Grégory Rayko — How can the concept of anti-Americanism be defined? It dates from when?
Pascal Bruckner — Anti-American sentiment coincided with the rise in power of the United States which was progressively taking the place formerly occupied by Old Europe, the place of global attraction and the centre of the world. Europe’s decline started from the beginning of the 20th century. The Great War of 1914-1918 put the continent on its knees. Europe lost its colonies, its market shares and its influence … There was a reversal of roles and that was to feed European anti-Americanism from then on. But, already in the 19th century, Baudelaire likened America to modernity, to ‘gas-lit barbarity’. It crystallised the hatred of the industrial world born out of the French Revolution.
G. R. — European anti-Americanism therefore took off between the two wars when the reversal of roles was already quite evident?
P. B. — In effect, it was at that moment that anti-Americanism became a hobby-horse for the two great extremist ideologies emerging in Europe: fascism and communism. America’s crime, in the eyes of the extreme right, was to be a nation of blending, to foreshadow what is waiting for us if we are not careful. The Americans who came to Paris were often Afro-Americans who sought refuge in France, which was to offend the sensibilities of some on the extreme right. For example, when we read Céline, he talks of jazz as a sort of Judeo-Negro music, marked as much by Duke Ellington as by George Gershwin.
Opposite, on the extreme left, it was American imperialism and capitalism that were denounced. America was seen by that fringe as an incarnation of unbridled capitalism, as a country where this system reigned supreme and was no longer contested as it could still be in Europe. It is true that anarchist and communist movements were very much in the minority in the United States and that North American capitalism wore its cult of success without complex and with some brutality. The 1929 crisis was to take to its summit the hope of a definitive collapse of the market to the benefit of Soviet socialism as it developed in those years.
Finally, we saw the development at that time of expressions of cultural anti-Americanism. So, the writer and poet Georges Duhamel published in 1930 Scenes of Future Life (Scènes de la vie future), his account of a journey to the United States that was extremely scathing. Duhamel was horrified by the consumer society, the Hollywood cinema that he likened to diversion for slaves, jazz that he hated, etc. For him, that was the basis of American civilisation. This work had a very large resonance and influenced many French authors. Hergé’s Tintin in America (1932 for the first edition) upholds all our prejudices about this great mercantile and violent nation, where organised crime reigns supreme, where racism is king, which lynches and hangs Blacks for the slightest theft and transforms all natural objects, including animals, into manufactured goods.
G. R. — Is it not curious that France should become a privileged terrain for anti-Americanism in Europe, although no conflict ever set these two countries against each other?
P. B. — Not only have the two nations never been to war with each other, but furthermore, the French and Americans are united by links of friendship that go back to before the foundation of the independent American nation to which the French contributed. La Fayette went to the help of the American insurgents. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, had a very special relationship with France: he travelled there several times and was very well received. Incidentally, I believe that Michael Douglas is filming a series in Paris on the life of Benjamin Franklin. On 6 February 1778, with his compatriots Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, he was the signatory of the treaty by which Louis XVI, the king of France, was the first in the world to recognise the independence of the United States. It was in the 20th century that Franco-American relations, to my knowledge became a bit strained.
G. R. — Including under de Gaulle?
P. B. — During the war, the relations between de Gaulle and Roosevelt were not close but I would not talk of anti-Americanism on the part of de Gaulle who, always and despite everything, recognised the United States as a friend of France. In moments of great tension, General de Gaulle was always on the side of Washington despite his speech in Phnom Penh and his opposition to the Vietnam war.
The post-war anti-Americanism was especially articulated by communists and the leftwing intelligentsia, the Modern Times group; the culminating point came with the demonstration against General Ridgway organised in Paris on 28 May 1952 in the international context of the Korean war. The American general, nicknamed ‘the plague’, was leaving his command in Korea to take over that of the NATO forces in Europe and the communists accused him of having used bacteriological weapons in Korea. The mass demonstration rapidly degenerated into clashes with the police. There were two deaths among the demonstrators. Sartre reacted forcefully by publishing the same year a series of interminable articles titled ‘The Communists and Peace’, in which he roundly criticised the Americans. He wrote this astonishing formula: ‘America is enraged.’ We were then in full terror in Moscow and Stalin was thinking very seriously of deporting millions of Jews, but it was Washington that was sick!
G. R. — Leftwing anti-Americanism has always gone hand-in-hand with anti-imperialism …
P. B. — Totally and this is not without paradox since the United States itself has always presented itself as an anticolonial power. To this end, the Americans backed the FLN in Algeria and, before going into Vietnam themselves, they put pressure on the French to end the occupation of Indochina. A former European colony, America is accused of imperialism while it positions itself as a champion of decolonisation movements. In short, there has always been on the part of the Americans and ourselves an ambivalent attitude on these questions.
That said, there is some continuity in the coolness that the extreme left demonstrates towards the United States. This can be seen in the war in Ukraine: the extreme left of Le Monde diplomatique, The France Unbowed party and those like it take sides with Russia through anti-Americanism. Their priority remains the fight against American imperialism which constitutes in their eyes one of the causes of the conflict. This is notably the case for an intellectual such as Emmanuel Todd, who wants Ukraine’s defeat and the disintegration of NATO, essentially out of loathing for the United States. One could cite others, especially disoriented philosophers who are disgusted by the Biden administration and find all sorts of excuses, and charm, in Putin. The woes of primary and secondary anti-Americanism.
This type of analysis is not the monopoly of the extreme left; it is also that of former foreign ministers such as Hubert Védrine or Dominique de Villepin, or a former ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, who demonstrate an incipient mistrust of the superpower. Védrine attributes to the United States and to its arrogance responsibility for Putin’s stiffening since the beginning of the conflict.
Villepin has been more subtle. But both of them see Washington’s massive support for the Ukrainians as the victory of America over Europe and as the decline of a Europe incapable of assuming its own defence. Macron has fallen into step, swearing to the heavens that he is an Atlanticist but he is just concerned for the need for a European strategic autonomy that is for the moment hypothetical … All claim to be partisans of sovereignty and of General de Gaulle. But, I repeat, the head of Free France who had to manage bilateral relations always backed America during serious crises and knew that he could rely on it in case of any threat. What I see among a number of rightwing leaders – we could include Henri Guaino and, of course, all the National Rally – and that I qualify as anti-Americanism is a constant attempt to exonerate the enemies of Europe (Putin) of their wrongdoings by putting the responsibility on the wicked United States that wants to control Western Europe and bring down Moscow.
G. R. — From this example, we can see that anti-Americanism is not the prerogative of the extremes …
P. B. — That’s true. It transcends parties and generations. Just like sovereignty or Euroscepticism, it can be found in all the parties. The problem is that you can’t sweep away these sentiments with a broad sweep of the hand because they are, in some cases, partially founded. The deference of our leaders towards Washington, the American hold on our affairs, the hegemony of the United States: all that the sworn foes of America denounce is not necessarily false.
Nor can we contest the hardly worthy facts in the past of an America which started its triumphal march by massacring the Indians, practising slavery and, until recently, racial discrimination on its soil.
Finally, the United States is justifiably criticised for being the homeland of the Woke movement and multiculturalism, these worrying progressive excesses that replace the class struggle with a race struggle. And their tenacious drive to export these models across the world, without forgetting their lack of understanding of French- style secularism, is unbearable. Without forgetting the vulgarity of a certain hyper-consumerism that offends the Old Europeans that we are.
G. R. — How can one distinguish between legitimate criticism of decisions taken by Washington and primeval anti- Americanism?
P. B. — The anti-Americans demonstrate a suspicion with regards to this State that they describe as uniformly unjust, unequal, violent or brutal. Starting with this criticism, they condemn the American project as such and declare it null and void. This attitude is similar to anti-Zionism, the refusal of the State of Israel’s right to exist. Incidentally, anti-Americanism and loathing of Israel often go together.
G. R. — How would you define this American project?
P. B. — It’s the project of a new man, of a city on the hilltop, a new Jerusalem … This project is described in the poem of Emma Lazarus whose words are engraved on the plinth of the Statue of Liberty:
Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she With silent lips.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
It’s the idea that America will succeed where the whole world, especially Europe, has failed. Incidentally, we should not forget that, in response to the anti-Americanism developed by us there is a fairly significant loathing of Europe among the Americans. We incarnate everything they wanted to leave behind: intolerance, a certain form of bigotry, inequality and especially fatalism for those who glorify the self-made man … They always recall that Nazism and communism were born in Europe and not in the United States. Today, they think that our societies are not doing enough to fight discrimination.
G. R. — Unless I am mistaken, we have been able to hear the Americans accuse the French of racism because of the laws adopted within the framework of defending secularism …
P. B. — In effect, the Americans do not have at all the same vision of religion as the French. They think that French secularism is a sort of hidden racism. Another source of misunderstandings is the relationship to religion. They consider that any religion is good from the moment it is peaceful, whereas we French treat religions with suspicion. This is a great debate between them and us. The French Republic was built in opposition to Catholicism and with a dread of wars of religion, America alongside religions in general. For America, any faith is good in itself from the moment it gathers millions of faithful. We are more wary and especially more lucid than they are about Islam and its fanatical excesses.
Among the reasons for discord, one must equally mention the economic competition that set us against each other in many areas. It is obvious that, in this rivalry, they don’t hesitate to crush us, playing the card of protectionism when they can and seeking to destroy or obstruct a number of our industries. It was they who killed the Concorde and who try to put spokes in the wheels of Airbus. ‘The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.’ This retort of Richard Nixon’s secretary of the treasury in 1971 is more topical than ever.
So there is for us an anger against the United States, but this is a contained anger because we always keep in mind that it is the one protecting us and that continues, whether we like it or not, to fascinate us, to outrage and dazzle us. Incidentally, French youth continues to emigrate to the United States to find better jobs and not to Moscow or Beijing.
G. R. — This question of European defence guaranteed by the United States is crucial and it is divisive inside Europe. For you, does the desire to defend ourselves on our own stem from anti-Americanism or is a logical aspiration because, after all, nothing says the United States will always be there to protect us?
P. B. — I think that having a European defence would have been a good thing, starting in 1945, except that Europe has never gone to the trouble of constructing it and that the plan for strategic autonomy for the moment is just a pious wish on the part of the Élysée. The first test for Europe came in the Yugoslav wars: the Europeans had the means to take out the Serbs who had only a small army. But it needed the Americans to bomb Serbian positions in 1994, then fairly moderately Belgrade in 1999 to make the Serbian army ineffective. On the Europe-America relationship weighs a formidable burden: the complex of those in debt. Without American, English Canadian or Australian troops in 1944, we would be brown or red. It is difficult to forgive the Americans for freeing us from fascism, alone and not the Soviets. Note at the same time that all the pro-Putins of our days, from Natacha Polony, the editor of Marianne, to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, are massively hostile to Washington. Better the knout and the Gulag than the awful hamburger!
Today, the war in Ukraine is a new thunderclap. Berlin has stated that it wants to invest 100 billion euros in its defence but I am convinced there will never be a German army. The Germans are at a loss in military affairs – and it is perhaps better this way. They have replaced militarism with mercantilism and economic domination. Battle tanks and gleaming jets will never replace a warlike mentality that no longer exists on the other side of the Rhine. Today, I don’t see where European defence could be born. Emmanuel Macron’s famous diagnosis – NATO is ‘brain-dead’ – was perhaps true when those words were pronounced in 2019, but it is no longer true. Putin, through his aggression, has revived the alliance and it is now flourishing. Why would we build a ‘European defence community’ today when we already have NATO which has just reaped two new memberships, Finland and Sweden? I frankly don’t see what Europe could do more or better. Let’s modernise the French army and work with our allies to contain the triple menace coming from Moscow, Ankara and Teheran, the gang of three thieves bred by the Chinese godfather Xi Jinping who has declared a massive war on the West.
G. R. — Can it be said that 2022 was the year of America’s big return to Europe?
P. B. — America has come through a complicated period since the 2001 attacks.
George W. Bush engaged it in a series of absurd wars that put it in great difficulty. We thought that, out of breath, it would finally return to barracks and withdraw into itself. This sentiment was strengthened by the 2021 Kabul débâcle which left a terrible impression. The Americans didn’t lose the war in Afghanistan; they just lost the desire to fight and to die for others. No more boots on the ground. And this isolationism is massively a Republican and conservative phenomenon.
Our exasperation seeing the Americans getting involved in world affairs cohabits, in a schizophrenic way, with the desire to see the country act as a world gendarme. But the sheriff is a part-timer, to pick up on a famous expression.
Another example: at the time of the chemical attacks in Ghouta in 2013, everyone expected Washington to intervene in Syria; but at that time, the isolationist trend gained the upper hand and it didn’t go in. An enormous strategic error on Barack Obama’s part. This refusal to intervene obviously led to criticism and anti- American feelings. America is wrong when it intervenes, but it is even more wrong when it doesn’t! Whatever happens, it’s wrong …
G. R. — Are European reactions to American action in the framework of the war in Ukraine a new illustration of this?
P. B. — When the Russian operation in Ukraine was launched in February 2022, there were many of us who believed that Washington would be content to protest without doing much and that Europe would lie down because that is its instinct, to live on its knees in front of dictatorships. But things were different …
After some hesitation and after Biden had offered to exfiltrate Zelensky, the Americans took advantage of the first Ukrainian successes – such as the expulsion of Russian troops from the outskirts of Kiev, the destruction of a column of tanks coming from Kharkiv and Belarus – to jump fully into the game and help the Ukrainian army resist the Russian aggressor. The only condition was that there should be no American soldiers on Ukrainian soil. Since Vietnam, the American doctrine is zero deaths. Sacrificing American lives is out of the question.
I heard Jean-Pierre Raffarin say that he found it unfortunate that NATO should occupy all the space while moving Europe aside. But, if Ukraine must be saved, this will not be thanks to Europe even if Germany, Poland, Denmark and France are also taking part up to a point in the war effort. It was the great return of Uncle Sam who sent in arms, tested new technology on the terrain … spent lavishly and above all set a strategic aim, Russia’s defeat. All Western Europe owes its survival to NATO troops. The divorce between the European east and west is complete.
The Afghan failure was over, America had recovered its leadership. It has that ability to get over its negligence, to renew itself and repair its errors that we no longer have in Europe. Even Macron, who is a young leader, is affected by this curse of the old world which consists of sticking to reflexes without knowing how to reinvent oneself.
G. R. — The United States’ detractors often lament American cultural hegemony and regret the realisation that markers for the young, and not so young, Europeans are Hollywood, Netflix, McDonald’s, the NBA and American rock and rap; that it has become almost indispensable to learn English to make a career in very many trades; that English words prevail in European languages and even in State instances in our countries. Is this Americanisation of the world, through the irritation that it sometimes provokes, one of the motors of anti-Americanism?
P. B. — I can understand the exasperation provoked by the Americanisation of language or ways of life. Anglicisms in the life of companies or in the public space have become quite simply unbearable. Particularly in France, which is an old country with an old and great culture. We can always denounce American mass culture, the food, the rampant obesity, supermarkets and so on. America embodies the worst and the best of modernity. Except that we already have all of that at home. America also embodies the best. It has a vitality and self-confidence that we are lacking.
The GAFAM, Netflix and AI had to be invented. And we did not do so, even if we had the intellectual and technological means. There is no French Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. The French who succeed are treated like exploiters or drinkers of blood. Our country is on bad terms with success, money, the market and entrepreneurial capitalism … We put all our talents into doubting ourselves; the American religion is first and foremost faith in America.
G. R. — Isn’t hating America, for Europeans, in some way hating ourselves insofar as, today, most people are shaped by American culture …
P. B. — You are right. Take the example of young French people in New York: they are fascinated by rap, hip-hop and all the new music and dances. At the same time, I can like American films and criticise the North American system. We know that Hitler, like the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, adored westerns; that Saddam Hussein as well delighted in Hollywood films; that the Cubans have a passion for old American cars and that most of the population dreams of fleeing to Florida. America is quite definitely the country that people love to hate.