Anti-Americanism and Americanophobia

a French perspective

Denis Lacorne

pp. 35-58

in: Tony Judt, Denis Lacorne (eds), With us or against us, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

French anti-Americanism has never been as much the focus of debate as it is today. This is true both in France, where a crop of books has appeared on the subject, and in the United States, for reasons linked to the French refusal to support the American invasion of Iraq. Some authors have underlined the unchanging nature of the phenomenon, defining anti-Americanism as a historical "constant" since the eighteenth century, or again as an endlessly repetitive 'semantic block" to use Philippe Roger's expression. Others, like Jean-François Revel, have tried to show what lies hidden behind such a fashionable ideology: a deep-rooted critique of economic liberalism and American democracy. Yet others, while rejecting the anti-American label, like Emmanuel Todd, have attempted to lift the veil and lay bare the weaknesses of American democracy and the extreme economic fragility of an American empire "in decline," despite appearances.¹

Cited authors

Revel Jean-François