted by: Ernest Brown 2005-09-26 09:11 |
| #2 Sorry but I will not defend the French, or more exactly their MSM, on this occasion Some of my ROE: I hate anti-French racism a la "How many troops take it to defend Paris? Never has been tried" (tell that to the people who fell at Verdun and at the two battles of la Marne). I tend to dislike disparaging remarks about the 1940 soldier: this was a battle lost by the generals not by the soldiers. BTW: the day I open my own blog one of the very first posts will be about the structural reasons explaining why the French officer corps has sucked so much after Waterloo. I would tend to remind people that there are more pro-American French that shown in the polls: for reasons who go from leftism to natinal-europeism the MSM and the French scholar system have made very difficult to say that one is pro-American: a columnist who approved Iraqui Freedom was boycotted by his friends and even got physical threats. After two years he folded. You have no idea of the barrage of hate issued by the French MSM. Worse than in Soviet Union except that the Russians knew their press lied, the French don't and they believe it. It would take a looooong time of desintoxication in order to undo its effects (time to have Radio Free Europe target France). However when I was at Coleville (aka Omaha Beach) I saw an old man who had come to flower a grave and he was definitely French. Meaning that it is OK for me to say all you want about the French elites and MSM but have some restraint but before bashing French foot citizens remember both this old man and the Gospel: "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they are doing". When I post an explanatory post don't rebound on it for French bashing. Makes me feel a traitor. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-09-26 08:56 |
| #1 More people died in a heat wave in France than died in two record-strength hurricanes in the US. I suspect the heat wave death count is higher than the US has suffered from hurricanes in the last decade or two. France should pluck the freaking redwood from its eye before it goes lecturing us about the mote in ours. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-09-26 07:43 |