Weingarten continued …

This was a delicate situation. If I was not representing all of America, I was surely representing the American media, blamed by many for taking an awkward situation and, in search of spicy headlines, gleefully making it worse.

I began by assuring M. Gaymard that confrontation and controversy were the last things on my mind; that my role was conciliatory; that my questions were designed to elicit an open and frank exchange of views, so vital to the healing process. The minister inclined his head graciously, and I began.

"I think we can both agree that the diplomatic situation between our two nations is both regrettable and unnecessary . . . Perhaps the worst part is that it has resurrected in the United States some ugly, unfair, inaccurate and totally unsupportable stereotypes about the French. You know: that you are elitist, that you are rude, that you are cowards, that you have an insufferable air of superiority, that your fashion shows are nothing more than elaborate parades of clown costumes . . ."

The minister waited for translation.

". . . that your movies are long and boring and unbearably pretentious, that you lack personal hygiene and let your dogs poop all over the streets, and indeed, that your national pet, the poodle, is a ridiculous life form better never to have survived the evolutionary process."

The minister shifted slightly in his chair.

"I will not insult you, or dignify these preposterous, obviously untrue stereotypes by asking you to respond to them. But I was just wondering if the French have any equally preposterous and obviously untrue stereotypes about Americans that you might enumerate here for the purpose of my not dignifying them with a response."

As I awaited his answer, it occurred to me that, yes, diplomacy is a difficult and subtle art. But one must try to do one's part.

In France, the president of the United States is widely perceived to be a squinty-eyed bully, a cowboy given to shooting first and asking questions later. Worse, he is seen by the sophisticated French as something of a yokel -- uncultured, unschooled, inarticulate, anti-intellectual, dangerously shallow -- elected and supported by a populace too fearful of terrorist attacks, an electorate that values too much the blunt, common touch and too little the more complex virtues of the Renaissance man.

For his part, the Pres isn't so crazy about the French, either.


By Gene Weingarten, Sunday, September 7, 2003. If there’s any interest expressed, I can run the whole article. Just say.