No idea. I was hoping someone would come up with something as a point of debate for what ‘going our separate ways’ means in real terms. When I started this thread I did it in IMHO to…well, get some opinions. As I said…I don’t personally think we should ‘just go our separate ways’, break off relations, etc. I DO think that both nations, especially at the citizen level, need to come to terms with the other. It goes both ways this ridiculous lack of trust and dislike thing.
Well…yeah, but did you look at the numbers cited in that article from the OP? Our ‘approval’ level in France in 2002 was 39%. Thats…well, you know pretty low, no? Frances ‘approval’ level here in the US was 50%…thats not great, but not that bad either. If, when we were getting ‘sympathetic’ responses from France over 9/11 are approval level as 39%…well, thats not all that great, is it? I guess we should be happy we only dropped 8% in the next 3 years??
The problem is, the EU isn’t a superpower. Not in the way of projected force, at least. The comparative size of their combined armies, navies, and air forces is pretty darn pitiful. They’d have to scale up to US size, and I don’t know if they can afford the parasitic weight.
Economic Superpower? Doubtful. At least compared to China and India, which show much more potential for growth. And again, it still doesn’t compare to the kind with guns.
Of course, now that the Europeans are busily busting up the EU, they’ll have to return to squabbling second and third-rate power status. In many cases, fouth-rate.
Well, a fourth rate only has 50-60 guns on two decks, but it’s still not something anything smaller than a ship of the line would want to face. And third rates were the ubiquitous 74s, possibly the best combination of firepower and mobility in the Royal Navy. See, for example, the Battle of the Nile, one of the most lopsided naval battles in history, where most of Nelson’s command was third rates.
I have been struck for a long time by the same thing as the OP (i.e. the exaggerated interpretation of minor popularity drop percentages in polls).
Another thing that strikes me is how little this stuff matters. E.g. somebody here told me that, among European countries, the popularity of Bush and American foreign policy is very low in any case but lowest of all in my present country, Finland. (Can’t confirm this with any cite.) He said that his kids had been discussing boycotts of American icons (McD’s, Coca Cola, the usual suspects) in school.
However, AFAIK, there hasn’t been even the slightest blip in the revenues of these companies anywhere. I think their revenue remains on its usual growth trend. And needless to say, the kids sure didn’t end up boycotting anything.
Mostly, I think the people whose actions really matter - CEOs, governments, rich investors - will always remain die-hard pro-America no matter what. OTOH it makes no difference whether 60%, 70% or 90% of the proletariat say they are anti-Bush.
I think that the divide is not so much between France and the United States as between France and everybody else, in that the French are clinging to a prosperous post-war past in which generous state expenditure and state intervention and protection was affordable, while just about everybody else has concluded that it isn’t.
That’s part of the reason why anti-US feeling is so high in France, because they more than anybody dread the relatively dog-eat-dog American way of life. They should reflect on the fact that American public expenditure is now about as high, per capita, as French public expenditure despite much lower tax rates, because Americans earn more.
As a total aside comment - Humorist Art Buchwald lived in France for years after WWII and way back in the 1950’s he said something like - Do the French hate Americans? Of course they do, almost as much as they hate other French.
They could also reflect on the fact they work a third less than Americans, have higher productivity, some of the best healthcare and longest life expectancies in the world, …
They have a rating of 103 versus 100 for America according to OECD 2003. Hardly a massive difference. Combine this with the fact that they work a lot less, doesn’t that mean that they get next to nothing done when compared with America?
…not forgetting the fact that they only have 61.1% of the population between 15 and 64 at work compared to America’s 71.9% (OECD 2003).
You both missed my point - you need to do something other than cherrypick factoids to demonstrate which country is the better place to live. (And whether a ‘economy that works better’ automatically means a better standard of living for everybody is a different debate altogether…)
Yeah, I think this is more of a left v. right thing rather than a France v. U.S. thing, as Liberal’s post implies. I’m sure the French left likes Micheal Moore and Noam Chomsky, who are both Americans. Hell, IIRC, they even named a street in Paris after famous American cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal. (Is that true, BTW?) The attitudes of the French left and the American left are probably pretty similar, although the left seems much more prominent in France than in the U.S.
Of course there may be cultural differences between France and the U.S. But it’s difficult to talk about these differences without degenerating into inane trite stereotyping. i.e. “The French value theory over fact! Americans are the opposite!”
When I saw those towers burning… I thought happily that all the political bickering would be set aside and deal with the Middle East terror machine. China, Russia and Europe all wanted to see Arab terrorism taken care of… alas its growing and spreading instead.
Certainly some parts of Europe have moved towards getting rid of cumbersome government programs, but still there isn’t any country that’s close to putting as much faith in private enterprise as the United States did. During my recent travels in Europe (mostly in Germany and the Czech Republic) I haven’t met anyone who really thinks of France as backwards. While there may be points of dispute between France and the rest of the EU, just about every Eurpoean country would probably view themselves as closer to France than to the U.S.
The GDP per capita is significantly lower in the EU ( out of my head, maybe a little more than 2/3 of the US GDP per capita). Which doesn’t mean tha the quality of life is lower. I personnally wouldn’t trade public healthcare and a lot of vacation time for a 50% higher income.
