"This is Paris, and I'm an American who lives here."
When thinking of the 1951 movie/musical, Gene Kelly comes to mind in all his black-haired glory, neatly combed for the swooning crowds of teenage girls. His character in this particular musical is Jerry Mulligan, a money-starved painter who stayed in Paris after World War II and encounters "a minor romantic complication in the usual gaudy Hollywood gay Paree." -- nicely put by the New York Times writer Bosley Crowther. The other star-crossed lover is played by Leslie Caron, who's star power some say can only be rivalved by her other famous movie, Gigi.
Where did this love affair with France go?
When did America evolve from the suave life of the party, to the guy that always looks like he's staring a flashlight in the face?
Can Obama be the botox-injection that smooths out the kinks of this wrinkled nation? It may already be happening.
For those who have been here long enough, (myself not included), the history of the United States and France has been ever-changing, much like McCain's views on pretty much everything.
Our country's birth is deeply intertwined with the involvement of France in North America. French military forces were indispensable in our war for independence from Great Britain. Benjamin Franklin and his coon-skin cap were idealized by the French, and George Washington viewed Marquis de Lafayette as the son he never had. In turn Lafayette named his son "George Washington Lafayette". That sounds a bit like JK Rowling's "Albus Severus Potter" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Hopefully you get the bad pun).
And remember when Statue of Liberty actually stood for liberty? When immigrants from far away lands looked for her beacon of hope on their way to Ellis Island. I'm sad to report that some of my generation still don't know that Lady Liberty herself was a gift from the French.
...There are many more events and people to be named, but let's just skip to the Iraq War. The Iraq War. French's starkly honest opinion of this war -- and the president that started it -- are present in ever corner of the country. My friend and her family visited France two years ago, and halfway through the trip they decided to speak Spanish in order to dissuade suspicious citizens. It was that bad. Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, says Mr. Bush is viewed ''as the exact opposite of the values that make us love America.'' Roger Cohan of the New York Times sums up this statement nicely.
When Mr. Fabius refers to the ''values that make us love America,'' he is in effect referring to the values that most comfort France in its self-image. That is to say, America as a symbol of liberty, democracy and justice; America as an embodiment of the values of the Enlightenment; America as the New World's engine of ideas borne across the European continent by Napoleon's army after the Revolution of 1789.
Here, even, there was (and is) some evidence of the rift that has grown between our countries. The French position on the war was frowned upon by many Americans, leading to campaigns for the boycotting of French goods and businesses and even the removal of the country's name from products. (Want a bucket of Freedom Fries? Some Freedom Toast, even?)
This "love-hate" relationship is the stuff of books, but I'd much rather refer you to the wikipedia page.
Therefore, the gravity of this achievement is enormous, given their intense hate for us for the past few years. But as with anything involving France, it may change. I might as well refer you to the rest of the world while I'm at it. Another writer of the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof repeated his conversation with a Beijing friend in an awesome editorial he wrote before November 4th.
She: Obama? But he’s the black man, isn’t he?
Me: Yes, exactly.
She: But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?
Me: It looks as if he’ll be elected.
She: But president? That’s such an important job! In America, I thought blacks were janitors and laborers.
Me: No, blacks have all kinds of jobs.
She: What do white people think about that, about getting a black president? Are they upset? Are they angry?
Me: No, of course not! If Obama is elected, it’ll be because white people voted for him.
[Long pause.]
She: Really? Unbelievable! What an amazing country!
Hopefully this Obama-ed opinion of America lasts.
Katrin Bennhold of the International Herald Tribune wrote of the euphoria in this article:
According to Samuel Solvit, president of France's support committee for Barack Obama, the French have not been this excited about America since they shipped over the Statue of Liberty in 1885.
Charles Bremner of The Times thinks the timeline is a little off.
It's been a while since France went so crazy over the United States. Decades at least and perhaps not since John Kennedy's days in the early 1960s.
And no one says it better than the French themselves. An especially memorable quote was translated today from MarianneTV.
"c'est l'Amérique qu'on aime, l'Amérique de l'espérance, l'Amérique de
la fraternisation, celle qui peut apporter la paix au monde... " ...
Translation: "It is the America that we love, the America of hope, the
America of brotherhood, the one which brings peace to the world..."