There are plenty of solid reasons to boycott French
Commentary by Steve Gill
In recent weeks there have been increasing calls for Americans to boycott French products, most notably French wines, cheeses and bottled water. Annually, Americans purchase about $30 billion worth of products from the French. Our trade with France amounts to about $11 billion a year more than they buy from us. I support the boycott of French products, but the significant trade imbalance between our two countries is not the reason.
Nor is the fact that the French have refused to participate in any military action against Iraq. It is unlikely the United States will have trouble toppling the Iraqi army, so French military expertise is not really needed — though it is likely that we will find a number of Iraqi weapons marked "Made in France" when it is all over. Nevertheless, French reluctance to be in our corner militarily also is not a good reason to boycott.
Nor is the fact that the French disagree with U.S. efforts to enforce the U.N. resolutions they themselves helped to pass. Free countries will often disagree with us on policy issues. We should not expect our allies to agree with us always. However, we should expect them to be reasonable and fair in reviewing the facts, and we should expect they give their friends the benefit of the doubt, rather than our enemies. But the fact that France disagrees with U.S. policy is not a basis for a boycott.
The reason to boycott the French is really rather simple: The anti-American tenor of their actions on the world stage, from their president to their parliament to the thousands of people marching in their streets spewing anti-American rhetoric and hate, makes it clear they are not our friends. Given the choice of doing business with our friends or our enemies, we should choose our friends.
I could not help thinking as I watched recent "peace" protests in Paris that the people of France would not have the ability to express their feelings about us so freely if those rights had not been purchased with American blood on the beaches of Normandy and beyond. Their protests would be in German if Americans had not given their lives to liberate France from Hitler. America deserves better from a people we have so strongly supported.
The disdain the French has shown to the United States over the years has been irritating. They have long envied us. They are embarrassed, perhaps, by the fact we had to help them so often in the last century and, once a super-power, they are now simply a step above the Third World countries they once colonized. They are chagrined that their once “language of the world" is now passé.
Our "greatest generation" — the one that liberated France from the Nazis — is quickly dying off. The French who remember what Americans did are dying as well. But what we have seen from the "new" France is not simply lack of historical recall, nor under-appreciation for a faithful ally. It is a palpable anti-American attitude that has taken root and is revealed in both words and action — and not just tolerated by their government but nurtured by it.
The French can disagree with us. They can sit on the sidelines while we and our real allies once again bear the burden of eliminating a horrible evil that threatens them and us. But when they go further, as they have done now, there is no reason for us to continue the cordial and somewhat one-sided business relationship as if nothing has happened.
That is why we should boycott French products and dramatically reduce the flow of American dollars and tourists to France. Maybe a new generation of France will feel a financial absence that can help prepare them for the next time they are directly threatened by evil and need to ask America for help.
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