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French still love U.S. - but not Bush
By Jim Bittermann
DEAUVILLE, France (CNN) -- Two years ago, after the catastrophe of September 11, a writer called the annual American film festival being held on the northern coast of France "the last days of innocence." Two years later, though, the French fans at Deauville 2003 are out gawking as always at the Hollywood stars, the champagne is flowing -- and little seems different. If there was an end to innocence, it is not to be seen in the popular passion here for American culture in general -- or for good action movies in particular. But few could have predicted the splintering smashup in diplomatic relations between France and the United States. French President Jacques Chirac was the first world leader to visit ground zero and pay his respects after September 11. There was a genuine and bipartisan outpouring of grief in France after the attacks on America. There was a French pledge to stand together with the United States in the war against terrorists in Afghanistan. In return, analysts say, a French offer of military assistance was publicly belittled by defense chiefs in Washington.
And U.S. President George W. Bush, on his first visit to France, publicly ridiculed a White House reporter who dared ask a question of Chirac in French. "The guy memorizes four words and he's Mr. Intercontinental," Bush quipped. But it was differences over Iraq that brought the real clash. To this day, some Americans cannot understand why France forgot its World War II obligations to the United States. And some French cannot understand how the United States has become so intolerant of those who disagree. "To have a moral debt toward a country does not mean that you are obliged to follow blindly everything it says," says Eric Dior of Marianne Magazine. With the second anniversary of 9/11, there's been every manner of debate, article and book here on the events of the past two years. At least one of the authors reflecting on what has changed has observed that Americans are treating each other better and the world worse.
"I think the Americans are nicer inside the country and meaner outside the country," says Frederic Beigbeder, author of "Windows on the World." Political scientists blame individuals within the Bush administration for much of the diplomatic damage and say they created a far more dangerous world when they cut short the United Nations' search for Saddam Hussein's lethal weapons. "It would have taken time, it would have required patience, but at least we would have known where the damn things were," says Guillaume Parmentier of the French Foreign Relations Institute. "With the war we have no idea. Perhaps they are in the hands of terrorists." In Paris and other capitals there is always grumbling about the "on-the-job training" when a new president takes office in Washington. Many of Bush's predecessors were criticized for clumsy diplomacy. But according to a recent trans-Atlantic survey, none has generated the antipathy Bush has, with fewer than one in six people in France approving of his leadership of world affairs.
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It would have taken time, it would have required patience, but at least we would have known where the damn things were.
