France's debt to the US
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Letters to the Editor
International Herald Tribune
In the controversy about what my country, France, owes to the United States, I would like to speak for France, for very few do so in the American press these days.
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I do not mean to say that the French have no debt toward the United States. Without the landing of American troops in Normandy, our "liberation" would not have been possible. Anyone who has visited Omaha Beach and the American cemetery nearby, and has cried there, knows that. Yes, we do have a debt.
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But it does not ensue that we ought blindly and forever to applaud whatever the U.S. government decides. Gratitude is no synonym for automatic conformity or subservience. To disagree on an issue, however important, is neither to betray, nor to act ungratefully.
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To which I will add that, without the political, diplomatic, financial, and military assistance of the French during the War of Independence, the United States might still be a British possession or protectorate. It should, in particular, be remembered that at the final and decisive battle of Yorktown, Virginia, there were more French than American troops.
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In the allied forces besieging the British Army and General Cornwallis, there were indeed 10,000 American soldiers, 9,000 French infantrymen, plus several thousand French soldiers and sailors aboard the French fleet then blocking the Chesapeake Bay in order to prevent the British naval forces from approaching the scene of battle.
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After this we never asked the American people or authorities to publicly manifest their gratitude, nor to grovel at our feet and slavishly support our diplomatic errors.
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There is no justification in resorting to the issue of gratitude as a one-day argument. B
ernard Vincent, Orleans, France |
