Following yesterday’s meeting at the White House between American President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a wave of indignation has arisen in the United Kingdom over Obama’s latest remarks. By declaring France America’s greatest ally, not only are we lights years away from the days of French Bashing by the Bush / Cheney administration, the comments are likely to renew anti-French sentiment on the right of the American political spectrum.
More :
- President Obama Meets with President Sarkozy – WhiteHouse.gov
- British Reaction to Obama’s declaration
PS: Happy New Year!
Fairly good article on TIME.com. I think that President Obama was more into his personal relationship with Sarkozy than the National venue. My viewpoint is that the UK, France, Canada and Germany are natural and economic allies of the first order.
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Que passe-t-il? J’arrive plus a mettre mes postes…..erreur technique, ou quoi?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1346006/Barack-Obama-declares-France-biggest-ally-blow-Special-Relationship-Britain.html
Quelle haine, quelle ignorance dans les commentaires qui ont été envahis par les habitués du Drudge Report.
Ça s’apparente à la démence clinique à ce niveau là.
Ça fait froid dans le dos. Il y en a un tas dans le lot qui n’hésiterait pas une seule seconde à tous nous tuer si ils avaient le pouvoir de nous rayer de la carte.
That’s great news. Happy New Year! Vive La France!
Just a week before Christmas, two French soldiers protecting an American convoy in a-stan were killed in firefight against taliban. More recently, two weekends ago another French soldier was killed and several other wounded by IED.
Are French-Bashers in America celebrating? Yes. American Conservative Republicans find themselves in a true state of conflict, not against terrorism but against themselves. They hate the French so much that when one is killed, they’re not sure whether they should cheer for the Taliban or not. What a dilemna!
Considering that I continue to hear and see French-bashing in cafes and as comments on Letters to the Editor, I am suprised that we do not have more activity on this site. Maybe we’re all responding, as required, at the appropriate place and site.
Hello Poilu. Your comments prove just how ridiculous and insane that French bashing has become. It has never made any sense at all and people really need to stop hating French people. France isn’t a bad country.
Personnally I don’t think that French soldiers should be in Afghanistan. This has nothing to do with our national interest. This an American thing and we should withdraw from that ridiculous adventure. Sarkozy is wasting the blood of our soldiers for an absurd war.
Good news: Wizard has ceased publication. Given that, in addtion of being the poster child for everything that went wrong with amercian comics in the 90s, their tendancy to make enormous mistakes and not correcting them, and their adolescent fratboy “humor”, they were also notorious french-bashers, I consider this a good news.
I was thinking about the Daily Mail article : the (conservative) Brits and Americans alike seems to be really, really pissed about Obama’s sentence… What I am sure though, is that it would be no good for France to have a similar “special relation” with Washington : look what is left to our once proud and powerful rival !
It’s about time that our government reasserted the fact that France is our greatest ally. If not for France, there probably would’nt be a United States. It’s ironic that this made the English angry. The ruthlesness with which they prosecuted the American Revolution pales even in comparison to the film ” The Patriot”.
The Mail is an absolute discrace of a paper in the UK, I wouldn’t take any notice of what their myopic readership might say.
Didn’t understand the fuss about this, it’s not as if Obama was saying that the French were their greatest ally or anything it’s just that for once France does not have a president who will stab them in the back. This is a complete storm in a tea cup.
I didn’t agree with the UK’s backing of the war in Iraq, but convicted criminal Chirac should not have tried to organise opposition against it.
How would the French feel if the US got involved in some of their little colonial wars and coups? Just like De Gaulle’s shameful attitude to the anglo-saxons who sheltered him during the war and then liberated his country, this is not a behaviour of an ally.
Ken Williams – I wouldn’t get your information about history from holywood films, if I were you, particularly Mel Gibson ones. Try reading some books
Onion Jonny – “the once proud and powerful nation” is doing all right thanks although I would like us to loosen our ties with both the US and EU. The UK, just like France, is having to get used to the fact that it is no longer such a powerful nation. The sooner this happens the better.
Dear BigM,
whether you like it or not (or have the honesty to recognize it), France IS the first ally of the United States. Fact.
You can’t turn the clocks back and – sadly for you – English bitterness won’t change a thing about it.
” If not for France, there probably would’nt be a United States. It’s ironic that this made the English angry. “
“Just like De Gaulle’s shameful attitude to the anglo-saxons who sheltered him during the war and then liberated his country, this is not a behaviour of an ally.”
Yeah, well, if you’vfe been treated by your “friends” the way De Gaulle was treated by the British and (especially) the Americans, you would have been pretty peeved too. For starters, the majority of the french soldiers who had been evacuated at Dunkerque were sent back to France as soon as they landed in England, thus depriving him of troops right away. Then, there was Mers El Kebir. Then, the attitude of Roosevelt, who considered Pétain as the true leader of France. And it goes on: not being told of the landing in Algeria, being snubbed for leadrship of the French army in favour of admiral Darlan (Pétain’s chosen successor), and then Giraud, the project to see France administered by an AMGOT, being (along with China) snubbed at Yalta, protection given by the CIA to wanted war criminals like Lammerding or Barbie, and so on..
And it kept on after the war: remember Suez ? Frankly, you would have been in his place, you would have been pissed off too. Read “Strange Allies” to get a better idea. Ingratitude, you say ? Good memory, I’ll say.