America and France's Love-Hate Dynamic (August/September 2003 | Volume: 54, Issue: 4)

America and France's Love-Hate Dynamic

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Authors: Richard Brookhiser

Historic Era: Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)

Historic Theme:

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August/September 2003 | Volume 54, Issue 4

Congress serves "freedom fries," American military wives talk of "freedom kisses," vandals in Bordeaux burn and deface a model of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a good time to remember that American-French relations have had many ups and downs. The ups include the Franco-American joint operation that was the Yorktown campaign; the tough-minded love letter to the United States that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America; fighting on the same side in two world wars; and cinéastes taking inspiration from John Ford. The downs include the Naval War of 1798, when French and American ships battled on the high seas; Napoleon III’s efforts to put a puppet on the throne of Mexico; Gaullist ambition and American impatience; and the current unpleasantness. The two countries hate each other as often as they love each other; the bouts of hatred are inflamed by the intervening bouts of love. If La Rochefoucauld didn’t write a maxim to describe the situation, he should have.

No other nation except Britain has been so deeply entwined in our history and our psyche. The Anglo-American relation is simpler to understand and to describe. Britain and America passed from a familial bond to rebellion and rivalry to friendship. Language and institutions hold us together, even if there are enough differences to keep us distinct. The Franco-American tie is altogether more volatile, subject to gusts of passion. Each nation deceives the other, and each nation deceives itself about the other. The moment that America or France creates a transatlantic idol, it finds feet of clay. Why is the tie so strong? Why are the forces that assail it no less strong?

The most obvious fact about Franco-American relations is how far back they go. We were ancient neighbors, for France colonized the St. Lawrence River valley long before Jamestown and Plymouth were settled. The French established friendly relations with powerful Indian tribes and explored the lakes and rivers of the interior, thereby gaining a grip on the first money-making product of North America: beaver pelts. For years, the hardscrabble Puritans and gentleman planters of British North America scrambled to catch up.

It took a long time for Franco-American cultural ties to develop, chiefly because France had such an enormous head start on us.

The French were military as well as economic rivals. From 1689 to 1763, Louis XIV and Louis XV fought a series of wars against a shifting coalition of European powers—always led, however, by England. Each of these wars had its analogue in North America. The first three were known to England’s colonists by the names of their royal rulers: King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, and King George’s War (for George II). The final decisive struggle, known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War, was simply named by the colonists after their immediate enemies: the French and Indian War. During these true world wars, settlers clustered along the Atlantic coast feared the descent of French navies, while pioneers huddling in the