Franco-American Relations Research Articles

The 52,000 gifts of the Gratitude Train: objects, emotions and Franco–American relations after the Second World War

Abstract The Gratitude Train was sent from France to America in 1949. Conceived as a ‘thank you’ for American help during and after the world wars, it contained 52,000 personal objects chosen and donated by French people who wanted to express their gratitude to Americans. The objects were divided between forty-nine boxcars, and each state received one of these boxcars containing approximately 1000 objects. What where these objects? Who sent them? Why have they been forgotten? Why do they matter? This article is interested not only in the story of the Gratitude Train, but in the stories within the objects themselves. By closely analysing a porcelain dog, a silver spoon and a painting, it traces the longer life biographies and trajectories of these objects and uncovers a range of both intended and unintended emotions as well as meanings, be they collective or individual. The unique and almost completely unknown Gratitude Train collection offers valuable inroads into our understanding of the relationship between objects, emotions and international relations, as well as into the materiality of gratitude at the heart of the age of extremes.

Why Has the Franco-American Security Relationship Been so Semi—Hostile for so Long?

Abstract Many people assume that Franco-American relations since 1776 have been far more harmonious than those of the United States’ relationship with Great Britain. After all, France fought on the side of the new aspiring republic in the American War of Independence against a colonial power. Although still a country ruled by a king, France itself became a republic shortly after the American Declaration of Independence was ratified. But in fact, France and the United States (and the colonies that preceded them) have often had poor relations. In his book Sister Republics: Security Relations between America and France, David Haglund asks why security relations between France and the United States been so fractious since the beginning of the American republic, and even well before it. He debunks the generally accepted mythology and its attendant symbology of two sister republics. The French-built and donated Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and the statue of General Lafayette on the Seine opposite the Quai d’Orsay in Paris are misleading. In truth any special relationship between France and the United States has been special on the whole in its lack of mutual liking, even respect. Haglund traces this difficult, even suboptimal, relationship over three centuries and shows how the weight of history still continues to upset Franco-American relations regularly.

Microcosm of the French Images of the USA: American Visit of the Marshal F. Foch in 1921

The article analyses an important event in the Franco-American relations of the post-WWI period, namely, the visit to the USA paid by Marshal F. Foch in October – December 1921. This is the first research on this topic in Russian historiography. The author explores the American voyage of Foch through several interconnected problems: 1) what was the French elites’ image of the USA; 2) how did this image influence the Paris diplomacy; 3) what efforts did the French make to ameliorate the image of the Third Republic in the USA? The parallel preparation and the beginning of the Washington conference of 1921–1922 amplified the importance of the visit. The centenary of the conference stimulates interest in its under-researched aspects. Author concludes that Foch’s American voyage throws the light on the different areas of the relations between France and the USA. On the one hand, the cordial atmosphere of the visit and its resonance testified the vivacity of the memory about the Franco-US allied cooperation during the WWI and its positive impact on the French image. On the other hand, the warm reception of Foch in the USA did not serve to benefit the French diplomacy during the Washington conference.

Selected Aspects of France's Foreign Policy towards the United States during Emmanuel Macron's Presidency from 2017 to 2022

The French diplomatic tradition has been going on for centuries and has influenced other parts of the world. One of France's most essential foreign policy directions is relations between France and the United States. It can be said to be friendship and hatred at the same time. The deep-rooted anti-Americanism in the French and the desire by Paris to return to great power status makes these relations even more difficult. In this article, I review France's foreign policy toward the United States from 2017 to 2022. In particular, I focus on analysing the aspect of superpower status, NATO membership and UN membership. I prove that these aspects have the greatest impact on Franco-American relations.

From Ally to Enemy: The XYZ Affair and а Diplomatic Crisis in the Franco-American Relations

The XYZ Affair was the most significant political incident during twenty years of the Franco- American alliance (1778–1798). It was the leading cause of the diplomatic crisis and the Quasi-War in relations between two countries from 1798 to 1800. Based on sources such as treaties, monographs, and other documents from the American side which are related to the topic, the article aims to analyze the crisis in Franco-American diplomacy after twenty years of establishing the alliances through the XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War. The study focuses on presenting the breakdown of trust in the Franco-American relations that led to the emergence of the XYZ Affair; the diplomatic crisis in the Franco-American relations known as the XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War between both countries and efforts of two countries to find a peaceful solution. The research shows that the XYZ Affair had been the biggest conflict case in the history of the Franco-American relations since 1778. In fact, America’s interest and honour in the XYZ Affair was the fundamental cause leading to the severe crisis in relations between two countries. The article contributes to clarifying the history of the XYZ Affair, the Quasi-War, the Franco-American relations, and a part of American diplomatic history in the first half of the founding era of the United States.

Review: Cookbook Politics, by Kennan Ferguson

Review: <i>Cookbook Politics</i>, by Kennan Ferguson

The «submarine crisis» and its possible consequences

The creation of a new military and political bloc AUKUS along with breaching «the contract of the century» for construction of 12 submarines by French Naval Group for Australia provoked a serious diplomatic crisis between France and the United States. The hot phase of the crisis was subdued by a telephone conversation between J. Biden and E. Macron, nevertheless, there are reasons to believe it will not disappear without a trace. The authors analyze possible consequences of the «submarine crisis»: its impact on transatlantic and Franco-American relations, European and Indo-Pacific strategies of Paris.

Introduction: Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence

Abstract This introductory essay considers The Age of Innocence as a novel as much about France, French customs and culture, and Franco-American relations, as it is about Gilded Age New York.

Willful Blindness: Franco-American Relations and the Escalation of the Vietnam War

The long and stable Franco-American diplomatic rapport was undermined throughout the American escalation of the Vietnam War. This paper specifically examines French President Charles de Gaulle’s increasing discontent at his ally’s involvement in Southeast Asia and analyzes the decisions of successive American presidents to ignore him. Beginning in 1961, with the inauguration of American President John F. Kennedy, the paper proceeds chronologically to 1964, by which point transatlantic relations had worsened considerably as a result of de Gaulle’s growing confrontation of the Indochina question. Using archival diplomatic documents from both countries, this paper seeks to explain why the United States government refused to comply with De Gaulle’s requests. This papers makes two main conclusions: American policy makers were willfully blind to their ally’s suggestions and the French proposal for the neutralization of Vietnam was not realistic. These findings are supported by various policy decisions made leading up to the war, relying heavily on primary sources to demonstrate the failings of both the French proposal and the American willingness to consider the perspective of a crucial ally.

Amica America: Raymond Aron’s Views on Franco-American Relations in 1945

During the Second World War, Raymond Aron began publishing political commentary in journals and newspapers aimed at a general non-expert readership. This wartime undertaking would become a life-long commitment to expanding political debate beyond the professional spheres of academia and policy making. This study recovers and analyses a concise article that Aron published in August 1945 in the French illustrated journal Point de vue. This forgotten journalistic source reflects idea of the role and responsibility of the public intellectual in a changing world and powerfully conveys three important aspects of Aron’s international thought. First, Aron implicitly advances the idea that the general public has a key function in shaping democratic foreign policy. Moreover, I argue that Aron’s short political analysis provides valuable insight on two theoretical notions that merit the attention of international relations scholars: the concept of ‘friendship’ in international relations and the idea of popular ‘spatial awareness’ as condition for a democratic state’s position in international order. This study suggests that in Aron’s vision of post-war order, articulated immediately after the end of the Second World War, the invocation of the idea of ‘Amica America’ sought to redefine the relations between France and the United States, but also the very political future of the Hexagon.

Collateral Damage? “Marigold,” Franco–American Relations, and Secret Vietnam Peace Diplomacy, 1966–1967

ABSTRACTThe Vietnam War exacerbated the already tense relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson; and Franco–American relations reached a nadir in winter 1966–1967 when de Gaulle vetoed a proposed visit to Hanoi by Jean Sainteny, a former colonial official, who Washington had desired to probe North Vietnam’s position. This analysis adds a new wrinkle to the story. Building on research for Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (2012), the author reveals that French knowledge of only the Polish version of that peace initiative’s failure, fully blaming the Americans, further soured de Gaulle’s view of Johnson’s handling of the war and American sincerity in seeking peace. The analysis also unveils a new dimension of Henry Kissinger’s involvement in Vietnam diplomacy—prior to the Nixon White House—missing from earlier accounts.

Echoes of Postfeminism in American Students’ Narratives of Study Abroad in France

Author(s): Kinginger, Celeste | Abstract: In qualitative research on Americans in study abroad contexts, female gender often emerges as problematic, with young women portrayed as hapless victims of sexual harassment. The assumption underlying interpretation of these studies appears to maintain that female students are victimized because they find themselves in places where inherently superior American discourses of gender equity do not prevail. Meanwhile, however, scrutiny of participants’ stories reveals deeper mysteries, to do with gender trouble from home that students bring to their experiences abroad. This paper adopts a narrative approach to interview and journal data from a previous study in which American students, both male and female, recount their experiences in France. Their accounts are linked to the sociocultural history and popular ideology of Franco-American relations and to images of study abroad in the American media. Students’ stories draw upon and contest an amalgam of images related to social class, gender, and national identity, which are embedded in perennial American representations of French language learning as social class transcendence. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, this phenomenon has morphed into a contemporary postfeminist self-help literature for would-be Frenchwomen, which celebrates anachronistic images of women as accomplished homemakers and objects of sexual desire who nevertheless control their destinies through artful styling of self and navigation of the global marketplace. “Frenchness,” with or without corresponding language ability, symbolizes membership in the mobilized, global elite. Thus, while a second language offers potentially new resources for the performance of gendered identity, this study shows how the relationship between such resources and learners’ desires is mediated by previous participation in specific discourses of gender and social class, which may or may not prioritize language learning per se.

Contesting France: French informants and American intelligence in the dawning Cold War

By integrating French archives and untapped US intelligence records, this article uncovers a debate within US government circles about the accuracy of the entrenched image of France at the onset of the Cold War as decadent and teetering toward revolution. In exchanges with the White House, State Department and military, right-leaning French sources bolstered this view. French contacts in the Resistance meanwhile shaped Office of Strategic Services analysis that France was a strong, worthy ally. France became a contested idea with warring factions in both capitals seeking to influence US policy – with repercussions for Franco-American relations for decades to come.

Janet Flanner's “High-Class Gossip” and American Nationalism Between the Wars

In this article I trace the parallel emergence of the New Yorker with the new American national consciousness that would come to dominate the twentieth century. I analyze Janet Flanner's Paris Letters as gossip, comparing them with Walter Winchell's famous columns, and demonstrate how their tone of shared understanding—written as if from one insider to another—worked to solidify Americans' feelings of cultural, economic, and political superiority over the European continent. I argue that Flanner's ironic, sharp, and witty observations juxtaposing French and American culture helped set the tone for Franco-American relations in the years between the wars.

À la Recherche de Yankee Art

In 1938 the Museum of Modern Art organized a US government-funded, multi-disciplinary exhibition in Paris, entitled “Three Centuries of American Art.” In this paper I explore the geopolitical, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of the exhibition as an episode of cultural diplomacy in Franco-American relations and as an attempt to promote, for the first time, an American ‘national artistic scene’ to the world. Special focus is placed on the selection of artworks and on curatorial practice. A comparison is offered with the sole precedent: an exhibition of American Art staged immediately after the end of WW I. A complex intertextual and intermedial web emerges from this comparison that reveals various tensions around an emerging “narrative” for the self-representation of the United States as a world-power and an artistically “emancipated” nation and provides a glimpse into a New Deal-era attempt at cultural diplomacy on the eve of WW II. These poles ultimately converge to indicate the role that “region” and “place” assumed in the American imaginary of the nineteenth century as it reverberated in interesting political and aesthetic ways in the first decades of the twentieth.

Une voix de star française sur des images américaines: Fernandel dans L’Ennemi public n°1 (Verneuil, 1953)

In 1953 Henri Verneuil made L’Ennemi public n°1, a parody of the gangster film, located in New York, and with Fernandel as the star. This little-known film played on the incongruity of the star from the French Midi in the Big Apple, and on the contrast between two stereotypes, that of the Frenchman and of the gangster. It exemplifies Franco-American relations in the 1950s, focusing particularly on Fernandel’s voice in the context of Hollywood’s visual universe. This article examines the articulation between a French voice and American images so as to identify the functions of the oral performance of a star such as Fernandel in the post-war context. L’Ennemi public n°1 works on the principle that language is as attractive as New York skyscrapers; it also uses Fernandel’s vernacular to reorient the cultural identity of the film; and, by using an old tradition of orality in French cinema, it introduces the spectator of 1953 into two new universes: the universe of mass consumption, and the hybrid global universe of the cinema emerging in the post-war period.En 1953, Henri Verneuil réalise L’Ennemi public n°1, un film de gangsters parodique situé à New York, avec Fernandel dans le rôle principal. Ce film méconnu joue sur l’incongruité de la présence de la star méridionale dans la mégalopole américaine et sur le contraste comique entre le Frenchman et la figure du gangster. Mais il constitue aussi une illustration exemplaire des échanges France/Amérique dans les années 1950, dont la particularité est de mettre en rapport la voix de Fernandel et l’univers visuel de Hollywood. Cet article examine l’articulation entre la voix française et les images américaines, afin d’identifier les fonctions de la performance orale d’une star comme Fernandel dans le contexte spécifique de l’après-guerre. L’Ennemi public n°1 assimile le langage à une attraction comparable aux buildings de New York; il utilise également la parole vernaculaire de Fernandel pour réorienter l’identité culturelle du film; et il parvient en utilisant une situation d’oralité ancienne dans le cinéma français à faciliter l’entrée du spectateur de 1953 dans deux univers nouveaux différents : l’univers de la consommation de masse, et l’univers cinématographique hybride et «mondialisé» qui émerge à cette période.

Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma by Barbara Will

procédures juridiques et des discours abscons ou abstraits, qu’il ne cite dans l’ouvrage que pour les rejeter, pour revenir aux racines humaines du mal et à la responsabilité individuelle de ceux qui l’ont perpétré. En questionnant Duch, il ne cherche ni à comprendre le bourreau ni à le diaboliser, mais à révéler ses gestes et ses motivations, en tentant de lui faire admettre et décrire, souvent en vain, les exactions qu’il a commises. Œuvre de mémoire, où l’évocation des victimes et l’hommage à ses parents sont appuyés, son récit s’inscrit dans la lignée des grands textes et témoignages sur la Shoah et le système concentrationnaire (ceux de Robert Antelme, Primo Levi et Charlotte Delbo notamment). Il est également une réflexion sur l’avenir du Cambodge et sur le chemin qu’il reste à faire pour reconstruire, sans oublier. Western Washington University Cécile Hanania WILL, BARBARA. Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma. New York: Columbia UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-231-15620-4. Pp. xvi + 320. $35. With her innovative in-depth analysis of the “unlikely collaboration” between Stein—an “unlikely propagandist” for the Vichy regime—and Faÿ—an “unofficial Ambassador from France to the New World” (xiv)—Will offers a fascinating view of Franco-American politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Thanks to this densely written, exacting study, we come to understand that, for Stein and Faÿ as well as for many of their contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic, “the 1930s was a decade of disillusionment and reaction as well as radical politicization. It was a moment when complaint and criticism seemed more virulent and pointed than in previous epochs, more apt to lead to revolutionary action and, eventually, to violence” (77). In this relatively slim volume, Will encapsulates a complex chapter of French history. Part I, “Stein, Faÿ, and the Making of a Friendship,” includes profiles of the two protagonists that serve as a foundation for the analysis to follow. The chapters that make up Part II, “The Vichy Dilemma,” present an analysis of the political climate in France and the influences that shaped Stein and Faÿ’s conservatism. From the Introduction to the Epilogue, Will’s mastery of her subject is evident in the historical and cultural context she provides. Given what we know today about the Vichy government’s complicity with Nazi Germany, it is difficult to imagine why Stein, herself a Jew, would admire Pétain, let alone undertake a translation of his speeches into English. Basing her argument on her seemingly exhaustive reading of the writer’s correspondence and essays, Will suggests that Stein saw Pétain’s Révolution nationale as a viable alternative to the Third Republic’s secular and liberal policies. The regime, Stein believed, heralded a “‘new era’ in both France and America that would arrest the soul-sucking march of modern life and return its citizens to a lost, vital, eighteenthcentury pioneering spirit” (14). Above all, Stein’s unexpected admiration of Pétain points up the insularity of the Parisian intelligentsia during the Occupation. Before his ignominious association with the Vichy regime, Faÿ was a bright star in intellectual circles in the United States as well as in France. Inaugural chair in American civilization at the Collège de France, prominent scholar of FrancoAmerican relations, and director of the Bibliothèque Nationale during the années noires, he was, as Will puts it, a “pragmatic collaborator” (63) and “one of the few Reviews 591 establishment French intellectuals to work openly in collaboration with the Nazis” (160). As director of the BN, Faÿ “did whatever he could to achieve his personal and political aims without alienating the Nazi authorities” (162), up to and including allowing the removal of a number of pieces that are still in Germany. Will explains in meticulous detail that the members of the French right, including Faÿ, believed that the “decadence” of the Third Republic originated in “a transposable constellation of global adversaries: Freemasons, Jews, communists, liberals, Anglo-Saxons and foreigners in general (with the possible exception of Germans)” (84). In order to deflect criticism from Stein...

French Fiction, Empathy, and the Utopian Potential of 9/11

In From Solidarity to Schisms, Cara Cilano conceptualizes September 11 as a moment “characterized by unfathomable vulnerability and the possibility of a better future.” She argues the event, while traumatic, might have served as an impetus to reconfigure American self-perceptions and thoughts about its place in the world. Instead, she contends, the United States squandered the utopian potential of this moment. Cilano remains optimistic, however, because she sees European fictional discourse on 9/11 as emblematic of a desire for a melding of divergent perspectives. Their critique aims to keep America’s sense of itself unbalanced, thus providing fuel for self-reflection, analysis, and, most important, renewal. Taking the measure of current Franco-American relations, this essay tests the validity of this contention by examining works of French fiction published in the five years after the attacks. Four of these texts—Christian Garcin’s La jubilation des hasards, Didier Goupil’s Le jour de mon retour sur terre, Luc Lang’s 11 septembre, mon amour, and Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World—will be the focus of this essay. Are they being written to take advantage of the cosmopolitan potential of the moment, or grasping the opportunity to criticize a (weakened) nation, and thereby expressing uniquely French concerns? The essay contemplates the extent to which self-interest and questions of identity—personal, political, national—interfere with empathy, thus posing a considerable challenge to the utopian dream of a cosmopolitan world.

Zagadnienie mocarstwowości Francji w dobie V Republiki (do 2007 roku)

During World War II and the postwar years, France’s international position has been weakened. The seizure of power by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 contributed to a stabilization of the political situation in the country and to a redefinition of French foreign policy. The article analyzes the international position of France from the end of World War II until 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidential election. Thus, the article covers the period of the existence of two French republics: the Fourth Republic in the years 1946–1958 and the Fifth Republic, which remains Hexagone’s contemporary political system since 1958. The article consists of three parts. In the first part the external and internal conditions of the birth of the Fifth Republic are presented, with particular emphasis on the role of its creator – Ch. de Gaulle. The second part discusses the importance of France in Europe aft er 1945, emphasizing its contribution to the process of European integration and to the development of relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the USSR/Russian Federation and the Mediterranean countries. Then, the third part of my article stresses the position of France in the system of international relations after World War II, analyzing it on the example of Franco-American and Franco-NATO relations, the French policy towards the Arab and African countries, and finally, on the example of the Republic’s multilateral diplomacy. I conclude that in the examined period 1945–2007 France is an example of the former global superpower, which builds and strengthens its international position as a regional power with global interests.

Waiting for Monsieur Bergson: Nicholas Murray Butler, James T. Shotwell, and the French Sage

This analysis follows upon an article that previously was published in Diplomacy and Statecraft (2010) on Norman Angell's relationship with French thinking and political life. These two papers suggest international historians should look much more widely for our sources of understanding the policy options of the Powers in the early twentieth century than the habitual diplomatic documents and the like. They also aim to explore how ideas become policies, seen through the eyes of particular key actors. This analysis looks at the relations between the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, and a contemporary major American intellectual, Nicholas Murray Butler, between 1913 and 1932 using their letters as a basis. Bergson's fraught relationship with Butler sheds some light on Franco–American relations during the turbulent decades they knew each other. The article also looks at the thinking of James T. Shotwell, a long-time collaborator with Butler and, more generally, at the approaches to the contemporary international relations of their day that underpin and mark out American and French differences about how to construct a global order after the First World War.