Of Course France Is America's Strongest Ally

Agnès Poirier writes:

"We don't have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people" Barack Obama said today. Uh oh. No sooner had he done so than Washington-based British analyst Nile Gardiner rushed to his keyboard to blog for the Daily Telegraph: "Quite what the French have done to merit this kind of high praise from the US president is difficult to fathom, and if the White House means what it says this represents an extraordinary sea change in US foreign policy." Touchy, aren't we?

He goes on, outraged: "To suggest that Paris and not London is Washington's strongest partner is simply ludicrous." And finishes, seemingly frothing at the mouth: "No US president in modern times has described France as America's closest ally, and such a remark is not only factually wrong but also insulting to Britain, not least coming just a few years after the French famously knifed Washington in the back over the war in Iraq." Can somebody offer Mr Gardiner an aspirin?

Nile, you shouldn't feel so bad, Obama was just being polite. As all presidents hosting foreign heads of state know, you simply cannot escape saying things like: "Hamid Karzai is a great friend of the United States" as George W Bush declared many times, or "Colonel Gaddafi is a great friend of France" as Sarkozy said when he invited the Libyan dictator to set up his tent with his all-female entourage in the gardens of the Elysées in November 2007.

Having said that, if you look at it historically, I'm sorry to say that it is factually and emotionally right for the American president to describe France as the US's greatest ally. 3 September 1783, anyone? Lord Cornwallis? General Rochambeau? French may have narrowly missed out on being chosen as the language of the United States, but without France, there'd be no American independence.

As "for knifing Washington in the back over the war in Iraq", France was only doing the courageous act of warning a dear old friend that they were terribly wrong. Other allies thought no better but to acquiesce.

In general, France and the French have a more straightforward relationship to America than their neighbours across the Channel. The idea is that love doesn't have to be servile. A fair amount of criticism is even expected and welcome, it is the sign of an equal and healthy relationship. If the leftist intelligentsia felt it needed to deride America just after the second world war, a majority of the French people embraced American culture.

Many American artists and film directors, from Nicholas Ray to the Coen brothers, owe a large part of their world reputation to French film critics. To be a good friend, one has to be independent. That was always the point of view of French presidents from de Gaulle to Chirac. Nicolas Sarkozy is a unique figure in French politics, one who resorts to obsequiousness rather than healthy esprit critique. The truth is that Nicolas Sarkozy wishes he was American. But that's another story...