Anti-Americanism in France since 1945
- The Mosaic of identities
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- Pathan and Baluchi minorities
- The political construction of national identity
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- Foreign policy and national identity
In 2008 France was the Fifth largest economy of the world; it ranked behind Germany and England. Such a hierarchy emphasizes French reality of economic dependence not only vis-a-vis to its two European neighbors, but also vis-a-vis to the US model as its competitor. Speaking of French anti-Americanism, it systematically partitions a round of observations about the excesses and refocuses the French political thought. These findings do not help in preventing deliberately drawn parallels between US history, which constitute for more than a period of tercentenary and French history which is the oldest. To highlight problems about such a debate, it should bluntly ask: Whether France could modernize without Americanization?
Neither ideology, the meaning given to it by Raymond Aron, that is to say that of a "secular religion" nor movement of thought, organized, and truly French, anti-Americanism is a set of opinions not formalized, unstructured, fluid and uncertain, that appear from time to time at particular times of the French collective history.
Steeped in American culture, the French company is a mine in speeches, and sometimes in actions, not to accept his share of paternity in this culture. However, the French also have their share, be it no matter how small, in the foundation of this American culture. Two contradictory examples can be taken immediately to describe this dual reality, magnetic, French culture vis-a-vis American culture. Conversely, more than two hundred years apart, Jose Bove robbing a McDonald's restaurant in Millau, Lafayette, a leading figure of the Haute-Loire, should resonate in French culture as two images that is assonant more than dissonant.
Although a caricature, what about the same time, imagination, and anachronistic, between the American and French companies, allows one to better understand the nature of the French anti-Americanism. It is indeed not a predetermined system of thought but opinions imagined and volatile on the position of France vis-a-vis the United States. First of all, so this is a thought of the political in the sense of the relationship between Americans and French states, and between French citizens and U.S. citizens.
Tags: Modernization of France; relationship between French citizens and US citizens; anti-Americanism in France;