Anti-Americanism in French and European Public Opinion

Abstract

The British-American intervention in Iraq served to reveal the depth of European anti-Americanism. The intervention did not create anti-Americanism, but it increased it and gave it form. The frequent opinion surveys conducted recently can be used to analyze present-day anti-Americanism and to explore its varying contours. American intervention in Iraq was, for the most part, seen through the prism of a previous, already largely negative image of America, which provided a framework for interpretation. In a sense, the war in Iraq served to confirm in the eyes of many Europeans the manifold reasons they had to distrust the United States. This chapter, largely devoted to the French case but which will include other European countries as well, sets out to analyze the varying contours of anti-Americanism and to measure its significance.KeywordsUnited StatesForeign PolicySecurity CouncilNegative ImageMilitary InterventionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.