A lifetime serving franco-american friendship

Denis Bachelot — You are an American diplomat whose career traversed the second half of the 20th century, since your first assignment goes back to 1950 at the headquarters of the Marshall Plan in Paris. It is impossible to cite here all the functions that you have held, including when Henry Kissinger headed American diplomacy. You were in particular deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs from 1974 to 1977 under the presidency of Gerald Ford. Transatlantic relations are your field of expertise and, more particularly, Franco-American relations since you are one of the co- founders of the French-American Foundation, created in 1976. Why, given your long experience as a diplomat, did you choose to favour the Franco-American relationship among all the possible choices?

James Lowenstein — On the role of the Foundation and its development thanks to the creation of the Young Leaders, we can benefit from the interview with Jean-Luc Allavena which describes all our activities over more than 40 years. The French-American Foundation was created on the initiative of two people in the United States, myself and Nicholas Wahl (1928-1996), then a professor at the University of Princeton before he took over the French Studies department at the University of New York. Nicholas Wahl is an American historian of repute and a specialist on the Fifth Republic who even had the opportunity to meet General de Gaulle. Incidentally, he married the divorced mother of Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister.

The circumstances of the birth of the Foundation are interesting: Nicholas Wahl and I were attending a Council on Foreign Relations colloquium in New York in 1974 and talked about the ‘French bashing’ rampant in the United States at the time. The American attitude towards France seemed to us to be based on a false vision and the lack of understanding between the two countries was strong. We also noted that there was no bilateral organization to deal with political and economic relations between France and the United States whereas these did exist for other important countries such as Germany, Italy or Japan and some Asian countries. On the other hand, there were many Franco-American structures in the fields of language, arts or culture.

D. B. — So the initiative came from two well-known American friends of France?

J. L. — In effect, starting with this shared view, we decided to launch a project which took the form of a foundation. We also quickly understood, after a number of exchanges with our French friends, that we should need the agreement of the President of the Republic to carry out this project. And we knew that Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who had just been elected, had a special interest in Franco-American relations. We then brought our contacts in France into play so that the idea would reach up to the Élysée. We quickly obtained the agreement of the French president with one condition: that he could announce this himself during a state visit to Washington. And this was effectively done at his meeting with President Gerald Ford at the bicentennial of the birth of the United States in 1976. Anecdotally, neither Nicholas Wahl nor myself were invited to the official dinner at which the announcement was made! So the creation of the Foundation was truly at the start an American idea that was quickly and very positively adopted by France.

It has been interesting, over the decades, to see the respective functioning of the French and American branches of the Foundation. I note that, for some years, the French-American Foundation France has been particularly active, notably in terms of raising money and organising teaching programmes.

D. B. — After more than four decades of existence, how do you evaluate the contribution of the French-American Foundation to relations between the two countries?

J. L. — It’s difficult to say. What one can state, however, is that through the Young Leaders programme – backed by the Foundation since 1981 – we have been able to build a community of people whose influence Jean-Luc Allevena describes in these pages.

D. B. — How would you define the relationship between France and the United States beyond the changes wrought by time and political regimes?

J. L. — I believe there is a specific psychological aspect that defines the Franco-American relationship. Let’s go back to the time of World War II: the strong antipathy that President Roosevelt showed with regard to de Gaulle often led to debatable political choices, as shown by a recent book on relations between the Roosevelt administration and the Vichy government (1). This poor state of mind for me comes mainly from the time of de Gaulle when he clashed with the United States on the question of the positioning of American atomic arms in Europe. General de Gaulle wanted to know, in the event of a conflict with the USSR, where these arms were to be found, while the Americans refused to give details of their location. A key element in a situation of tension which led to the withdrawal of France from NATO and to an American resentment that accompanied this decision.

Today, this relationship is much calmer because there is no political question profoundly pitting the two countries against each other. Unless – you never know – Ukraine becomes a divisive subject, but that does not seem to be the case. Incidentally, the links of President Macron, a former Young Leader as you know, with the current administration are positive and his state visit at the end of November to the United States confirmed this. Emmanuel Macron is the only French president to have effected two state visits to the United States. One should also highlight that the first head of state received on an official visit by Joe Biden after his election was Emmanuel Macron, whereas Donald Trump for his part received as his first guest the populist Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. We should note finally that the fact that many French people today speak English, whereas almost nobody did when I discovered France in the 1950s, has greatly favoured links and exchanges between our two countries.

D. B. — Can the current hardening of economic relations with the United States, particularly on the question of massive subsidies granted to industry across the Atlantic, have a lasting effect on links between France and its American partner?

J. L. — These tensions effectively exist and are tending to deteriorate but they are tensions that stem from American-European relations and not from the bilateral relations between France and the United States. And that makes for a great difference with regard to situations that we experienced a few decades ago. The European framework has now taken over from the national framework.

D. B. — French bashing on one side and ideological anti-Americanism on the other are also part of the culture of the two countries. What paths could, in your view, improve relations between France and the United States?

J. L. — I think that the best is the one we have adopted with the French-American Foundation: increasing meetings and exchanges. I have personally never met an American who, after spending a relatively substantial time in France, claims to be anti-French. And, in the other direction, I don’t think that French students who come to our universities retain anti-American prejudice.

As an example, during the first years of the work of the French-American Foundation, we took the initiative to put members of Congress in contact with French parliamentarians; then, each elected American representative went to spend a week with his French counterpart so they could get to know each other better. We were very satisfied with the feedback from this experience which, unfortunately, was not to be continued later. In the same spirit, we also organised, again during the Foundation’s early years, a programme that consisted of inviting French teachers of English to the United States. Almost all of them were convinced socialists, anti-capitalists and anti-American. We welcomed them to high schools in the Middle West for two-week stays and I have to say that the great majority of them completely changed their perception of America by the end of their stay. We also asked a Harvard professor to carry out surveys on the image of France conveyed by American television channels and vice versa. This sort of initiative seemed to me to be very useful and I regret that the Foundation did not continue them. Nothing can replace human ties.

D. B. — On this topic, does America today have a contrasting vision of its relations with each European country or does it see Europe as a unified whole with its leadership in Brussels?

J. L. — It all depends on which part of the American population you are talking about. If you are talking about that which is interested in French culture, it looks at France as a country in its own right. If it is a matter of Americans who are involved in business matters or in the domain of international relations, they very clearly favour a European approach. I think that, for most Americans involved in international life, there is not really a difference between the political and the economic dimension; they therefore favour a more global European vision.

D. B. — Does the notion of ‘the free world’ unified around the United States that marked the era of the Cold War and the following decades, still have meaning or even a future?

J. L. — I hope above all that these privileged relations will be maintained; but, if we consider, in the news of today, the great international issues facing American foreign policy, the war in Ukraine and the relationship with China, it is difficult to say how positions will evolve in the respective approaches of the United States and the European Union, even if until now the understanding between the two parties has worked well.

The question of American leadership that you mention takes us back, in my view, to domestic political stakes in the United States. The French-American Foundation was in the habit at one time of conducting an annual opinion survey on the way that each of the two countries saw the other. I would have liked us still to have such types of study: I think that we would find that the four years of the Trump administration seriously affected the way in which the quality of American democracy was viewed. I fear that our political model suffered a clear deterioration in its image during those four years. And what happens in the next six years now depends on what happens in the 2024 elections. If Trump is elected again, I am not optimistic about what will happen to the international perception of the United States. And, as for the question of whether we can become again a respected and admired nation or not, I wonder which political personality could today incarnate this prospect.

D. B. — And if the winner is a Republican candidate other than Trump, such as Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who is mentioned a lot?

J. L. — It is difficult to imagine this sort of situation and its impact in terms of international politics. DeSantis, it should be noted, does not take any stance on international subjects; nobody knows what his foreign policy would be. It is incidentally surprising to note that very conservative Republican personalities such as DeSantis or Mike Pompeo, people who graduated from good universities such as Yale or Harvard and who are very intelligent and cultivated, seem to take international affairs into account very little in their political positioning. We are witnessing today in the Republican Party the development of a ‘Trumpism’ without Trump.

I am worried, in addition, by the rise in intolerance and violence in the United States: we are the only country in the world with more weapons than citizens! Political radicalism is growing and threatens our democracy which, as we have said, no longer seems like a model capable of offering leadership. I do not think even so, unlike some commentators, that this steady increase in violence will end in a civil-war scenario. One of the major issues, for me, which can seriously damage political life in the United States and also in Europe and particularly in France is that of immigration. It is a subject that encourages the rise of a radical right; and I don’t unfortunately see in the current state of things possible solutions to control its progression and its destabilising consequences.

D. B. — Who are, for you, the French and American political personalities who impressed you the most by their international vision? More specifically, as a founding father of the French- American Foundation, whom do you admire for commitment to the Franco-American relationship?

J. L. — I, of course, much admired General de Gaulle. I would also say that President Giscard d’Estaing knew international affairs very well. In the United States, I would say that Harry Truman was a great president, the greatest since World War II, with a strong international stature. John Kennedy was able to surround himself with the most brilliant minds of his time in terms of international relations; he was, in this respect, a great president. In more specific terms, as far as Franco-American relations are concerned, I note that French diplomats understand the fundamentals of this relationship. In the United States, there are also very good specialists in France in the universities but, among American political figures, very few have real knowledge of your country. That said, the former Secretary of State, John Kerry, or, today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who have family links to France and who are both French-speakers, know well and want to strengthen, if needed, Franco-American relations.

D. B. — For you, what should the United States import from what characterises the French model and, a contrario, what should France borrow from the American system in whatever domain?

J. L. — For me, seen from the American side, I don’t hesitate to say that the United States should take inspiration from the French social model which protects its population much better than the American system, especially on health questions or tuition costs. I think too that income distribution has gone totally out of control in the United States and that the situation in this precise regard is healthier in France. Salary differences in America between company bosses and employees can reach totally absurd levels. It is more difficult for me to say what the French should borrow from the Americans, but I would mention the spirit of enterprise, entrepreneurial optimism and the possibilities for obtaining financing to launch a business. In a similar vein, the United States philanthropic system seems to me to be a positive model; it shows a capacity for commitment by private citizens in the service of just causes; inspiration from this could bring great benefit.