Airstrip One

112 Gripes about the French - 14th September 2003, 22.47

From a booklet published by the 'Information and Education Division' of the US occupying forces on the lack of respect shown by the liberated.

21. "Why bother about the French? They won't throw any weight in the post-war world."

Apart from reasons of honor and simple decency (Americans are not in the habit of letting their friends down), it is poor politics and worse diplomacy to "write off" a nation of 40 million allies. You may need their help some day.

France still stands as a bastion on the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. France will still be a strong factor in world political organization. The island bases of France, and her colonies, will still be stra- tegic areas in the world structure of peace. And in the age of the atomic bomb, the physical size and population of a country may be no index of her strengh and potentialities.

Why bother about France? It is not our job to "bother about" France. But it is our job to be seriously concerned about the peace and the political problems of the world. France is very much a part of that world.

David Low, the English cartoonist, once drew a famous cartoon showing the nations in a large rowboat. The European nations were at one end of the boat, which was foundering in the water; Uncle Sam sat in the other end, high and dry and out of the water. And Uncle Sam was saying, "Why should I worry? The leak isn't in my end of the boat" We have paid a terrible price for believing that a leak "at the other end of the boat" does not affect our destiny.

Can anyone give an example of when the French were so magnanimous?