Why everyone loves to blame France
Les Français, toujours pointés du doigt ?
A l'étranger, les Français ont une réputation haute en couleur : cultivés mais malpolis, sophistiqués et râleurs, ils sont connus pour ne pas avoir leur langue dans leur poche, pour le meilleur comme pour le pire. Cette réputation fantasque mène souvent les autres états, le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis en tête, à les accuser de bien des maux. Retour sur l'actu de ces derniers mois, pour un aperçu de la France vue de l'étranger.
The French, wrote George Canning, a British statesman, to a ministerial colleague in 1825, “have but two rules of action: to thwart us whenever they know our object; and when they know it not, to imagine one, and to set about thwarting that.” Canning’s grumble, made a decade after the end of the Napoleonic wars, sounds oddly familiar two centuries later. And today it is not only the British who follow what might be called Canning’s law: when in doubt, blame the French. Suspicion of France’s intentions, and criticism of its actions, have been on the rise in several other countries, in sometimes understandable but often perplexing ways. 2. Exhibit A is, of course, Brexit. “Only preening Emmanuel Macron stands in the way of Boris Johnson’s triumph,” thundered the Daily Mail when a deal seemed improbable. Downing
Around the world, the most googled questions about France are: "Why are the French always on strike?", "Why do the French eat snails?" and "Why is France so popular with tourists?"
Street hyped up French demands, and vowed to dispatch gunboats to defend British fishing waters. Yet other EU leaders too had threatened to walk away from talks. When Britain announced a new Covid-19 strain had got out of control, several EU countries shut their borders. Yet “Covidiot Macron” was uniquely pilloried.
3. A British official accused the French of “trying to take food off our shelves for Christmas out of spite.” Britain, it seemed, had fallen victim to sly Gallic posturing, designed to punish and enfeeble an old rival.
4. Or consider the finger-pointing directed at France after recent terrorist attacks against the country. In the wake of the beheading in October 2020 of Samuel Paty, a schoolteacher who had shown his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Mr Macron became a public enemy in parts of the Muslim world. His offence was to have defended the French law on freedom of expression that protects blasphemy (against any religion).
5. More wounding for the French is that some parts of the American media accuse France of being peculiarly responsible for breeding terrorists.
6. To be sure, there are legitimate and complex questions to be asked about the French model of secularism known as laïcité, and whether a new bill to combat Islamism confuses conservative religiosity with opposition to democratic governance. 7. Yet France is hardly Europe’s only incubator of terrorism. Just over a decade ago it was British multiculturalism that was widely blamed for Islamist radicalisation, notes Lorenzo Vidino, director of George Washington University’s programme on extremism. As a share of population, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden—none of them practitioners of French secularism—sent more jihadist fighters to Syria and Iraq than France did.
8. Some of the criticism France draws abroad is fair. It has pursued a few half-baked ideas, such as seeking a security partnership with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mr Macron’s assertion that Islam is “in crisis” around the world was particularly ill-judged. He indulged in some counterproductive tough talk on Brexit, partly because he enjoys saying things in public that other Europeans prefer to say behind closed doors. Indeed, the French president seems to relish controversy, whether he is decrying NATO’s “brain death” or sending French warships to defend Greek waters from Turkish oil and gas exploration.
9. Such outspokenness and pesky unilateralism are familiar themes in French history, and they have often bred distrust on the part of baffled allies. “I must confess, my dear General,” wrote President Dwight Eisenhower to Charles de Gaulle in 1960, with magnificent restraint,“that I cannot quite understand the basic philosophy of France today.”
EMMANUEL IN PARIS
10. A second reflection touches on why the French are considered fair game. “France has been the beneficiary, particularly among Americans, of a constructed fantasy,” suggests Matthew Fraser, at the American University of Paris. This is the romantic promise of intellectual sophistication, culture and effortless chic.
11. Captured in exaggerated form by the Netflix series Emily in Paris, it is an ideal embodied by those Americans—Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Richard Wright—who adopted Paris in the 20th century. Nobody likes to mock an underdog. But France, self-satisfied and secretly envied, seems as if it can take the ribbing.
12. And so to the paradox. France finds itself picked upon at a time when Europe has seldom been so open to embracing French ideas. French proposals that were once politely read and shelved by European friends—common EU debt issuance, taxes on tech giants, sanctions on Turkey, even “strategic autonomy” in defence—are no longer debated only in the parquet-floored salons of Paris. They are increasingly approved by the EU.
13. For Mr Macron, whose visibility will grow in 2021 as Angela Merkel’s chancellorship ends, this presents both an opportunity and a peril. The harder the French president pushes his ideas, the more progress he may make, but the more he may irritate others. Every story needs a villain, and as Canning knew, the French make a tempting one.
Another cliché about the French is that they don't - or won't - speak English. The French accent is also notoriously famous!
1. statesman homme d ’État / to have, had, had but n'avoir que... / rule règle / to thwart contrecarrer / to set, set, set about entreprendre de / grumble reproche /
oddly étrangement / to be on the rise se multiplier.
2. exhibit pièce à conviction / preening arrogant / to stand, stood, stood in sb's way faire obstacle à / to thunder fulminer, déclarer avec véhémence / deal accord / Downing Street résidence londonienne du Premier ministre britannique /
to hype up faire monter en épingle, exagérer / demand exigence / to vow jurer / to dispatch envoyer / gunboat canonnière / yet pourtant / to threaten menacer / talks négociations / strain souche (ici, de virus) / to shut, shut, shut fermer / border frontière / to pillory mettre au pilori.
3. official (haut) fonctionnaire / shelf étagère, rayon / out of spite par pure rancune / sly sournois / Gallic (iron.) typiquement français / posturing attitude(s), pratique(s) / to be designed to être destiné à / to enfeeble affaiblir.
4. in the wake of à la suite de / beheading décapitation.
5. wounding douloureux, difficile à supporter / peculiarly particulièrement / to breed, bred, bred engendrer, produire, faire naître.
6. to be sure certes, bien sûr, sans aucun doute / secularism laïcité / whether si (oui ou non) / bill projet de loi / to confuse confondre.
7. hardly guère / widely largement / share proportion, pourcentage; ici, au pro rata.
8. to draw, drew, drawn attirer; ici, soulever, provoquer / abroad à l’étranger / half-baked absurde / to seek, sought, sought (re) chercher / assertion déclaration / ill-judged peu judicieux, mal avisé / to indulge in se livrer à / tough sévère / indeed en effet / to relish apprécier, se délecter de / NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization (l')OTAN / brain death mort cérébrale / warship navire de guerre.
9. outspokenness franc-parler / pesky fichu, satané / distrust méfiance / baffled déconcerté, perplexe / ally allié / restraint retenue, réserve.
10. to touch on concerner / fair game proie/cible idéale / fantasy fantasme /
promise promesse, espoir / effortless ici, naturel.
11. to capture ici, traduire, représenter / to embody incarner / underdog opprimé / ribbing moqueries, critiques; (ici, to take the ribbing encaisser les critiques).
12. to pick upon prendre à partie / seldom rarement / to embrace accepter, adopter / to shelve écarter, mettre de côté / issuance émission / no longer ne... plus / increasingly de plus en plus.
13. to grow, grew, grown croître, augmenter / both à la fois / villain méchant / tempting tentant.