In my fifteen years living in America I have had plenty of opportunity to observe the frequent xenophobia Americans exhibit towards the rest of the world, however France seems to come in for more than its fair share of abuse. This often manifests itself in quite humerous ways. Here are just a few examples:
Back in 1992, Michael Eisner, then CEO of Walt Disney captured the American view of Europe very nicely when he described the first few weeks after the opening of the EuroDisney theme park in 1992, thus:
"We've already had a million German and a million British visitors, and to have those numbers in France without a war going on is really something."
An article in Fortune magazine started a piece about a Canadian company building a ski resort in France thus: “They’ve been challenged in wine making by the Californians, overtaken in lingerie by the Chinese, edged out by Iraq in military failure. Now the French risk losing a monopoly even closer to home, building French villages.”
This anti-French attitude to which we English can easily relate even formed the basis for a beer commercial which used the following script to appeal to the average American’s thirst: “It’s tough to respect the French, when you have to bail them out of two big ones in the same century. However, you have to like what they have done with mustard.”
American opinion of the French slid even further when French support for the war on terror and the toppling of Saddam Hussein was non-existent. Americans adopted their own special brand of revenge: the ubiquitous French fry was renamed a freedom fry; French wine was removed from the shelves in many locations in a sort of “bugger Beaujolais” protest; even Donald Rumsfeld America’s Secretary of Defense at the time got in on the act; he was apparently fond of using the following quote to describe the dubious merits of France as an ally, “Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of noisy, useless baggage behind.”
The trend continues, earlier this year when Bulgaria announced it was withdrawing its combat troops from Iraq and replacing them with a non-combat unit, Jay Leno, host of The Tonight Show, added his own commentary by stating that a non-combat unit actually meant a French unit. This was followed just a few days later after Osama Bin Laden had made another tape-recorded threat against America, when a newspaper columnist made the case that Bin Laden’s apparent reappearance was a boost for President Bush in the war on terror by commenting, “George Bush is enjoying an embarrassment of riches. In the same week he found himself under attack by both Al Gore and Osama Bin Laden. The only thing better would be if Jacques Chirac denounced him for not wearing French perfume.”`
Finally, Leno’s late-night rival David Letterman was not to be outdone, commenting that "A lot of folks are still demanding more evidence before they actually consider Iraq a threat. For example, France wants more evidence. And you know I'm thinking, the last time France wanted more evidence they rolled right through Paris with the German flag."
And this is all the thanks the French get for supporting America during a certain war in the 18th century and providing the most iconic symbol of American Freedom in the Statue of Liberty...
