In 2003, French Minister of Defence Michèle Alliot-Marie said, “La guerre est toujours la plus mauvaise solution”. (“War is always the worst solution.”) Why couldn’t French leaders tell Americans those words in 1917, in 1940, or in 1944? Her words effectively tell Americans that France’s alliance with the United States during the Revolutionary War was a mistake, for French participation in that war was definitely not a war of choice. These words also tell Americans that Vichy France’s decision to surrender in 1940 was the right one to make.
I am not one to make jokes about French soldiers, for the bravery of French soldiers shown in this past century has been second to none. If there is any fault, it is the cumulative effects of the horrific slaughter of World War I, where French generals from the “School of Attack” thought that the bayonet charge was the way to win wars. French generals treated French, Serb, Russian, British, Senegalese, Algerian, Greek, Italian, and Romanian soldiers as cannon fodder for their war, so it is hardly surprising that French generals would regard American soldiers as cannon fodder too.
When a French senator roars how the French are “allies, pas vassaux” (allies, not vassals), this leads me to consider that much French anti-Americanism, as self-defeating as it is, comes as a result of an apparently common French political assumption that America is a vassal state of France. I get the feeling that the French government and intelligentsia only like Americans when we are cannon fodder for their wars just like a proper vassal state; Americans who don’t rise to the level of cannon fodder for the glory of France are reviled as barbarians. Given such a circumstance, French praise for the sacrifice of American lives for French liberty can actually feel grating, for this praise of dead Americans serves as a poignant reminder of French contempt for living Americans.
French anti-Americanism is not a minor problem. The Islamist critique of America owes much of its venom to the writings of Charles Maurras, whose anti-Americanism started a trend in French thought. As harsh as this may sound, I feel a bit disappointed that Charles Maurras was spared the guillotine, although the Fourth Republic at least had the decency of imprisoning him for the rest of his life. And yet, while Charles Maurras is physically dead, his ideas live on in the stale prose of Sayyid Qutb and his acolytes.
As far as I am aware, no philosopher has attempted to drive a stake through the heart of the “intellectual” arguments of Charles Maurras. Perhaps the time for doing so is coming soon. Intellectuals who promote hatred against America have much to answer for.
