Red, white…and black and blue. Franco-American diplomacy has long been a bit of an oxymoron. But the trans-Atlantic tweaking that’s been playing out in newspapers and news conferences on American and French soil has gotten…meaner. The phrase “cheese eating surrender monkeys” has found currency in the pages of a conservative American journal. So has “The Axis of Weasels,” an off-hand reference to France and Germany’s shared anti-war stance.
The potshots have put the French on the defensive. “Overseas press serves up the French for breakfast,” a headline in one Parisian paper reads. Caricatures and stereotypes have always filled the gaps in cross cultural understanding, but this time, the stakes may be too high for name calling. Sticks, stones, and the Franco-American fracas.
Guests:
Annie Cohen-Solal, professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and chair of American Studies, University of Caen in Normandy
Ezra Suleiman, professor of international studies and chair of European Studies at Princeton University.