More than one English choked with indignation on hearing Barack Obama, January 10 2011, extolling the friendship between Paris and Washington. What, old England would no longer favors the United States? Unless it has overplayed its charms ...
" We do not have best friends or best friends that Nicolas Sarkozy and the French people ," said Barack Obama January 10, 2011 [when he received the French president at the White House]. Scarcely had he uttered these words Nile Gardiner, a British political commentator based in Washington, rushed on his keyboard to power on his blog site Daily Telegraph. "It is difficult to understand what the French have done for deserve such praise from U.S. President, and if the White House really thinks what she said - and that is a radical change in foreign policy of the United States. "
A little touchy, the gentleman no? "Suggest that Paris, not London, may be the main partner of Washington is simply ridiculous," he says indignantly. "No American president of modern times has described France as its closest ally United States, such an assertion is not only wrong in fact but an insult to Great Britain, especially a few years after the French were openly Washington stabbed in the back about the war in Iraq, "he concludes, apparently on the verge of apoplexy.
Could someone give an aspirin to Mr. Gardner? Nile, you should not get put in such a state. Obama just wanted to be polite. Any president who receives foreign heads of state simply can not escape the statements of this kind: "Hamid Karzai is a great friend of the United States", as said George W. Bush several times, or "Colonel Gaddafi is a great friend of France", as Nicolas Sarkozy has assured in November 2007, when he invited the Libyan dictator to pitch his tent in the gardens Elysium, with its all-female entourage.
That said, the historical perspective, I am sorry to say that Bush has objectively and emotionally right to describe France as the best ally of the United States. The date of September 3, 1783 does not remind you Does nothing [Treaty of Versailles, by which England recognized the independence of the 13 American colonies]? And Lord Cornwallis? General Rochambeau? [The first head of the British troops, was defeated by the second, the head of the American rebels and their French allies at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781]. The French may have just missed the opportunity to be selected as the language of the United States, but without France there would have been no American Revolution. And what is the "stab in the back to Washington about the war in Iraq," France has made a caveat, with courage, an old and dear friend that he was committing a grave error. Other allies found nothing better than to acquiesce.
In general, France and the French have a more candid relationship with the United States that their neighbors across the Channel. In their minds, love need not be bonded. A healthy dose of criticism is expected and even welcome, as a sign of a healthy relationship between equals. If the leftist intelligentsia thought would ridicule the United States just after World War II, a majority of French have embraced American culture. Many American artists and filmmakers, Nicolas Ray Coen brothers, owe much of their world-renowned French film critics. To be a good friend, you must be independent. This was always thought of French presidents, from De Gaulle to Chirac. Nicolas Sarkozy is a unique figure in French politics, preferring instead to use the obsequiousness to critically beneficial. Frankly, Nicolas Sarkozy would like to be American. But that's another story ...
Guardian
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