The Buffalo News

THE FRENCH DON'T HATE ORDINARY AMERICANS

Date: Sunday, April 13, 2003

Section: VIEWPOINTS

Edition: FINAL

Page: H1

By: By ETHAN GILSDORF - Special to The News

PARIS

A friend from Oklahoma says her local bakery, named La Baguette, has suffered a 75 percent drop in business since the American-French

flare-up. The bakery is owned and run by a Lebanese family. Its only ties to France are recipes for bread and tarts.

Before he departs for spring break in Paris, a college student from Washington memorizes how to say, "Just because we're American doesn't

mean we voted for Bush." He's especially concerned to have the proper French verb conjugation.

Another American tourist is told that waiters in Parisian cafes will insist that American customers go away. She hears this from her stewardess, on

the red-eye flight from California to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. (With such cheery spokespersons for international travel, is it any wonder

the airline industry finds itself in its current nose dive?)

As the anecdotes and warnings pile up, embarrassing if not insulting to the French and to level-headed Americans, Parisians grimace, waiting for

the next round of legislation to be introduced in Congress that renames French Guyana, French toast and Ball Park Franks and repatriates the remains

of Jim Morrison and Gertrude Stein from the Parisian cemetery Pere Lachaise. (For like our soldiers melding with the Normandy landscape, don't these

Americans also deserve a less hostile final resting place?)

Here in Paris, I've spoken to many resident French and visiting Americans, trying to plumb the depths of anti-American sentiment. For it must

exist, non? -- an equal and opposite force to match the other side of the pond's general distrust of France?

Tourists assume Parisians will unleash a tirade against them the moment the words "cafe au lait" awkwardly escape their mouths in rusty high school

French.

But while some Americans find it perfectly normal to blame the entire French people for the faults of its government, the vast majority of French I

know, and the French media, are careful to separate the citizenry and the government. The American people are not confused with those who inhabit

the White House.

It's "Bush's War" on the covers of the French weeklies. Bush the gunslinger, Bush the cowboy. The protests in Paris that I've seen, and participated

in, are careful to blame the leaders of American foreign policy, not the American people.

Banners boldly declaring "Bush assassin!" -- harsh as they may be -- are still directed at the administration. Chants of "U.S. go home!" decry

the presence of troops illegally occupying a sovereign nation. They don't mean U.S. tourist, go home.

You won't see angry resentment directed at the American people, only b ewildered head scratching.

"The French say, 'What is wrong with your President Bush?' " said the native Connecticut owner of an American diner in Paris I spoke with. "Whereas

the Americans say. 'What is wrong with the French?' -- not Chirac. That's an important difference."

Meanwhile, other Americans seem obsessively focused on the recent past. French wisely take the long view. They see not only the time U.S.

forces "bailed out" the French in World War II, but also that the French saved our derrieres in the Revolutionary War.

But the point is not about who owes whom what favor or whether loyalty must be expressed as mindless allegiance. The issue that no hot-headed

Francophobe seems to grasp is that two nations long intertwined ought to be able to diplomatically disagree without the argument collapsing into ad

hominem mud- and cheese-slinging. Nor does stereotyping bridge the trans-Atlantic gap.

Most French know, in the words of a cafe diner I spoke with, "that not all Americans are puritanical and own guns." The typecasting is ridiculous,

of course, and that's the point: Most Parisians understand that Americans can't possibly all play the same role -- how could they? Just as all

Americans surely didn't assume that every Frenchman visiting New York during last summer's Le Pen fiasco was a neo-Nazi. I hope.

Anti-Americanism in Paris is a myth. Still, mythology can be bent for other purposes. Fear of the French threatening busloads of retirees from

Poughkeepsie is a powerful force. It's perfect to fire up a Congress to rally behind their president and pass laws to punish a nation for

daring to oppose him.

It's useful to our media, who like to divide the planet into black and white chess pieces to dice the news into digestible bites.

It's ideal for scaring the American people from traveling beyond that red line that outlines America on maps, a border that's looking more and

more like a humming electric fence to keep citizens in, not terrorists out.

Yes, when in Paris, if you declare yourself American, or let that unmistakable and wonderful Long Island or Texas accent slip out as you

discuss the best route to the Arc de Triomphe via the Metro, you may find yourself the sudden target of attention. Don't recoil from it --

embrace it. It's curiosity, mainly, about your government, what's going on chez vous, and what you think about it.

The French are expert talkers and, naturally, wonder what we Americans must be up against. While furious with Bush, they're generally sympathetic

to us. Let that be a moment for discussion between two long-allied nations. Any charged words (an unlikely prospect) will be a blip in a centuries-old

marriage. And you can be sure a Parisian won't let it escalate, lose his temper and yank out a handgun from his trench coat.

In the words of an Indian-French worker at a travel agency, pausing on his lunch break to explain to another American his position: "It's normal

for us to say, 'What the U.S. is about to do is dangerous.' Otherwise, we would not be friends."

ETHAN GILSDORF is a freelance writer, critic and poet who lives in Paris.