"[America is] the only nation in history which has...gone
directly from barbarism to degeneracy without the usual
interval of civilization."
--Georges Clemenceau
"France has neither winter nor summer nor morals--apart
from these drawbacks, it is a fine country."
--Mark Twain
"My father would always tell the barber to cut my hair as short as possible," said Jacques Agniel, a science teacher in Paris who lived for a few years in New York. "And then he'd try to comfort me: 'Don't cry, you look like an American GI,' he'd say with pride. The barber of this sleepy little town in the south of France would nod.
"Both of them remembered World War II vividly: D-Day, the U.S. Army driving out the Germans, the soldier's 'cigarette blondes' and chewing gum, and above all, their relaxed joie de vivre. For them America was freedom and America could do nothing wrong. As for me, I did not have a clue of what an American GI was, and America meant a crew cut; I swear my feeling of distrust towards the States comes from way back then."
Once a month, Jacques invites several friends to his apartment north of Paris for a soiree americaine, which includes burgers, corn on the cob, and California wine. Jacques might not trust America, but he's got no qualms displaying some nostalgic memorabilia: The bathroom walls are covered with car license plates from Oregon to Florida, Steinberg's famous poster of the New Yorker hangs in the kitchen, and rap is the musique de rigueur.
"Look," says Catherine, an ex-fille au pair in New Jersey, now an engineer, "French people say they don't like or mistrust America, yet we keep imitating everything that's American. Why? Saturday afternoon, I went to Choisy to do some shopping and was stuck in a huge traffic jam. It could have been New York City. Everybody out to buy, buy, buy. Traffic jams, neon signs, McDonald's, we have it all. Let's face it. America's won."
"So what if French people want to spend their Saturday afternoons this way?" asks Pierre, a pharmacist who studied for two years in Colorado. "So what if self anointed protectors of French civilization are appalled when they see long lines of authentic Frenchmen at fast-food outlets? On the Champs Elysees, no less!"
"You see," says Catherine, "your way of looking at this is very American! You think people enjoy a freedom that simply does not..."
"Here we go again," interrupts Eric, the oldest of the group. He is a chef with his own restaurant in Portland, Oregon but goes back to his native South of France as often as possible. "Admit it. France and the U.S. have a special bond. 'Lafayette, nous voila!'--even if no American soldier ever actually said it, that phrase builds a special relationship. They make fun of us, we make fun of them. We're like
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