WEBVTT 00:01.500 --> 00:03.140 Professor John Merriman: I don't know if you've been 00:03.136 --> 00:04.826 following the events in France in the last couple of days. 00:04.830 --> 00:08.410 By the way, you could, those of you who know French, 00:08.413 --> 00:12.423 you can get TFN and France 2--I prefer the latter--on your 00:12.419 --> 00:15.229 computers, if you want to follow it. 00:15.230 --> 00:20.700 Just go to google.affaires, or just go to Google and type 00:20.699 --> 00:25.629 in France 2, or type in TFN, and you can get the news from 00:25.634 --> 00:29.644 one o'clock, that is treize heures, or from vingt 00:29.642 --> 00:32.222 heures, from eight o'clock at night. 00:32.220 --> 00:36.120 And my other two universities, Rouen and Lyon II are 00:36.116 --> 00:38.786 completely shut down, and Rennes, 00:38.790 --> 00:42.040 and Tours, and Toulouse, because this is a law that 00:42.042 --> 00:45.232 was--it's going to come into effect called the Loi 00:48.041 --> 00:50.201 it. And what it's going to do is 00:50.201 --> 00:52.501 it's going to, among other things, 00:52.501 --> 00:56.411 it's going to make the budgets of each university kind of 00:56.405 --> 00:59.655 independent, and it's an attempt to--this is 00:59.656 --> 01:03.386 a logical transition into our topic today--to Americanize 01:03.390 --> 01:06.790 French universities so that in a way the result, 01:06.790 --> 01:10.120 which the students don't like, is you'll have--you already 01:10.115 --> 01:13.555 have sort of a gap between the really good universities like 01:13.558 --> 01:16.838 Paris I or Lyon II, and the ones that just sort of 01:16.843 --> 01:19.183 struggle along, many of the new ones, 01:19.175 --> 01:22.795 like the Pas-de-Calais, that a friend of mine actually 01:22.802 --> 01:26.302 set up when he was in the ministry, and the little ones 01:29.602 --> 01:32.452 others. And because of the conditions 01:32.452 --> 01:35.602 that are so difficult in French universities, 01:35.598 --> 01:38.098 which are woefully understaffed, 01:38.099 --> 01:41.989 and the ones that were built in the early '60s and early '70s, 01:41.987 --> 01:45.647 like the infamous Villetaneuse, which is where I've given a 01:45.645 --> 01:48.635 talk once, which was Paris--I think it's Paris XIV, 01:48.640 --> 01:51.490 and the conditions are just very, very dreadful. 01:51.489 --> 01:54.279 So, there's been a lot of opposition there. 01:54.280 --> 01:57.440 And now that Sarkozy is President, that the 02:01.430 --> 02:05.190 or kind of really brutal interventions by the CRS 02:05.189 --> 02:09.339 yesterday, and a couple of people hurt at Nanterre, 02:09.340 --> 02:14.150 where 1968 began, and in Rennes I think--no in 02:14.149 --> 02:17.499 Tours, rather. So, as a matter of fact when I 02:17.495 --> 02:20.655 was teaching in Rouen--I do a course, I've done it the last 02:20.658 --> 02:22.928 couple of Mays, a course that's a couple of 02:22.930 --> 02:25.990 weeks there, and the first day I was doing it-- I'd just only met 02:25.987 --> 02:28.947 my students and we went to a demonstration against Sarkozy, 02:28.949 --> 02:32.519 in front of the Palace of Justice, and we were outnumbered 02:32.516 --> 02:35.376 by the CRS. And they took photos of all us. 02:35.379 --> 02:37.979 And I think that one of the things that's going to happen in 02:37.981 --> 02:40.451 the future is that this is going to be a very tense time, 02:40.450 --> 02:42.620 I think. Now, the big strikes in Paris 02:42.624 --> 02:45.294 now, of course which, comme d'habitude, 02:45.289 --> 02:47.669 like all the time, have taken out the trains 02:47.669 --> 02:50.819 about, oh, one out of--about fifteen percent of the trains 02:50.823 --> 02:53.853 are running and the whole line, if you know Paris, 02:53.845 --> 02:56.375 the whole metro, the RER, the whole line B, 02:59.572 --> 03:02.252 all the way to Roissy, to the airport, 03:02.248 --> 03:05.878 is completely shut down, and the buses are running at 03:05.882 --> 03:07.352 about ten percent. 03:07.350 --> 03:08.780 And, so, it's just chaos. 03:08.780 --> 03:11.040 I remember when everybody was on strike when I was teaching at 03:11.040 --> 03:12.640 Lyon. I'd take--the trains weren't on 03:12.637 --> 03:15.267 strike but the buses were and I'd take the train up to Lyon, 03:15.270 --> 03:18.010 from where we live or from near where we live, 03:18.005 --> 03:21.205 and I'd have to walk to Bron, which is where Lyon II is, 03:21.214 --> 03:24.374 and that's about five miles or six miles, and I mean it's not a 03:24.374 --> 03:25.754 long run or a long walk. 03:25.750 --> 03:26.980 But people are very inconvenienced. 03:26.979 --> 03:29.819 And the other thing that's going on, and the reason that 03:29.820 --> 03:33.400 the railroads are out, has nothing to do with the 03:37.978 --> 03:42.918 Sarkozy's attempt to Americanize France involves sort of 03:42.920 --> 03:49.030 withdrawing rights that certain categories of workers received. 03:49.030 --> 03:52.550 And there's a lot of anger now in Paris, well in other cities 03:52.554 --> 03:54.144 too, against the strikes. 03:54.139 --> 03:56.169 And most people in France do not approve of the strikes; 03:56.169 --> 03:58.209 sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. 03:58.210 --> 04:01.110 I'll give you an example, people that work on the metro, 04:01.112 --> 04:03.492 who are underground, the drivers of the metro, 04:03.487 --> 04:05.437 they're underground all the time. 04:05.439 --> 04:08.119 Imagine working eight hours a day and you're underground the 04:08.117 --> 04:11.307 whole time--they have the right, in principle--is it fifty, 04:11.312 --> 04:15.002 does anyone remember if it's fifty--do you remember if it's 04:19.130 --> 04:22.080 Fifty-five. But there's some of the TGV 04:22.084 --> 04:25.724 drivers--and that's a big, high stress occupation; 04:25.720 --> 04:28.780 it's not like driving a plane but--you don't drive a plane, 04:28.777 --> 04:30.887 I don't know, you pilot a plane--but they 04:30.886 --> 04:32.886 have the right to retire at fifty. 04:32.889 --> 04:36.259 Now, that seems awfully young, and Sarkozy in his campaign 04:40.100 --> 04:42.920 said that he "wanted to make the French work again." 04:42.920 --> 04:44.840 He also said a lot of other provocative things, 04:44.844 --> 04:47.004 and for a son of immigrants, a fils des 04:50.377 --> 04:52.237 very provocative things. 04:52.240 --> 04:55.170 But, anyway, he's going to carry these 04:55.170 --> 04:59.760 policies until the very end, and so this is going to happen 04:59.762 --> 05:02.372 quite a lot. I've got a sountenance de 05:04.389 --> 05:06.069 a jury I have to participate in, 05:06.069 --> 05:08.509 in December, and I'm kind of wondering 05:08.512 --> 05:11.022 whether this is going to take place. 05:11.019 --> 05:15.199 But you can follow this through the newspapers and through--the 05:15.196 --> 05:16.946 other thing, if you read French and 05:16.949 --> 05:18.859 want--well, you can follow it through the New York 05:18.862 --> 05:21.162 Times online or anything, but you can also get 05:24.336 --> 05:27.736 every day or you can read Le Monde or whatever, 05:27.740 --> 05:29.500 if you want to keep up on this. 05:29.500 --> 05:31.600 I'm going to be, this afternoon, 05:31.595 --> 05:35.245 calling my student pals in Rouen and finding out what's 05:35.245 --> 05:36.795 going on with them. 05:36.800 --> 05:38.180 One of them, who's always in every 05:38.177 --> 05:39.507 demonstration, he's always there, 05:39.512 --> 05:42.022 and so last time he went out to a demonstration and all these 05:42.016 --> 05:44.016 police--and they know him because he's in all the 05:44.020 --> 05:46.450 demonstrations, and this one policeman said to 05:46.445 --> 05:49.275 him, he's got this huge stick and he says to the student, 05:49.279 --> 05:52.379 this little teeny guy, and he has this stick and he 05:52.383 --> 05:54.993 says, "I'm reserving this for you Sven," 05:54.990 --> 05:57.750 and all of this. And they have a memory too. 06:00.301 --> 06:01.311 maintenant. 06:01.310 --> 06:05.160 Well, I want to talk--that is, I think, a logical thing to 06:05.155 --> 06:09.335 talk about, because I'm going to talk about anti-Americanism in 06:09.337 --> 06:11.607 France. And it's hard to do, 06:11.613 --> 06:16.143 to talk about anti-Americanism from 1945 until now in a mere 06:16.136 --> 06:19.416 fifty minutes. And let me say at the outset 06:19.415 --> 06:23.785 that having spent half my life or half the last thirty years of 06:23.789 --> 06:26.399 my life in France--more than that, 06:26.399 --> 06:28.999 actually--I've never once encountered anti-Americanism, 06:31.550 --> 06:32.650 it doesn't matter. 06:32.649 --> 06:36.039 But what I am saying is that the anti-Americanism in France 06:36.039 --> 06:39.369 has always been against the United States policies and, 06:39.370 --> 06:42.890 particularly in the earlier days, the United States' sort of 06:42.888 --> 06:47.288 cultural imperialism, but has had nothing to do with 06:47.285 --> 06:51.515 anti-Americanism against American people. 06:51.519 --> 06:54.609 I've been introduced in a book, in which I contributed some 06:57.600 --> 07:02.320 as a political refugee in France, at various times, 07:02.315 --> 07:05.045 and people joke about that. 07:05.050 --> 07:08.650 So, I'm differentiating anti-Americanism, 07:08.645 --> 07:13.585 like people they don't like Americans, with anti-U.S. 07:13.589 --> 07:16.259 policies and an anti-, what was considered by many 07:16.256 --> 07:18.266 people, particularly intellectuals, 07:18.269 --> 07:24.859 sort of a cultural arrogance, that risked making France less 07:24.858 --> 07:28.318 than what it had always been. 07:28.319 --> 07:30.759 And, so, let me talk a little bit about that. 07:30.759 --> 07:33.699 And here I'm drawing heavily at the first part of the lecture on 07:33.703 --> 07:36.513 my friend Dick Kuisel's book on anti-Americanism in the early 07:36.506 --> 07:39.806 stages; but it's an interesting story 07:39.806 --> 07:43.166 and it's one that's worth telling. 07:48.614 --> 07:52.604 that's near the railroad station there, 07:55.470 --> 07:58.520 Beauvoir, who are well-known to almost everybody, 07:58.519 --> 08:01.379 used to go all the time, and it's kind of fun to be in a 08:03.819 --> 08:09.469 And they were a good example of kind of the intellectual 08:09.469 --> 08:14.809 anti-Americanism that emerged after World War Two. 08:14.810 --> 08:19.620 Now, why did this kind of philosophical and intellectual 08:19.624 --> 08:21.904 anti-Americanism emerge? 08:21.899 --> 08:25.789 You have to put it in the context of the ideological 08:25.793 --> 08:29.613 controversies that emerged out of World War One; 08:29.610 --> 08:36.950 and by that I mean from 1945 well into the mid-1950s. 08:36.950 --> 08:40.290 There were dock strikes against the arrival of U.S. 08:40.290 --> 08:42.560 military equipment. 08:42.559 --> 08:47.319 Remember, the Americans had huge, huge bases in France until 08:47.322 --> 08:49.262 the time of de Gaulle. 08:52.835 --> 08:56.725 very interesting town and the only great restaurant in it left 08:56.730 --> 09:00.630 and moved to Tours--you'd go by these just abandoned airfields 09:00.625 --> 09:04.005 that used to just be full of American military, 09:04.009 --> 09:08.299 air force equipment, and officers. 09:08.299 --> 09:11.849 And, so, you see a lot of these signs. 09:11.850 --> 09:15.850 There were angry outbursts even against the Marshall Plan. 09:15.850 --> 09:19.510 The Marshall Plan, as you know from other courses, 09:19.511 --> 09:24.071 brought American aid in great quantities to Western Europe, 09:24.070 --> 09:28.950 and one of the reasons was to keep Western Europe out of 09:28.945 --> 09:30.625 Soviet influence. 09:30.629 --> 09:34.229 And this drew predictable attacks from the Parti 09:34.226 --> 09:37.206 Communiste, from the Communist Party, 09:37.210 --> 09:45.360 because of the obvious ideological division that was 09:45.362 --> 09:50.112 the Cold War. So, and it also was the time 09:50.109 --> 09:53.129 when the Rosenbergs, in this country, 09:53.129 --> 09:57.579 were executed for allegedly passing nuclear secrets to 09:57.575 --> 10:00.985 Soviet agents; and these kinds of executions, 10:00.985 --> 10:03.945 as had been the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, 10:03.950 --> 10:07.320 who were anarchists who were executed in 1927, 10:07.316 --> 10:09.856 these have, with the mass press, 10:09.860 --> 10:14.680 although way before Internet, great ramifications. 10:14.679 --> 10:20.109 But the French economy grows so rapidly over the next thirty 10:20.114 --> 10:24.864 years, thirty glorious years, and part of the rise of 10:24.855 --> 10:29.765 consumerism and the consumer culture--in France it was backed 10:29.774 --> 10:35.024 by the arrival of such novelties as refrigerators and things like 10:35.020 --> 10:38.710 that--was very much identified with U.S. 10:38.710 --> 10:45.290 culture and was debated, particularly by intellectuals, 10:45.294 --> 10:49.334 rather heatedly. There were pro-American 10:49.330 --> 10:54.210 intellectuals who made the case in the very beginning that the 10:54.210 --> 10:57.010 American path was the way to go. 10:57.009 --> 10:59.799 The most famous was probably Raymond Aron, 11:03.208 --> 11:07.838 Mauriac--and I can't remember if Chip in his book mentions--yes, 11:07.840 --> 11:09.090 I'm sure he does. 11:09.090 --> 11:12.100 But the Communist intellectuals were adamantly against all 11:12.102 --> 11:14.962 things that were American, and of course they were very 11:14.957 --> 11:16.117 much over the top. 11:16.120 --> 11:20.680 Dick Kuisel quotes the famous Communist poet, 11:20.681 --> 11:24.311 Louis Aragon, describing the U.S. 11:24.309 --> 11:27.679 as, quote, "a civilization of bathtubs and 11:27.679 --> 11:32.119 frigidaires," in 1951, as if this was a very bad 11:32.118 --> 11:34.518 thing; and he did not mean it, 11:34.517 --> 11:36.777 as Kuisel says, as a compliment. 11:36.779 --> 11:39.649 It was the Parti Communiste, the Communist Party, 11:39.647 --> 11:42.987 that coined phrases like the "Coca-Colanization of 11:42.993 --> 11:46.053 France." And the arrival of Coca Cola in 11:46.054 --> 11:50.524 France of course was a terribly important moment--more about 11:50.517 --> 11:52.027 that in a minute. 11:52.029 --> 11:55.509 At the time of the NATO pact, the North Atlantic Treaty 11:55.512 --> 11:57.062 Organization, in 1949, 11:57.059 --> 12:01.529 these kinds of debates hit a boiling point, 12:01.534 --> 12:06.014 and in an age of graffiti, the graffiti, 12:06.009 --> 12:10.809 "Yankee Go Home," was a bit everywhere. 12:10.810 --> 12:14.660 Now, the U.S. nuclear capacity, 12:14.664 --> 12:20.694 which was of course very soon matched by the Soviet nuclear 12:20.685 --> 12:26.805 capacity, seemed to raise the cry against the Americans. 12:26.809 --> 12:31.399 There was a SACM conference in 1950 against nuclear power. 12:31.399 --> 12:35.439 And France is a country that almost leads the world in the 12:35.435 --> 12:40.175 percentage of its energy that is drawn from these nuclear plants, 12:40.179 --> 12:43.449 of which several are not all that far from us, 12:43.445 --> 12:47.575 and there's a big sort of anti-nuclear reaction now that's 12:47.582 --> 12:52.302 mostly through ecologists and the Greens and folks like that. 12:52.299 --> 12:55.129 But in the beginning, because the Americans are the 12:55.125 --> 12:58.395 ones who had used the nuclear bomb--other people have never 12:58.403 --> 13:00.743 used a nuclear bomb, never sensed it, 13:00.741 --> 13:02.461 have used the nuclear bomb. 13:02.460 --> 13:04.650 We live in a world in which Israel has a nuclear bomb, 13:04.649 --> 13:06.259 in which Pakistan has a nuclear bomb, 13:06.259 --> 13:11.309 in which India has a nuclear bomb, as well as France and 13:11.314 --> 13:15.484 Britain, and China as well, I do believe. 13:15.480 --> 13:19.950 So, therefore all of this is still very scary. 13:19.950 --> 13:24.220 But in the origins this anti-Americanism was increased 13:24.221 --> 13:29.061 by the fear that the Americans and their Cold War against the 13:29.057 --> 13:33.887 Soviet Union would turn--that the damage would not be done in 13:33.893 --> 13:38.893 Mississippi or in Minnesota but would be done in Europe. 13:38.889 --> 13:44.509 And, so, intellectuals also accused the Americans of 13:44.512 --> 13:47.602 ignoring European culture. 13:47.600 --> 13:52.490 Remember the infamous Donald Rumsfeld referred scathingly to 13:52.492 --> 13:57.802 "old Europe," at a time when the Americans were invading Iraq, 13:57.799 --> 14:00.609 as if old Europe with its quaint streets, 14:00.610 --> 14:03.350 and old churches, and long cultures were 14:03.350 --> 14:05.880 something not worth remembering. 14:05.879 --> 14:12.849 But, again, the critics of American culture were over the 14:15.779 --> 14:19.269 the Communist newspaper, and still today, 14:19.268 --> 14:24.498 said that one could starve even if one owned a telephone; 14:24.500 --> 14:27.280 and the telephone, where you can't even find a 14:27.283 --> 14:29.823 fixed phone anymore--I can't telephone, 14:29.820 --> 14:32.560 I can't even call on a phone when I go back to University of 14:32.563 --> 14:35.123 Michigan because there is literally only one fixed phone 14:35.120 --> 14:37.260 left on the campus, and I don't have a cell phone 14:37.259 --> 14:39.249 because I don't like cell phones, I can't stand them. 14:39.250 --> 14:42.240 I agree with those people who said that they had great faith 14:42.243 --> 14:44.023 in humanity until the cell phone; 14:44.019 --> 14:46.259 and plus my daughter's lost three of them already. 14:46.259 --> 14:49.649 But the French Minister of Communications, 14:49.652 --> 14:54.372 in 1964--this is the French Minister of Communications, 14:54.370 --> 14:58.230 in 1964, avant vous, before you existed, 14:58.228 --> 15:03.428 but not before I existed--he called the telephone a gimmick, 15:03.430 --> 15:08.360 in 1964. But it wasn't the telephone 15:08.363 --> 15:12.173 that drew heat it was above all--well the refrigerators, 15:12.169 --> 15:15.389 you couldn't tell the average housewife living wherever, 15:15.393 --> 15:18.513 in the Morbihan or someplace, in Brittany or wherever, 15:18.508 --> 15:20.778 that the refrigerator wasn't a good deal. 15:20.779 --> 15:24.609 But, yet, for the Communist Party a frigo, 15:24.610 --> 15:27.640 a refrigerator, a Frigidaire which is a 15:27.643 --> 15:32.353 model--I don't know if it still is--was only good for making 15:32.352 --> 15:37.062 ice-cubes for fancy aperitifs where you would drink American 15:37.060 --> 15:41.530 or Scottish--American bourbon or Scotch whiskey. 15:41.529 --> 15:45.219 So, they--Aragon, this again is the Communist 15:45.224 --> 15:50.464 poet--wrote, "a Ford automobile, the civilization of Detroit, 15:50.455 --> 15:53.505 the assembly line, the atomic danger, 15:53.509 --> 15:57.309 encircled by napalm"--now, he said this early on. 15:57.309 --> 16:00.459 Remember, it's the Americans who used napalm in Vietnam, 16:00.457 --> 16:03.087 it was the Americans used napalm in Vietnam. 16:03.090 --> 16:06.270 "Here is the symbol of the subjugation to the dollar, 16:09.139 --> 16:13.109 the Yankee more arrogant than the Nazi holocaust"--this is 16:13.113 --> 16:16.463 absurd--"substitutes the machine for the poet, 16:16.460 --> 16:21.410 Coca Cola for poetry, the Ford for Victor Hugo." 16:21.410 --> 16:24.090 It degenerated to that extent. 16:24.090 --> 16:26.860 A great sociologist called Edgar Morin, who has a brilliant 16:26.855 --> 16:29.425 book on a--it's called The Red and the White, 16:29.429 --> 16:33.619 about a Breton village--he called Readers Digest "a 16:33.619 --> 16:37.529 pocketsize stupifier, a drug for little minds," and 16:37.527 --> 16:40.967 he attacked, was one of the earliest to attack 16:40.967 --> 16:45.017 Franglais--and more about that in awhile--that is, 16:45.019 --> 16:50.209 the absorption of American terms into the French language; 16:50.210 --> 16:55.350 toothpaste, for example, instead of dentifrice, 16:55.345 --> 16:58.345 flooding the French language. 16:58.350 --> 17:01.350 But, again, you have to put this in the context of the 17:01.345 --> 17:04.675 times, and that's what I guess what historians try to do. 17:04.680 --> 17:08.090 Sixty percent of the people in the Communist Party thought the 17:08.094 --> 17:10.344 U.S. was readying an aggressive war, 17:10.338 --> 17:14.148 and almost ninety-five percent of people in the Communist Party 17:14.154 --> 17:16.374 were against the presence of U.S. 17:16.370 --> 17:18.650 bases in France. Now, remember, 17:18.651 --> 17:20.691 the guy who got rid of the U.S. 17:20.690 --> 17:24.000 bases in France was Charles de Gaulle, who was anything but a 17:24.000 --> 17:27.090 communist, who was completely opposite of a communist, 17:27.089 --> 17:28.739 but his view, as we'll see, 17:28.738 --> 17:32.668 was that France had to maintain its status as a great power, 17:32.670 --> 17:37.750 had to have a neutral path and influence in places where French 17:37.753 --> 17:41.973 was spoken, particularly in West and North 17:41.971 --> 17:47.541 Africa, and in the Middle East in parts, in Lebanon, 17:47.540 --> 17:49.330 and things like that. 17:49.329 --> 17:52.979 So, there were some intellectuals who tried to find 17:52.982 --> 17:57.732 a third way, who weren't kind of parroting the Communist Party, 17:57.730 --> 18:04.600 or were going to kowtow the way Sarkozy is to America. 18:04.599 --> 18:06.999 And Le Monde, for example, 18:07.001 --> 18:11.201 which is without question the most reputable newspaper in 18:17.918 --> 18:21.588 position in all of this, because there were many people 18:21.592 --> 18:25.812 in France who weren't Communists that thought that the Marshall 18:25.810 --> 18:28.600 Plan was a way of buying off Europe. 18:28.599 --> 18:31.559 And I wasn't--I was vaguely around in those days, 18:31.563 --> 18:34.403 but the fear was, after World War One there was 18:34.402 --> 18:37.862 the thought that nobody would ever want another war; 18:37.859 --> 18:41.989 after World War Two, and after the atomic bomb, 18:41.990 --> 18:46.390 and after the horrors of all that had happened, 18:46.390 --> 18:49.490 and the Holocaust, people were quite certain that 18:49.494 --> 18:51.374 there would be another war. 18:51.369 --> 18:54.759 So, it was a time of great fear, and so these were big 18:54.755 --> 18:57.505 issues. In 1952, at the time of the 18:57.509 --> 19:00.739 visit of U.S. General Matthew Ridgeway to 19:00.737 --> 19:05.417 take control of NATO forces, there were huge demonstrations 19:05.418 --> 19:07.918 against the United States. 19:07.920 --> 19:11.470 He was called a butcher in the Korean War, which certainly 19:11.468 --> 19:13.908 wasn't true; he was called a war criminal 19:13.907 --> 19:15.527 and that wasn't true either. 19:15.529 --> 19:18.989 But this came at a time when it was the government of a guy, 19:18.989 --> 19:21.509 who just died only a couple of years ago, 19:21.509 --> 19:23.109 lived to be about 130-years-old, 19:23.105 --> 19:25.725 called Antoine Pinay, who was from Saint-Chamond, 19:27.804 --> 19:30.214 and he had been accused of collaboration during the war, 19:30.210 --> 19:33.420 and he was in power. 19:33.420 --> 19:37.920 And he tried to ludicrously enough break the influence of 19:37.921 --> 19:39.771 the Parti Communiste. 19:39.769 --> 19:42.779 And one of their leaders--I didn't know about this incident 19:42.776 --> 19:45.986 till I read Kuisel--one of the incidents was he accused Jacques 19:45.989 --> 19:47.749 Duclos, a name you can forget, 19:47.754 --> 19:51.014 but he was an interesting guy who was leader of the Communist 19:51.011 --> 19:54.421 Party, of being a spy for the Soviets, 19:54.420 --> 19:59.880 and his proof was that they'd found two dead pigeons in the 19:59.883 --> 20:03.883 backseat of his car, and an autopsy on the birds, 20:03.880 --> 20:07.150 that he thought they were carrier pigeons that were 20:07.150 --> 20:10.320 smuggling, going to send secrets off to 20:10.323 --> 20:14.393 some Soviet spies, somewhere out of the country. 20:14.390 --> 20:17.090 And of course they did an autopsy on these birds and they 20:17.086 --> 20:19.876 discovered--I don't know how you do this, do an autopsy; 20:19.880 --> 20:22.570 I didn't want to be in the room--but they were not carrier 20:22.571 --> 20:24.931 pigeons but they were pigeons--people in France eat 20:24.933 --> 20:26.273 pigeons, pigeonneau, 20:26.273 --> 20:28.813 and that they simply--he had them in his backseat because he 20:28.810 --> 20:30.530 was going to take home and cook them, 20:30.529 --> 20:33.289 hopefully with lots of garlic, and to eat them. 20:33.289 --> 20:37.189 And Jean-Paul Sartre, he said it at the same time, 20:37.194 --> 20:40.864 that if he had to choose sides in the Cold War, 20:40.859 --> 20:43.169 he would choose the USSR. 20:43.170 --> 20:49.330 Now Sartre, like lots of fellow travelers, were delusional about 20:49.329 --> 20:53.729 what had happened in Stalin's Soviet Union, 20:53.730 --> 20:56.660 and his partner, Simone de Beauvoir, 20:56.660 --> 21:00.930 who's terribly important in the rise of feminism, 21:00.930 --> 21:05.370 as I'm sure you know, she came to the U.S. 21:05.369 --> 21:08.869 in 1947--she had been in 1947--and she liked the sort of 21:08.865 --> 21:11.085 dynamism of the American economy, 21:11.089 --> 21:14.839 and she liked its freedom, but she was immediately 21:14.841 --> 21:18.211 suspicious of racism in the United States, 21:18.210 --> 21:22.610 in the 1940s and the 1950s, as indeed in our own time, 21:22.607 --> 21:27.337 sadly, though not as much, was a time of racism; 21:27.339 --> 21:29.999 and she said so, she came right out and said, 21:30.001 --> 21:33.391 and that became a part of the anti-American discourse. 21:33.390 --> 21:36.810 Because when the Americans would get holier than thou about 21:36.809 --> 21:39.639 how people in Europe treated their minorities, 21:39.640 --> 21:42.590 all you had to look to the United States, 21:42.587 --> 21:46.707 where I can think back to my own childhood when the three 21:46.714 --> 21:51.214 freedom workers were so brutally murdered in Mississippi; 21:51.210 --> 21:55.810 and they would point to that. 21:55.809 --> 22:00.209 Now, what about the role of Coca-Cola in all of this? 22:00.210 --> 22:02.500 I imagine you may have seen Coca-Cola a few times in your 22:02.502 --> 22:05.532 lives. It became--it still is so 22:05.527 --> 22:10.167 identified with America, and it probably is, 22:10.168 --> 22:16.478 I think it's fair to say, the single item that is most 22:16.483 --> 22:23.543 identified in the rest of the world with the United States; 22:23.539 --> 22:28.689 that you couldn't talk to people in France or anywhere 22:28.694 --> 22:34.044 else about baseball and you could not talk to them about 22:34.042 --> 22:37.082 hotdogs, although this strange thing 22:37.082 --> 22:40.132 emerged in the 1960s called le hotdog, 22:40.133 --> 22:42.563 which are two sort of miserably, 22:42.559 --> 22:46.789 almost frozen frankfurters with some sort of god-awful cheese 22:46.787 --> 22:50.727 put on them, and put in what was then the equivalent of a 22:50.733 --> 22:54.103 microwave; but it was Coca Cola. 22:54.099 --> 22:59.339 And as you know the product was created I think in the late 22:59.337 --> 23:01.187 1880s. It's very hard to get into the 23:01.187 --> 23:03.247 archive, though Kuisel managed to do it, to get into the 23:03.253 --> 23:05.293 Coca-Cola archives; afraid you might find that 23:05.288 --> 23:08.248 recipe. And of course I think somebody 23:08.247 --> 23:12.467 told me that cocaine was put originally into Coke, 23:12.472 --> 23:15.062 at the beginning of it all. 23:15.059 --> 23:21.069 Let me give you some examples how Coke and American view of 23:21.074 --> 23:25.434 itself and view of the world came to be. 23:25.430 --> 23:29.230 "We will see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of 23:29.228 --> 23:33.028 Coca-Cola for five cents wherever he is and whatever it 23:33.026 --> 23:36.216 costs," was what Coca-Cola had to say 23:36.221 --> 23:41.151 about the relationship between soldiers if they survived the 23:41.147 --> 23:47.667 Bataan death march and whatever, and that was it. 23:47.670 --> 23:52.130 Coca-Cola actually sent people as "technical observers," a 23:52.132 --> 23:56.052 phrase they used, to see where bottling plants 23:56.051 --> 24:00.741 could, after the fighting ended, be set up in Europe. 24:00.740 --> 24:03.490 One U.S. soldier wrote a letter in which 24:03.485 --> 24:06.615 he said, "to my mind I am in this damn mess as much to help 24:06.620 --> 24:09.810 to keep the custom of drinking Cokes as I am to preserve the 24:09.808 --> 24:12.728 million other benefits our country blesses its citizens 24:12.727 --> 24:16.317 with." Sixty-four bottling plants were 24:16.316 --> 24:21.616 set up in Europe after the war, immediately after the war, 24:21.623 --> 24:24.233 within a couple of years. 24:24.230 --> 24:30.060 They expand to Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands 24:30.062 --> 24:36.312 in 1947, also to Switzerland and Italy, and then to France in 24:36.312 --> 24:39.242 1949. The Olympics of 1950 were held 24:39.235 --> 24:42.805 in Finland, in Helsinki, and there was not yet--had not 24:42.808 --> 24:45.718 yet been time to build a Coca-Cola plant. 24:45.720 --> 24:49.120 So, what they did is they got a hold of some D-Day landing 24:49.115 --> 24:51.375 vessels, filled them with Coca-Cola, 24:51.380 --> 24:56.400 and the Coca-Cola Company landed on the shores of Finland, 24:56.401 --> 25:00.981 literally, with all these publicity material and with 25:00.982 --> 25:03.892 720,000 bottles of Coca Cola. 25:03.890 --> 25:07.860 Now, the chairman of--I didn't know this either until I read 25:07.861 --> 25:11.431 Kuisel--the chairman of Coca-Cola was James Farley, 25:11.430 --> 25:14.930 who was a former aide to Franklin Roosevelt and thus he 25:14.933 --> 25:18.833 was very--had good contacts, and he was a militant 25:18.828 --> 25:24.298 anti-Communist who identified the drinking of Coca-Cola with 25:24.303 --> 25:27.843 democracy. The Soviets and in their 25:27.836 --> 25:33.846 satellite states did not drink Coca-Cola but good old Americans 25:33.847 --> 25:37.197 drank Coca-Cola. Now, you're going to run into 25:37.200 --> 25:38.920 huge lobbies in these countries. 25:38.920 --> 25:41.380 In Belgium you're going to run into the beer lobby, 25:41.384 --> 25:42.424 terribly important. 25:42.420 --> 25:43.680 In the Pays-Bas, in the Netherlands, 25:43.679 --> 25:45.189 you're going to run into the beer lobby, 25:45.190 --> 25:48.280 and in France you will run head on into that lobby you already 25:48.283 --> 25:50.733 know something about, the wine lobby, 25:50.732 --> 25:55.692 which in a way is neither Left nor Right, but--it's neither 25:55.691 --> 25:59.041 Left nor Right, it's a little more complicated 25:59.044 --> 26:02.504 than that. And they tried to stir up 26:02.498 --> 26:06.288 popular action against Coca-Cola. 26:06.289 --> 26:10.519 A Communist paper in Italy said that drinking Coke would make 26:10.523 --> 26:15.113 children's hair turn white and therefore you shouldn't do that. 26:15.109 --> 26:16.999 In Austria The Communist, 26:16.996 --> 26:20.766 the biggest communist newspaper in Vienna, wrote that Coca-Cola 26:20.770 --> 26:23.650 plants, by virtue of the machines they 26:23.653 --> 26:27.493 used, could be easily transformed into plants capable 26:27.489 --> 26:33.289 of turning out nuclear bombs, and so that good Viennese and 26:33.287 --> 26:40.397 good Austrians should avoid the "insidious, numbing drink." 26:40.400 --> 26:45.450 Cokes had begun to arrive in France after World War One but 26:51.109 --> 26:56.659 And, so, the Coca-Cola--Kuisel got into the archives to find 26:56.661 --> 27:02.311 all this--Coca-Cola marketers divided France into six regions 27:02.306 --> 27:07.386 and figured they should anticipate each person drinking 27:07.387 --> 27:10.207 six Coca-Colas per year. 27:10.210 --> 27:15.320 The problem is that foreign investments, such as building 27:15.317 --> 27:20.877 plants, required the permission of the Ministry of Finance; 27:20.880 --> 27:27.050 and that all this anxiety comes along. 27:27.049 --> 27:31.249 The Ministry of Finance gets involved in all of this 27:31.245 --> 27:36.015 business, the debate reaches the Chamber of Deputies in the 27:36.017 --> 27:38.747 1950s; and also this merges with other 27:38.747 --> 27:40.837 fears of other American products. 27:40.839 --> 27:43.029 John Deere--some of you may be from Illinois, 27:43.029 --> 27:44.919 isn't that where John Deere is made, 27:44.920 --> 27:48.830 the tractors and all that--and that is by far the biggest 27:48.833 --> 27:53.033 successful company in marketing machinery that's been part of 27:53.026 --> 27:57.146 the French agricultural revolution since World War Two; 27:57.150 --> 28:00.300 but of course the little producers in France were against 28:00.299 --> 28:01.479 John Deere as well. 28:01.480 --> 28:04.640 It also comes at a time, as you know, 28:04.638 --> 28:09.198 of widespread outrage of intellectuals and filmmakers 28:09.201 --> 28:14.291 against the Hollywoodization of French movie theaters, 28:14.289 --> 28:16.909 and because France, its idea and attitudes towards 28:16.913 --> 28:20.183 their own movies has always been that as its attitudes towards 28:20.179 --> 28:22.159 almost all industrial production, 28:22.160 --> 28:26.130 that France makes these fine little products of quality, 28:26.125 --> 28:29.495 and the arrival of, God-forbid, the Charlton 28:29.503 --> 28:34.243 Heston's of the world and John Wayne and all this stuff--so, 28:34.240 --> 28:38.310 these debates are going on among intellectuals and film 28:38.311 --> 28:39.971 watchers, et cetera. 28:39.970 --> 28:42.190 These debates just go on and on. 28:42.190 --> 28:46.330 Radio stations in France now have to play a certain 28:46.327 --> 28:50.127 percentage of French music, as opposed to Bruce 28:50.133 --> 28:53.943 Springsteen, and the Stones, and whatever; 28:53.940 --> 28:55.530 they have to have a certain percentage. 28:55.529 --> 29:00.709 And, so, there is still this paranoia that English or French 29:00.708 --> 29:06.058 music or other kinds of music coming will wipe out what's left 29:06.063 --> 29:11.073 of the French music industry, and that people won't play 29:11.069 --> 29:14.399 Jacques Brel anymore, or Georges Brassens, 29:18.725 --> 29:24.805 who anyway who was born Belgian and he has his own problems, 29:24.810 --> 29:26.400 so it has nothing to do with it. 29:26.400 --> 29:32.780 But, yet, when there are these debates it seemed like the ties 29:32.777 --> 29:35.597 between Coke and the U.S. 29:35.600 --> 29:37.000 Government were even stronger. 29:37.000 --> 29:38.990 Coca-Cola demanded that the U.S. 29:38.986 --> 29:42.696 State Department intervene in some way to stop this kind of 29:42.702 --> 29:45.652 uprising against the arrival of Coca-Cola. 29:45.650 --> 29:49.200 U.S. papers went wild. 29:49.200 --> 29:52.320 "Coca-Cola was not injurious to the health of American soldiers 29:52.324 --> 29:54.294 that liberated France from the Nazis, 29:54.289 --> 29:59.099 so that Communist deputies could sit in session today," was 29:59.097 --> 30:00.997 one editorial in a U.S. 30:01.003 --> 30:03.493 paper. You can't spread the doctrines 30:03.491 --> 30:05.931 of Marx among people who drink Coca-Cola. 30:05.930 --> 30:08.830 The dark principles of revolution and a rising 30:08.832 --> 30:12.382 proletariat may be expounded over a bottle of vodka on a 30:12.379 --> 30:15.279 scarred table, such as in Morry's or some 30:15.275 --> 30:18.135 place like that, or even a bottle of brandy, 30:18.144 --> 30:22.024 but it's utterly fantastic to imagine two men stepping to a 30:22.015 --> 30:25.685 soda fountain and ordering a couple of Cokes in which to 30:25.686 --> 30:29.486 toast the downfall of their capitalist oppressors. 30:29.490 --> 30:34.920 And so it went. But Coca-Cola arrived in 30:34.918 --> 30:39.588 France, it got permission to be produced in France and to be 30:39.586 --> 30:42.136 drunk in France, and still is, 30:42.136 --> 30:45.756 though often by American tourists in France. 30:45.759 --> 30:48.749 I have been on several occasions in really good, 30:48.745 --> 30:52.805 and in one case even great--and this is not dissing Americans, 30:52.809 --> 30:57.709 forgive me--great restaurants and seeing Americans ordering 30:57.712 --> 31:01.772 Coca-Cola with their four or five-course meal. 31:01.770 --> 31:04.890 And that does make me sad. 31:04.890 --> 31:06.500 Does it make me sound like a snob? 31:06.500 --> 31:10.200 I've seen people drink milk, too, and things like that. 31:10.200 --> 31:14.250 Anyway, what can I say? 31:14.250 --> 31:16.110 I shouldn't get so involved in all this stuff. 31:16.110 --> 31:17.630 How did people like Coca-Cola? 31:17.630 --> 31:21.160 A poll, a sondage--the French take to American polls, 31:21.163 --> 31:24.633 do these polls all the time; sondage is the word for 31:24.628 --> 31:28.018 a poll--in 1953 said that only seventeen percent of people who 31:28.021 --> 31:30.431 drank it liked it, and sixty percent not at all, 31:30.425 --> 31:32.895 and the other ones couldn't remember because they'd gone on 31:32.895 --> 31:35.815 to something else, drinking something else I guess. 31:35.819 --> 31:42.089 But the dykes began to break and millions of Cokes are sold 31:42.091 --> 31:46.201 every year in France, as everywhere. 31:46.200 --> 31:51.270 Now, this is just an aside but this is the same case as in 31:51.269 --> 31:53.399 Africa; the debates have not been the 31:53.399 --> 31:56.199 same but one of the interesting things, and I think sad things 31:56.196 --> 31:58.806 about the places I know in Africa--which are very few, 31:58.809 --> 32:03.819 but I have family members who know Africa pretty well--is that 32:03.817 --> 32:07.917 the domination of Coke, particularly in places that are 32:07.923 --> 32:11.703 Muslim, in which people don't drink alcoholic beverages, 32:11.700 --> 32:14.810 the domination of Coke, and Fanta, which are very, 32:14.811 --> 32:17.611 very expensive, for people who have almost no 32:17.605 --> 32:20.485 money, and the Fanta sort of becomes 32:20.486 --> 32:24.976 the equivalent of a celebration with champagne in France, 32:24.980 --> 32:27.130 or the United States, or some places where people 32:27.131 --> 32:29.111 drink. And, so, some of the same 32:29.111 --> 32:33.131 issues, some of the same debates are there, and these companies 32:33.131 --> 32:35.661 just make zillions off these drinks. 32:35.660 --> 32:38.190 And I'm not criticizing these companies, am I? 32:38.190 --> 32:39.450 I guess I don't know. 32:39.450 --> 32:42.530 But, anyway, now let's talk about some of 32:42.532 --> 32:46.542 the other aspects of anti-Americanism before I end in 32:46.540 --> 32:49.860 fifteen minutes or so with the obvious ones, 32:49.855 --> 32:55.045 today. Well, architecture, for example. 32:55.049 --> 32:58.449 Many of the debates about preservation, 32:58.446 --> 33:02.916 about keeping Paris, Poitiers, anywhere you want to 33:02.915 --> 33:05.735 name, the beautiful center of 33:05.736 --> 33:10.556 Strasbourg, the way they have always been, have involved 33:10.557 --> 33:14.237 fighting against the skyscraperization, 33:14.240 --> 33:16.400 if you will, the gratte-ciels, 33:16.404 --> 33:19.594 les gratte-ciels, the skyscrapers in France. 33:19.589 --> 33:24.399 In the late 1960s there was a huge debate over the Tour 33:24.403 --> 33:27.783 Montparnasse. And the Tour Montparnasse is 33:27.782 --> 33:31.942 right on the--it's where the Station of Montparnasse is in 33:31.940 --> 33:36.390 Paris, it's right beyond the Boulevard Montparnasse there; 33:36.390 --> 33:42.200 was built with the enthusiastic cooperation, if not money in the 33:42.195 --> 33:46.515 pockets, of George Pompidou, the President of France, 33:46.518 --> 33:50.348 who said, "we must renounce this outmoded aesthetic"--that's 33:50.350 --> 33:52.900 an exact quote. And, so, the big battle over 33:52.897 --> 33:55.897 the Tour Montparnasse which is--here I give my own view but, 33:55.900 --> 34:03.710 mon vue--it is a hideous building that is a blight on the 34:03.705 --> 34:06.055 skyline of Paris. 34:06.059 --> 34:09.199 And it's said the only thing good about it is you can't see 34:09.198 --> 34:11.578 it when you're viewing Paris from the top; 34:11.579 --> 34:13.279 and they have the elevator that shoots up to the top; 34:13.280 --> 34:16.270 and it destroyed--well, anyway, what can one say, 34:16.273 --> 34:17.773 it's an obvious thing. 34:17.769 --> 34:20.569 Now, people that defended the Tour Montparnasse, 34:20.571 --> 34:23.851 which is identified with Chicago and the skyscrapers, 34:23.849 --> 34:27.109 would say, "well, look, well people criticized 34:27.109 --> 34:30.439 the Tour d'Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower when it was 34:30.441 --> 34:34.071 built in 1888 and 1889"; and Zola was among those who 34:34.068 --> 34:36.408 signed saying this is awful, it must go. 34:36.409 --> 34:39.329 And it is part of what people go to see. 34:39.329 --> 34:43.849 Now, people do not go to see the Tour Montparnasse because 34:43.850 --> 34:48.370 the Eiffel Tower represented changes in industry and steel 34:48.371 --> 34:53.031 and iron and all this stuff, and the Tour Montparnasse just 34:53.031 --> 34:57.201 represents kind of an American approach to architecture that 34:57.203 --> 34:59.823 the traditionalists found wanting. 34:59.820 --> 35:02.190 And, so, what they did subsequently is they built La 35:04.225 --> 35:06.855 you can see it if you stand, for example, 35:06.861 --> 35:10.221 in the Tuileries, or around there; 35:10.219 --> 35:13.479 you can see it beyond the Arc d'Triomphe--and that's where 35:13.481 --> 35:15.801 lots of business is, that's the kind of 35:15.802 --> 35:18.932 Americanization of French architecture and business. 35:18.929 --> 35:22.309 But generally the French have been very good of trying to 35:22.306 --> 35:25.916 protect Paris from the planners who would destroy the way the 35:25.923 --> 35:29.423 place looks with an Americanized kind of architecture. 35:29.420 --> 35:31.660 There've been other problems too. 35:31.659 --> 35:35.319 The constructions at Place d'Italie and the Tour 35:35.315 --> 35:38.655 Montparnasse became only the most famous. 35:38.659 --> 35:42.329 And appropriately enough, these kinds of battles to 35:42.332 --> 35:46.742 protect Paris against this kind of architecture have involved 35:46.739 --> 35:49.529 the far Right, conservative Right; 35:49.530 --> 35:51.600 not the faisceaux, the fascist Right, 35:51.598 --> 35:53.668 but the far Right, like my late friend Louis 35:53.666 --> 35:55.686 Chevalier, a very conservative man, 35:55.694 --> 35:58.634 who was the greatest historian in Paris, or my friend 36:01.844 --> 36:04.614 preserve old Paris--with people on the Left, 36:04.610 --> 36:07.460 like sort of the French equivalent to me, 36:07.460 --> 36:10.170 against the Center, against the kind of 36:10.169 --> 36:13.589 planners who just want to make money. 36:13.590 --> 36:17.590 But other aspects of Americanization--the word 36:17.587 --> 36:22.557 pavilion in France--people wanted to have their houses in 36:22.561 --> 36:27.361 the prosperous suburbs at best, at Saint-Remy-les-Chevreuse, 36:27.364 --> 36:29.364 for example, most--or the suburbs, 36:29.361 --> 36:31.481 in the time we're talking about, 36:31.480 --> 36:34.670 until 1945, are miserable places, but that people in 36:34.665 --> 36:38.345 Saint-Germain en Laye in the west of Paris or Versailles, 36:38.349 --> 36:40.199 you know what, they wanted to have their 36:40.204 --> 36:43.154 pavilion which was a big kind of modern Americanized house with 36:43.153 --> 36:45.733 all these things--cell phones, refrigerators, 36:45.733 --> 36:48.833 all this business, swimming pools and lawns. 36:48.829 --> 36:51.029 What could be more American than lawns? 36:51.030 --> 36:53.980 Now, the vast majority of the people who live in the Parisian 36:53.983 --> 36:56.673 region do not live in houses, they live in apartments, 36:56.670 --> 36:59.330 and the vast majority live in buildings that they do not 36:59.328 --> 37:01.588 own--or, not the vast majority but the 37:01.593 --> 37:04.863 majority do. But that became a big issue. 37:04.860 --> 37:08.030 The television, the television--people thought 37:08.031 --> 37:10.781 that television would destroy France. 37:10.780 --> 37:13.300 I used to say that when Charles de Gaulle died, 37:13.298 --> 37:15.158 finally, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, 37:15.160 --> 37:17.460 he died of boredom watching French TV; 37:17.460 --> 37:19.630 because French TV, which has some of the best 37:19.625 --> 37:21.885 stuff around but also has some of the worst, 37:21.889 --> 37:24.479 just talk shows that go on, and on, and on, 37:24.484 --> 37:25.724 it's just numbing. 37:25.719 --> 37:28.689 But also they took all these things that I've never watched 37:28.694 --> 37:31.824 in my life, like Dallas, that used to be a big show and 37:31.822 --> 37:34.042 all these things; I have no idea what they are. 37:34.039 --> 37:36.299 But people--even our very dear friends, you go there and 37:36.304 --> 37:37.544 they're watching this stuff. 37:37.539 --> 37:41.539 Well, TV's not just American, but that whole kind of culture 37:41.538 --> 37:45.398 was identified with America, and intellectuals didn't like 37:45.402 --> 37:47.512 that very much; people should be reading 37:47.512 --> 37:49.022 books-- and they should be reading books too, 37:49.021 --> 37:49.811 but who am I to say? 37:49.809 --> 37:52.509 I watch ESPN hours every day and every game that's on, 37:52.510 --> 37:54.600 so I can't really say I don't watch TV. 37:54.599 --> 37:58.229 Clothing, it used to be--the first years and years that I was 37:58.230 --> 38:00.470 living in France or went to France, 38:00.469 --> 38:03.949 you could tell who was an American in about one second by 38:03.949 --> 38:06.639 looking at their feet; I don't spend a lot of time 38:06.642 --> 38:09.412 looking at people's feet but you could tell the way they looked 38:09.405 --> 38:12.245 because they wore tennis shoes, and tennis shoes now are called 38:12.245 --> 38:15.045 baskets. But now everybody wears them 38:15.050 --> 38:16.960 the same way. And jeans the same thing, 38:16.957 --> 38:18.277 because there weren't jeans in France; 38:18.280 --> 38:19.960 now everybody wears jeans. 38:19.960 --> 38:21.770 I can still tell who's American and who isn't, 38:21.768 --> 38:24.118 usually. But the clothing that was 38:24.120 --> 38:28.880 identified with America was seen as being somehow un-French. 38:28.880 --> 38:33.070 And of course there's the big war between France high couture 38:33.068 --> 38:36.068 of French fashion and trying to preserve, 38:36.070 --> 38:38.560 as Milan tries to also, and they've been very 38:38.561 --> 38:39.751 successful at that. 38:39.750 --> 38:42.480 But clothing was one thing as well. 38:42.480 --> 38:46.190 Euro Disney, what can one say about Euro 38:46.193 --> 38:48.793 Disney? Somebody called it a cultural 38:48.789 --> 38:51.889 Chernobyl; Chernobyl was the big nuclear 38:51.890 --> 38:56.850 plant that blew up in Kiev--and certainly the idea of Mickey 38:56.854 --> 39:00.224 Mouse and Goofy and all these people. 39:00.219 --> 39:03.249 And you go and you-- I've never been there, I would never walk 39:03.245 --> 39:05.255 in the place; you spend cinquante 39:05.258 --> 39:08.488 balles, you've spent, what, fifty euros to get in and 39:08.486 --> 39:11.826 so your kids can get sick eating American cotton candy. 39:11.829 --> 39:14.639 But, again, people go over the top. 39:14.640 --> 39:16.740 Or McDonald's, ha ha. 39:16.739 --> 39:20.719 McDonald's, which started in France really in the '80s. 39:20.720 --> 39:22.250 Burger King tried and failed. 39:28.196 --> 39:31.346 now--who became identified with the struggle against McDonald's. 39:31.349 --> 39:34.039 He actually lived two years in L.A., though he speaks 39:34.036 --> 39:35.996 English--I wasn't here when he came, 39:36.000 --> 39:39.150 my daughter was a translator for him, and introduced him and 39:39.152 --> 39:42.032 all that. But he's the one who led the 39:42.026 --> 39:46.756 struggle to try to first of all to preserve his part of the 39:46.761 --> 39:49.871 Aveyron, Larzac, against making it a 39:49.872 --> 39:53.972 strafing practice range for the French Air Force, 39:53.969 --> 39:58.159 and has gone after McDonald's, as representing the 39:58.161 --> 40:02.611 globalization that's going to hurt local commerce. 40:02.610 --> 40:04.710 Now, McDonald's has tried to compromise in some ways, 40:04.712 --> 40:06.652 and if you go get a McDonald's--and I won't go in 40:06.653 --> 40:08.423 the place; well, I shouldn't say that 40:08.421 --> 40:11.151 because we're recording this, but I haven't been in years in 40:11.148 --> 40:13.828 France--but they have these little salads with a few pieces 40:13.828 --> 40:17.128 of goat cheese in it, to go along with the two 40:17.131 --> 40:20.461 million calorie burger, and all that. 40:22.978 --> 40:25.798 his friends went up and broke up--didn't hurt anybody, 40:25.800 --> 40:29.640 but they sort of trashed a McDonald's in Millau, 40:29.642 --> 40:32.342 which is Aveyron, in the south, 40:32.340 --> 40:34.470 right near this huge, huge bridge, 40:34.468 --> 40:36.788 the biggest span bridge in Europe. 40:36.789 --> 40:39.839 And of course he went on trial and he became a presidential 40:39.835 --> 40:42.665 candidate, and I guess--my daughter said he was a great 40:42.670 --> 40:47.700 guy. But McDonald's became an issue. 40:47.699 --> 40:50.379 And I said, "well, maybe it won't work." 40:50.380 --> 40:52.110 But McDonald's, because you can eat cheaply 40:52.108 --> 40:54.288 there, because everything's so expensive in France, 40:54.289 --> 40:56.429 so expensive, they're always just--well you 40:56.429 --> 40:58.619 could drive by, there's one in Auvergnat, 40:58.620 --> 41:01.890 there's one everywhere; they're always full of people 41:01.893 --> 41:04.443 eating whatever it is they eat there. 41:04.440 --> 41:08.050 So, it became a symbol more important than the reality, 41:11.989 --> 41:15.059 symbol of globalization, first of Americanization and 41:15.056 --> 41:16.036 then of globalization. 41:16.039 --> 41:18.819 And then what comes along now but Starbucks. 41:18.820 --> 41:19.950 There's three or four. 41:19.949 --> 41:23.309 There's one in the Marais in Paris, there's one I saw 41:26.835 --> 41:29.095 ones there, and they soon will be everywhere. 41:31.005 --> 41:33.165 supermarkets; now, people don't just hate 41:33.170 --> 41:35.200 supermarkets anymore, but they used to. 41:35.199 --> 41:38.079 The big ones are Leclerc, and Auchan, and Mamouth and all 41:38.076 --> 41:40.996 these--Leclerc is probably the biggest, I mean the upscale 41:42.699 --> 41:45.199 Now, I remember in the 1970s that people thought that 41:45.204 --> 41:47.184 supermarkets were just terrible things. 41:47.180 --> 41:49.670 Why? Because they were going to, 41:49.673 --> 41:53.023 and did, destroy local commerce, that most villages now 41:56.059 --> 41:59.229 that grocery store, that made it possible for old 41:59.234 --> 42:02.544 ladies just to walk the equivalent of a few hundred 42:02.541 --> 42:05.921 meters to buy their milk, and now they can't do that 42:05.923 --> 42:07.823 anymore. Now, it's more than just the 42:07.817 --> 42:10.937 disappearance of a way of buying food, it's the disappearance of 42:10.939 --> 42:13.619 a place where you get together and exchange news in the 42:13.615 --> 42:15.735 morning. Our grocery store disappeared 42:15.738 --> 42:18.028 about ten years ago, or about eight years ago, 42:24.389 --> 42:27.369 Though the other thing that it could attack, 42:27.369 --> 42:30.559 could interfere with, but has not as much as we 42:30.557 --> 42:32.007 feared, were markets, 42:32.011 --> 42:34.301 the Saturday market, the Wednesday market; 42:34.300 --> 42:37.690 the Saturday and Wednesday market, depending on the size of 42:37.688 --> 42:39.848 the town, that are all over France. 42:39.849 --> 42:42.649 And in fact people still, even young people your age, 42:42.646 --> 42:45.816 still have a sense that you've got to protect--you've got to 42:45.819 --> 42:48.879 save the market and you've got to--the people that produce 42:48.884 --> 42:51.284 there, that bring what they produce in 42:51.281 --> 42:53.321 their fields there, buy goats cheese, 42:53.316 --> 42:57.106 picodons, whatever, wine from producers 42:57.111 --> 42:58.871 directly. And that's part of the 42:58.866 --> 43:00.866 ambience, that's what's great about living in France, 43:00.869 --> 43:02.659 or living in Germany, or living in Pays-Bas, 43:02.657 --> 43:04.027 or living anywhere, in Belgium. 43:04.030 --> 43:10.400 And, so, many people will go and buy the big things of milk 43:10.402 --> 43:14.322 and the big items, paper towels and all that, 43:14.322 --> 43:18.362 but then they will still go to the market, not just for a trip 43:18.363 --> 43:21.083 of nostalgia but because the products, 43:21.079 --> 43:23.349 they know they're buying from people they know and all that; 43:23.349 --> 43:26.939 so that fear probably turned out to be less than one had 43:26.944 --> 43:30.764 worried about. And then of course there's the 43:30.757 --> 43:32.877 question of Franglais. 43:32.880 --> 43:35.150 Every about, oh, maybe five, 43:35.152 --> 43:38.942 or six, or seven years, somebody in one of the 43:38.940 --> 43:43.990 ministries gets it into his or her head that Franglais has to 43:43.989 --> 43:48.499 disappear from the vocabulary, the official vocabulary, 43:48.504 --> 43:51.044 the administrative vocabulary of France. 43:51.039 --> 43:58.459 Franglais is the absorption into daily parlance of words 43:58.461 --> 44:04.141 that are non-French, of which--the first one that 44:04.135 --> 44:07.895 really took over, at least in my memory, 44:07.904 --> 44:10.324 was le weekend. 44:10.320 --> 44:13.630 And there were attempts, I think under Giscard 44:13.633 --> 44:18.273 D'Estaing, and there's one even more recently under early stages 44:18.272 --> 44:23.112 of Jacques Chirac's presidency, to send stern circulars around 44:23.108 --> 44:27.398 saying in a correspondence you shall not use le weekend, 44:27.400 --> 44:30.310 but you'd rather use la fin de la semaine, 44:30.307 --> 44:31.637 the end of the week. 44:31.639 --> 44:36.399 Well, that lasted a matter of days because that's simply not 44:36.404 --> 44:38.104 terribly practical. 44:38.099 --> 44:44.159 English words began to permeate, with a sort of chic 44:44.162 --> 44:49.632 sense of being cool, the French language--le 44:49.630 --> 44:51.770 drugstore. 44:51.769 --> 44:54.129 I can remember around Paris Saint-Germain, 44:54.125 --> 44:56.075 at the metro there, en face, 44:56.079 --> 44:58.779 right across there was le drugstore; 44:58.780 --> 45:01.490 and it was, it was a pharmacy and it had your basic green 45:01.485 --> 45:04.375 flashing light saying it's a pharmacy, but they also sold all 45:04.383 --> 45:07.593 sorts of things. It was almost like anticipating 45:07.593 --> 45:10.203 a supermarket, and the term was le 45:10.199 --> 45:11.429 drugstore. 45:11.429 --> 45:15.369 It wasn't une pharmacie or la pharmacie, 45:15.366 --> 45:17.516 it was le drugstore. 45:17.520 --> 45:19.130 And people debated that. 45:19.130 --> 45:20.710 You could go on and on about this. 45:20.710 --> 45:23.480 I'll just give you a couple of examples; 45:23.480 --> 45:25.860 these are obvious ones, I just wrote them down because 45:27.786 --> 45:30.476 sweaters; a sweater d'hiver; 45:30.480 --> 45:33.780 voici les fully fashioned des beaux 45:33.782 --> 45:36.522 jours; new, c'est smart, 45:39.774 --> 45:43.164 shopping club, le veritable wash and wear, 45:45.978 --> 45:48.868 the drink of people who are refined. 45:48.869 --> 45:52.119 Now, this had already started to happen in the 1890s with 45:52.123 --> 45:54.393 certain terms, as I suggested when I was 45:56.539 --> 46:00.519 that began to--the long drink, for example--that began to 46:00.522 --> 46:02.872 infiltrate the French language. 46:02.869 --> 46:07.699 The hotdog became the chien chaud, in these times of 46:07.698 --> 46:09.778 these various commands. 46:09.780 --> 46:14.380 But basically with globalization and with the 46:14.378 --> 46:20.228 American cultural dominance, these attempts are basically 46:20.230 --> 46:25.560 just putting small fingers in very large dykes. 46:25.559 --> 46:27.549 Why did it matter so much, all of this? 46:27.550 --> 46:31.420 It's because France is no longer a great power, 46:31.416 --> 46:36.036 and intellectuals and lots of other people in France, 46:36.039 --> 46:39.429 including me, are determined that French 46:39.431 --> 46:42.911 culture retain its place in the world. 46:42.909 --> 46:47.649 And I am chronically sad to see another supermarket go up where 46:47.646 --> 46:50.546 there already have been two of them; 46:50.550 --> 46:57.910 it saddens me terribly to see the golden arches almost 46:57.905 --> 47:01.925 everywhere now, and Subway, 47:01.929 --> 47:05.049 which is a chain I actually happen to like a lot, 47:05.050 --> 47:07.910 and those are becoming all over the place. 47:07.909 --> 47:13.169 So, we're fighting against the ways that cannot be halted, 47:13.171 --> 47:17.511 but in a way may not be all a very bad thing, 47:17.510 --> 47:20.910 so long as a sense of perspective is maintained; 47:20.909 --> 47:25.249 and that often was not maintained in the early days of 47:25.247 --> 47:29.987 the almost hysterical battle against the mounting empire of 47:29.994 --> 47:33.944 Coca-Cola. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving 47:33.941 --> 47:38.001 vacation, see you next time, and Go Blue.