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Thursday, Jan 8, 2009
Once fond of clucking at us, France has found a new love for America.
Sep 28, 2001 | These last two weeks, French people have been saying things that I am convinced they could have never said before, such as: "We are all Americans now." This was an instant emotional response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, uttered by people on the streets. French families invited Americans stranded at Charles de Gaulle airport to come home with them. Whole villages in Normandy got out their American flags. French people brought red roses to the American Embassy and pinned notes to them saying things like, "You helped us so much during the war, and now it's our turn to support you."
During three Europe-wide minutes of silence on Sept. 14, a gray-haired French man carried a flag to Notre Dame that he hadn't taken out since the liberation of Paris. "I'm still old enough to remember our debt to the Americans," he said. "I'm paying homage to the American people." French TV stations used "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a jingle between regular programming, and networks devoted hours each day to covering every aspect of the attacks. People on the street asked what they could do for America. Schoolchildren have written cards and made drawings of our two flags waving side by side, and French people sent checks to the American Hospital in Paris to help the families of the victims.
Too often the news from France is that French people don't like us, don't approve of our self-absorption or don't appreciate the noisy invasion of our pop culture and language. But the recent shows of solidarity, tokens of gratitude and affirmations of friendship have convinced me that the love-hate relationship between France and the U.S. has more love in it than hate.
This week in France, where terrorist threats are about as routine as earthquakes in California, schoolchildren have been recounting their plane crash nightmares and sirens have been sounding off and on all day. Thousands of police are on the streets, a few dozen bomb threats are made each day, the garbage cans have been sealed and the recycling bins removed -- the trash and the wine bottles pile up on the street. During a recent television roundtable, someone asked, "Are we all Americans?" The answer, for the most part, seemed to be yes.
France, like the rest of the world, has always kept a close eye on us. But this time they weren't just watching the stock market or the marketing trends, the pop charts and the street fashions. America talked about its loss of innocence on Sept. 11. But for France, it was innocents that were lost. Not just the children of Americans, but of civilization itself.
There was a special service at the American Church in Paris on Sept. 13 attended by President Chirac, the prime minister, the mayor and other French political and religious leaders. It included spirituals, instrumental and church music, and sermons of condolence and tolerance by a priest, a Muslim and a rabbi. As the dignitaries filed out, the line backed up, and an American man in the crowd -- who had probably felt that the ceremony lacked a certain comforting patriotism -- quietly started singing "God Bless America" a cappella. The American soprano Jessye Norman was there in the crowd, and she joined in, her hand resting on her throat, as if to keep that giant voice on the scale of the assembled, who had trouble finding their voices at all.
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